tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132945732024-03-19T01:35:20.358-04:00Cockeyed CaravanMatt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.comBlogger2059125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-28652550132499034892024-03-18T17:09:00.001-04:002024-03-18T17:09:18.946-04:0037 Days of Shakespeare, Day 15: All’s Well That Ends Well<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ToXaeSXPmszT_Y1Elk60kVWM0xsL8R0_geiZoQHALvl_8J53ufUWF8aDanJx0QH9n3J8KLyKJDR6w3rkJZd7yUB1jCERHYQ18QsJLCptT-xAPseIQQ10m8iroZ9CoExCoUkj7LA0ENGBdKjOb2kyd-MsTTbKFJDmMIfNhZ9UIJB4HSwzIMbT7A/s640/vlcsnap-2024-03-16-21h55m44s308.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ToXaeSXPmszT_Y1Elk60kVWM0xsL8R0_geiZoQHALvl_8J53ufUWF8aDanJx0QH9n3J8KLyKJDR6w3rkJZd7yUB1jCERHYQ18QsJLCptT-xAPseIQQ10m8iroZ9CoExCoUkj7LA0ENGBdKjOb2kyd-MsTTbKFJDmMIfNhZ9UIJB4HSwzIMbT7A/w400-h300/vlcsnap-2024-03-16-21h55m44s308.png" width="400" /></a></div><b>37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 15: All’s Well That Ends Well, first broadcast January 4th, 1981</b></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Possibly written:</b> 1602, possibly his 25th play
</li><li><b>What’s it about? </b>Helena, the ward of a countess, falls in love with the countess’s son Bertram, who despises her. She saves the life of the king and asks only that he order Bertram to marry her, which he does, but Betram flees to fight in a war. She follows and tricks Bertram into impregnating her, at which point he finally begrudgingly says he loves her.
</li><li><b>Most famous dialogue: </b>None. If I had to pick one, I’d say “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”
</li><li><b>Sources:</b> The play is based on the tale of Giletta di Narbona (tale nine of day three) of Boccaccio’s “The Decameron”.
</li><li><b>Best insults:
</b></li><ul><li>That vile rascal, that jack-an-apes with scarfs.
</li><li>A most notable coward, an infinite and hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy of your lordship’s entertainment.
</li><li>A snipt-taffeta fellow there whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour.
</li><li>But the biggest insult seems to be “physician’s daughter”, which apparently at the time was quite a lowly thing to be.
</li></ul><li><b>Best words:</b> adoptious, misprison, moiety, armipotent
</li><li><b>Best production of this play I’ve seen:</b> I saw a fine production at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre that made a brilliant decision I’ll address below.
</li><li><b>Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation:</b> No names or faces I recognized.
</li></ul><b>How’s the cast?
</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Glum. Angela Down as Helena is basically just bummed that Bertrand doesn’t love her, and Ian Charleston as Betrand takes little more joy from his philandering then he does from his forced marriage. Nobody told either that this was supposed to be a comedy. The one time Down perks up is when Peter Jeffrey as Parolles is flirting with her. Marry him, girl! Even with Parolles being totally degraded by the end of the play, he seems a better prospect than Bertrand.
</li></ul><b>How’s the direction by Elijah Moshinsky?
</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Picking up from last episode, Moshinsky continues Miller’s project of recreating the work of famous painters. There’s more Vermeer here and also Rembrandt and Georges de La Tour. The result is one of the most beautiful episodes. But the tone is more problematic than playful. He does get good milage out of the one truly funny scene in the play, the scene where Parolles is kidnapped by his own compatriots speaking pseudo-Italian gibberish.
</li></ul><b>Storyteller’s Rulebook: If Your Characters Refuse to Fall in Love With Each Other, Don’t Force It
</b><br /><br />How do you solve a problem like “All’s Well That Ends Well”? Since the term “problem play” was coined by critic F. S. Boas, there’s been much debate about which plays fall under that definition, but this one is on everybody’s list. The “problem”, of course, is that it’s a romantic comedy that’s not very funny and not at all romantic.
<br /><br />The primary distinction that makes a Shakespeare play a comedy rather than a tragedy is whether or not there’s a happy ending. This play is supposedly a comedy which means the ending is supposedly happy, but does anybody believe that this marriage will be anything other than a horror show? Was any husband dragooned into marriage so unwillingly?
<br /><br />If actors want to play this as a true love match with a happy ending, they get no favors from Shakespeare, who gives the two nothing happy to play together. The only remaining option is to play it downbeat, either playing his forced profession of love as insincere or go so far as the justify it by playing him gay and secretly in love with Parolles (If so, that’s an even more sadistic love than he has with Helena, if such a thing is possible!)
<br /><br />In the uncharitable reading, Shakespeare wanted us to buy his final abrupt-180 declaration of love, and simply fails to convince us. If you’re going to give Shakespeare more credit than that, you have to make it clear something else is going on. The Chicago production I saw had what I thought was a brilliant solution. Helena reveals to Betram that she’s tricked him into impregnating her. He then gets down on one knee and says “I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly” <i>to her belly!</i> He’s not going to love Helena, he’s going to love the baby. Not necessarily a happy ending, but no truly happy ending would be supported by the text. At least this ending is believable and explains his reversal. And marriages, after all, have subsisted on less.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-60043954827699508222024-03-14T10:00:00.007-04:002024-03-14T13:17:13.549-04:0037 Days of Shakespeare, Day 14: The Merchant of Venice<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEZUy_xevtKyioj5Ns1OTZe_PvOSYV6vBN9wKNqW-yfQQRldlBS24I2vjqse-JZ-r88z_Ijhyphenhyphend-CNc0h_LNGWrf6IQYC9tcm_EbdVN70a1s5OAKMXsHWqPkz1F1qbuIKaTrkh78F9FtA6m9fVACpoc905L_D7x2MwZiPWDrSvua0WlIe-6s0QxSw/s640/vlcsnap-2024-03-11-17h21m59s135.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEZUy_xevtKyioj5Ns1OTZe_PvOSYV6vBN9wKNqW-yfQQRldlBS24I2vjqse-JZ-r88z_Ijhyphenhyphend-CNc0h_LNGWrf6IQYC9tcm_EbdVN70a1s5OAKMXsHWqPkz1F1qbuIKaTrkh78F9FtA6m9fVACpoc905L_D7x2MwZiPWDrSvua0WlIe-6s0QxSw/w400-h300/vlcsnap-2024-03-11-17h21m59s135.png" width="400" /></a></div><b>The Merchant of Venice, first broadcast December 17th, 1980</b></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Possibly written</b>: 1596-1598, possibly his 14th play
</li><li><b>What’s it about?</b> Antonio wants to loan money he doesn’t have to his friend Bossanio so that Bossanio can court Portia. Antionio borrows the money from Shylock, promising a pound of flesh if he can’t pay it back. When Shylock comes to collect, Portia dresses up as a man to defend Antonio, and humiliates Shylock in court.
</li><li><b>Most famous dialogue </b>is hard to pick:
</li><ul><li>If you prick us, do we not bleed?
</li><li>All that glisters is not gold
</li><li>The quality of mercy is not strained
</li></ul><li><b>Sources: </b>The primary source was the 14th-century tale <span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;">“</span>Il Pecorone<span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;">”</span> by Giovanni Fiorentino
</li><li><b>Interesting fact about the play: </b>I had always thought of Shylock as the title character, on second watch, it’s clearly Antonio.
</li><li><b>Best insults:
</b></li><ul><li>Such a want-wit sadness makes of me
</li><li>An inhuman wretch uncapable of pity, void and empty from any dram of mercy
</li><li>O, be thou damned, inexecrable dog
</li></ul><li><b>Best words:</b> eanlings, fruitify, slubber
</li><li><b>Best production of this play I’ve seen: </b>I’ve just seen the Pacino movie, which is fine.
</li><li><b>Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: </b>Just John Rhys-Davies in a small role as Salerio
</li></ul><b>How’s the cast? </b><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> This production was widely denounced for its anti-Semitism, as well it should have been, but Miller defended it saying that he, the director and Warren Mitchell, who plays Shylock, were all Jewish. Nevertheless, Mitchell’s Shylock still comes off as a broad caricature. Gemma Jones does a good job as Portia.
</li></ul><b>How’s the direction by Jack Gold?
</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Continues this season’s themes of realistic costumes combined with abstract sets. I’m starting to long for an actual set. Give them objects! Actors act better when they can interact with actual objects on an actual set. The cross-dressing is remarkably well done, even though they don’t add facial hair (as I usually suggest). I sort of believed that Bossanio wouldn’t recognize his new wife.
</li></ul><b>Storyteller’s Rulebook: Don’t Try to Redeem the Unredeemable</b></div><div><b><br /></b>Why on Earth did the BBC do the two most problematic plays back-to-back to launch their third season? Ultimately, unlike <span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;">“</span>The Taming of the Shrew<span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;">”</span>, this play is unredeemable. Yes, Shylock has one great speech demanding we recognize his humanity, but that can’t make up for the rest of the play.</div><div><br />In <span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;">“</span>Taming of the Shrew<span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;">”</span>, there’s really only one character who’s horrible to women, and, if you interpret the text in such a way that he’s slaughtered with a carving knife, which, as I showed last time, you can do by only deleting a few lines of text, then proper morality is restored. In Merchant of Venice excising the evil of anti-Semitism is impossible, because almost every character, all of whom are supposed to be sympathetic, is virulently anti-Semitic. The dispossession, humiliation and forced conversion of Shylock, with its inescapable intimations of the holocaust, is cheered on by almost the entire cast. They all think it’s hilarious. </div><div><br />Ultimately, the problem with both plays is that they’re posited as comedies. Nowadays, seeing misogyny and anti-Semitism as evil, we can choose to stage them as tragedies, and the text will partially support us, but then you have all these comedic scenes in the subplots undercutting that. In Taming, the scene with the rival tutors is genuinely funny. In this play, the exchanging of the rings at the end is quite funny as well. You simply cannot hide that these are supposed to be comedies, and that includes the “hilarious” abuse heaped on Katherine and Shylock. Shakespeare was usually a writer of great humanity, but it failed him in these two plays. You can try to redeem Taming but this one should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
</div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-45482172394514618082024-03-11T10:00:00.003-04:002024-03-11T21:23:10.689-04:0037 Days of Shakespeare, Day 13: The Taming of the Shrew<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE3KJPwXdGKpkQc00tAWwVrFRHskw3VMJDnyL7BMaksZCNYioNal7Aex3-ZPjYaSrHZmy9uS8IqW5_UJWnCKP4z8Z8SAOzJTFDMOhTyBVHkiS5jg0XmYTeCjHefqHe1q1fd35Pj3-CYneuFmjRlhFrAo7N-OGlhT1f8VEunAjgk7X5U0kA1nRJJw/s640/vlcsnap-2024-03-10-18h20m12s848.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE3KJPwXdGKpkQc00tAWwVrFRHskw3VMJDnyL7BMaksZCNYioNal7Aex3-ZPjYaSrHZmy9uS8IqW5_UJWnCKP4z8Z8SAOzJTFDMOhTyBVHkiS5jg0XmYTeCjHefqHe1q1fd35Pj3-CYneuFmjRlhFrAo7N-OGlhT1f8VEunAjgk7X5U0kA1nRJJw/w400-h300/vlcsnap-2024-03-10-18h20m12s848.png" width="400" /></a></div></div><b>The Taming of the Shrew, first broadcast October 23rd, 1980
</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Possibly written</b>: between 1590 and 1592, possibly his 7th play (and the earliest we’ve looked at)
</li><li><b>What’s it about? </b>Everybody wants to marry fair Bianca, but her father won’t let her marry until her independent sister Kate is married, so the suitors recruit Petrucio to “tame the shrew.” He does so, brutally, utterly destroying her sense of self, until she gives a final speech about how women must be subservient to men.
</li><li><b>Most famous dialogue</b>: There is no famous dialogue from this play, thankfully. The closest thing: “This is a way to kill a wife with kindness.”
</li><li><b>Sources</b>: Nobody knows. There was a very similar play called “A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew” right around the same time, but that may be based on this one or this one on that one, or both on a lost original.
</li><li><b>Best insults:
</b></li><ul><li>An irksome brawling scold
</li><li>Rascal fiddler and twangling Jack
</li><li>A whoreson, beetle headed, flap-eared knave
</li><li>You heedless joltheads and unmannered slaves
</li></ul><li><b>Best word: </b>Shakespeare absolutely falls in love with the word “froward,” using it eight times in the play. I had to look it up. Runners up: Plash, Galliases, and bemoiled
</li><li><b>Best production of this play I’ve seen:</b> Before seeing this I had never seen or read this play, other than what I got of it in <i>Kiss Me, Kate</i> and the “Moonlighting” episode. I’ve never even seen <i>10 Things I Hate About You.
</i></li><li><b>Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation</b>: John Cleese! His first time ever doing Shakespeare.
</li></ul><b>How’s the cast? </b><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>What do you do with a play like this? It’s a romantic comedy that isn’t remotely funny or romantic. Cleese and Sarah Bedel as Katherine play it as if it’s both, which doesn’t work at all, but it’s hard to blame them. What else is there to do?
</li></ul><b>How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller? </b></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> We begin the third season of BBC Shakespeare here. Cedric Messina, who ran the first two seasons, is out and Jonathan Miller takes over as producer of seasons 3 and 4, also directing this and several other episodes. Miller was less realistic and more concerned with creating a sense of Shakespeare’s time than the times the plays were attempting to portray. One fun thing he does in this and later plays is recreate scenes from Vermeer. The stylish staging is fine, but the abstract lighting is off-putting and distracts too much from the play. Miller also eliminates the framing sequence, making this one of the few productions with notable cuts, which is unfortunate.
</li></ul><b>Storyteller’s Rulebook: Don’t Ask Us to Laugh at Things That Aren’t Funny
</b><br /><br /></div><div>It is amazing how well most Shakespeare plays have aged. We can’t show my daughter movies from the 1980s, because she’s inevitably horrified by their sexism, but we can easily show her most Shakespeare plays, because she recognizes in them the universal humanity of all the characters. Shakespeare’s women, for the most part, have a richness and multidimensionality that even most modern male authors cannot hope to match in their own work. Amazingly, Shakespeare was even able to write a play about a black man that has stood the test of time very well and that black actors today are proud to play. This was the most timeless author of all time.
<br /><br /></div><div>Then there’s this play, a horrible misogynistic mess.
<br /><br /></div><div>This is the only production I’ve seen and it’s unwatchable. Are any of them watchable? People speak fondly of the Raul Julia / Meryl Streep version, and those are two wonderful actors, but I don’t see how they could save this text.
<br /><br /></div><div>Shakespeare companies are content to now pretend this play doesn’t exist. I spent the whole time watching it wondering if anybody could make it work today.
<br /><br /></div><div>And I think it could: To begin, admit that the Kate/Petruchio storyline is neither funny nor romantic. If you stage it as a deadly serious tale of brutal abuse, it could work. Shakespeare was a good enough writer that he wrote a believable, well-observed tale of a how a man can utterly crush a woman’s spirit, if only he were not asking us to cheer it on. I think that if you staged it today, you’d have to really lean into the abusive aspects. Let it fully horrify us and everyone else in the play who sees it. Then, at the end, when he shows off her obedience to win a bet at a dinner, have her subtly palm a steak knife while she gives her speech about subservience, and triumphantly end the speech by stabbing him dead in front of everyone. Over and over until she’s covered in blood and he’s lifeless on the floor. Then she looks up at the others. What will happen? There is a long pause… Then everybody begins a slow clap. Hortensio says to Petruchio’s corpse, “Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew,” and Lucentio adds, “‘Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.” They leave Kate standing over Petruchio. Curtain down.
<br /><br /></div><div>Is there any point in such a production? Why not just put on one of the better plays? Ultimately, the only reason to do it is if you’ve pledged to stage every play, as the BBC did. If so, you would have to grapple with this one, and I think this would be the only way to make it work.
</div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-5715600690697618122024-03-07T10:00:00.007-05:002024-03-11T16:49:05.684-04:00Best of 2023, #1: Barbie and #2: Poor Things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkxFmWtmtUnRKBP_yCrTO_7tWUv5JrYMkJRJZhF4hyphenhyphenD5xYS7y5fMluAY-3uiZDOMiArxJ_jWhIQF7vc8o_TxW0FYOebMhsMkf_EtE-68bco6Kw97cADYD4AhjvXChQJ2l11-umd2SsWu19Hq79oJ0RkhKppl3XszWbqlnunaOOKv8H8o1KUeBlw/s620/poor-things-barbie.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="620" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkxFmWtmtUnRKBP_yCrTO_7tWUv5JrYMkJRJZhF4hyphenhyphenD5xYS7y5fMluAY-3uiZDOMiArxJ_jWhIQF7vc8o_TxW0FYOebMhsMkf_EtE-68bco6Kw97cADYD4AhjvXChQJ2l11-umd2SsWu19Hq79oJ0RkhKppl3XszWbqlnunaOOKv8H8o1KUeBlw/w400-h233/poor-things-barbie.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div>It will always go down in Oscar history as two of the great slights: Margot Robbie not getting an Actress nom, and Greta not getting an Director nom. Who did it? Who pulled off the heist of the century? Look no farther than <i>Poor Things</i>. Barbie made the mistake of coming out too far away from award season. That left time for interlopers to come along and steal its fire. <i>Barbie</i> (co-written and directed by a woman) is a profound meditation on the subject of corporatized utopian feminism and its discontents. And it did it all while being a four quadrant movie: My family (M48, F45, F12, M9) all laughed, loved, and cried when faced with the shockingly deep pit of ennui churning beneath the plastic sand.</div><br />…but wait, here comes another brilliant film, released several months later, exploring a similar story of a manufactured woman taking on a life for herself. This new one, however, has no women creators, and that’s clear in every frame. Male gaze feminism is here to help, provided the nudity is copious and everything is kept decidedly sex-positive.
<br /><br />Now let me make it clear: I love <i>Poor Things</i>. In its own more-muted way, it matches <i>Barbie</i>’s deranged surrealism, set in a world that seems to combine the 19th and 22nd centuries. Emma Stone gives a very powerful performance, as do Willem Defoe (robbed of a nom) and Mark Ruffalo. I was rivetted to the screen the entire time, wondering where on earth this bizarre story was going. It’s a gruesome movie, a misanthropic movie in many ways, and ultimately a problematic movie (I think it’s not saying entirely what it thinks it’s saying) but it’s ultimately very watchable and compelling.
<br /><br />In the end, however, I preferred <i>Barbie</i>, which is my favorite movie of the year. This is a movie that has no right to be any good. It’s offensive that anyone would even want to make a movie out of this shoddy plastic material. But the result is astounding and devastating. I grappled with the thoughts and feelings this movie stirred in me for weeks. And it’s got the Indigo Girls! Three times!
<br /><br />It was an excellent year for movies. Marvel stalled out and better movies dominated the box office, which was a delightful change of pace. It’s been a long time since the most popular movie of the year was my favorite movie of the year, and it’s great to see great taste prevailing. In other years, it’s possible that <i>Poor Things</i> would have been the best movie available, but this year I’m glad we got something even better.
<br /><br />More thoughts:
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>So why was <i>Barbie</i> the highest grossing movie of the year? Not just because it was the best, that’s for sure. It undoubtedly helped that this was one of the only major Hollywood releases this year to be under two hours. I think Hollywood is underestimating the number of people who are checking the runtimes on <i>Mission: Impossible</i> and <i>Indiana Jones</i> movies and noping out because they’re over two and a half hours.
</li><li>I’m currently writing a semi-autobiographical novel about a high-school socialist and wondering to what degree audiences will find that off-putting. Based off <i>Poor Things</i> and <i>Oppenheimer</i>, I think modern audiences still like (or like more than ever) heroes who embrace or dabble with socialism, and it’s not a big likability hurdle for me to overcome.
</li></ul>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-69253142546067916052024-03-06T10:00:00.018-05:002024-03-06T10:00:00.239-05:00Best of 2023, #3: The Holdovers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNluJ_6DJeX0T6ae15wmuH1MJtqls3yYRQF7_ZRaPG6tpt2G_cRgP6JoZVcLXMU4ojriNtMU2Yo39rpZ7DFH9AbKbkWM93GuIpLlTZxWmUTWI6YFXQ4wwWJ34xVdrljpY6NU0AiFrhvYisSng358KdkEmK6cd6d7b6jWQpsEXcydZngtiM0yeTEA/s1024/1405800_theholdovers_727859.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="1024" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNluJ_6DJeX0T6ae15wmuH1MJtqls3yYRQF7_ZRaPG6tpt2G_cRgP6JoZVcLXMU4ojriNtMU2Yo39rpZ7DFH9AbKbkWM93GuIpLlTZxWmUTWI6YFXQ4wwWJ34xVdrljpY6NU0AiFrhvYisSng358KdkEmK6cd6d7b6jWQpsEXcydZngtiM0yeTEA/w400-h210/1405800_theholdovers_727859.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>Is this the most convincing period piece ever made? This feels like a movie that’s been sitting in the can sealed up since 1971, and is only now getting a belated release. It felt like Hal Ashby made this in between <i>Harold and Maude</i> and <i>The Last Detail</i>, and that’s pretty high praise, coming from me.</div><br />The number one rule of writing is that you can write about any type of character except one: Self-pitying losers. That’s the one type of hero audiences will supposedly never root for. Well, no one ever told Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti. Just as with <i>Sideways</i>, they’ve created another wretched failure we cannot help but love. (Both are high school teachers, both have had to give up on dreams of getting published, both drink high end hooch straight out of the bottle.) In this one, Giamatti’s character literally stinks! He gives off a fishy smell. How abject is that?
<br /><br />So how do they do it? James Kennedy thought <i>Sideways</i> got away with it by having Giamatti ditch his job for a while and live out a fantasy trip (on stolen money) instead. Giamatti also ditches his job for an unauthorized road trip with a different type of manchild, although in this case he’s doing it in a more self-sacrificing way.
<br /><br />One thing the two characters have in common is expertise and dedication to their fields of study. We like stubborn characters. In this movie, when Giamatti gives his surly student a copy of Marcus Aurelius’s “Mediations” for Christmas, it feels pushy, but then when he gives the same book to the cafeteria worker, it seems downright willful.<br /><br />Of course, in this one, Payne has his thumb on the scale a bit more heavily, because the movie ends on Giamatti making a heroic sacrifice, putting us more definitively on his side than we ever were in <i>Sideways</i>. Maybe that means that Giamatti will finally earn his Oscar this time. Last time he wasn’t even nominated!
<br /><br />Ultimately this movie isn’t quite as good as <i>Sideways</i>, but it would be a worthy winner in all categories, if only to make up for last time.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-31973562864800577402024-03-05T10:00:00.002-05:002024-03-05T10:00:00.235-05:00Best of 2023, #4: Killers of the Flower Moon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgskRAnwlG6Sbsbs9xVt5jLALZyHYdcWgb8KKzniILFILrvFDe16oUgHGJIq2qsAtdIaXFLq7Tvn_EtQSOyPvx349YfUDW3F1izl7rtESPyrZl4sxDeK38x1lMksxlZZW2Dkjdet3U3jz2N2jAN7LGRuE3gKDU0PeIjGKk3ynAdxpYt0mZyMyOjA/s2000/627-killersoftheflowermoon-feature-s14631f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgskRAnwlG6Sbsbs9xVt5jLALZyHYdcWgb8KKzniILFILrvFDe16oUgHGJIq2qsAtdIaXFLq7Tvn_EtQSOyPvx349YfUDW3F1izl7rtESPyrZl4sxDeK38x1lMksxlZZW2Dkjdet3U3jz2N2jAN7LGRuE3gKDU0PeIjGKk3ynAdxpYt0mZyMyOjA/w400-h266/627-killersoftheflowermoon-feature-s14631f.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>It is almost inconceivable how much better this movie is than <i>The Irishman</i>. After that movie, I was convinced that Martin Scorsese was a pitiful shell of his former self, now devoid of all filmmaking talent. That movie was three hours of wall-to-wall voiceover, terrible CGI and egregious miscasting.</div><br />I had little hope that he had regained any talent when I heard the even-more-elephantine runtime of this movie. 206 minutes! I refused to watch it in the theater simply because my bladder isn’t that big. If he had allowed an intermission, which the film desperately needed, I would have gone.
<br /><br />When I finally streamed the movie at home, I was stunned by how good this is. The runtime just flies by. In fact, it flies by a little <i>too</i> quickly. Ultimately, I feel that this should have been a six-hour miniseries, not a three-and-half hour movie, since the FBI portion of the movie feels a little sped up. Every time we check in on the investigation, it’s jumped forward several steps without us. The way that Scorsese does it here <i>does</i> work, but it also could have worked if it played out slower in an alternate six-hour version. (Partly, I just wanted to see more of the investigation because Jesse Plemons is a national treasure.)
<br /><br />Given how beautiful the cinematography is in the film, I wish an intermission had allowed me to see it in the theater. It’s gorgeous. Amazingly, it’s the same cinematographer as <i>Barbie</i>, when the look could not be more polar opposite! And the music by the late Robbie Robertson is astounding. I would watch one of those DVD tracks where they just play the score without any other audio.
<br /><br />Scorsese’s cameo at the end sure made this feel like his farewell to the screen, and it would be a great high note to go out on. <i>The Irishman</i> was a self-parody of all of his worst habits turned up to 11. This movie feels more like a greatest hits. He’s made so many Great American Crime Pictures, and it all built up to a movie about the original American crime, the stealing of land from Native Americans. All other crimes flowed from that one.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-17726408640304007162024-03-04T10:00:00.004-05:002024-03-04T17:48:40.131-05:00Best of 2023, #5: Oppenheimer<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7ZVlq4MY9I6-w1SP1mgnL2OXDtQuZig_Pf6xUMWOsv84h6c_insENU5jku_bRsliAjo1vue9yuAsxfhK-GIzcF0eONmtPTZ1ngSZ9AE2sSh7XuQW1cF1F6msQk7vxPhBKOWaycukhtL9GZtb6bBeDX6FfV8eNL2RV2nQ8I5iZWRjkmhvzz3OSA/s2560/GF-imax_r35_01_v01_dpk_8k_bt1886_20230417R-copy.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7ZVlq4MY9I6-w1SP1mgnL2OXDtQuZig_Pf6xUMWOsv84h6c_insENU5jku_bRsliAjo1vue9yuAsxfhK-GIzcF0eONmtPTZ1ngSZ9AE2sSh7XuQW1cF1F6msQk7vxPhBKOWaycukhtL9GZtb6bBeDX6FfV8eNL2RV2nQ8I5iZWRjkmhvzz3OSA/s400/GF-imax_r35_01_v01_dpk_8k_bt1886_20230417R-copy.webp" width="400" /></a></div>
I don’t usually enjoy Christopher Nolan’s movies and I had little reason to think I’d like this one any better. Everything I knew going in was unfavorable. I knew it was super-long, I knew it was a big non-linear bowl of spaghetti, and I knew I had issues with the casting.
<br /><br />But it turned out to be great. At times, as with the next movie we’ll be looking at, it felt like a six-hour movie cut down to three hours, so it felt like we were whizzing through the material in a sprightly way. Amazingly, I was able to keep all the storylines clear even with all the jumping around (It helped, of course that I already knew the story. I recommend also checking out <i>Fat Man and Little Boy</i> for a different perspective on this story.)
<br /><br />One of the reasons I tend to find Nolan’s movies unwatchable is because most of them have oppressive scores by Hans Zimmer, which pound the performances into oblivion. For this movie, Nolan went instead with Ludwig Göransson, who scored the Black Panther films, and the result is a thousand times better. I can actually hear the actors!
<br /><br />I do keep wondering if, with all the newfound focus on casting people true to their identity, if Hollywood will ever get to the point where they feel compelled to cast Jewish people as Jewish people. Certainly not the case with this or <i>Maestro</i>. One of my best movie-watching experiences this year was showing my kids <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i>, and authentic casting helped that movie a lot. Glad they didn’t cast Troy Donahue as Tevye.
<br /><br />If you listen to the “Secrets of Story Podcast”, you’ll know I wrote a pre-<i>Imitation Game</i> biopic of Alan Turing called “The Man Who Won the War”. That could also be the title of this movie and this movie has <i>many</i> similarities to my script. When I wrote and pitched that movie in 2005, and people asked me who I would cast, I always suggested a then-unknown actor named Cillian Murphy. Watching this movie, I kept thinking of what could have been.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-59929096382477100152024-03-01T10:00:00.002-05:002024-03-01T10:00:00.241-05:00Best of 2023, #6: Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinsUqcaP1oix3CrmRnpIdsz8zM6sAXCfaPe9-UN3SOEzaZpquQKqxTbngd5IUUQSofSY_aOQHHSebn7hhlsn8oplvcGQOrdPsGTRy8Cnif7MuPZ-NWkhiaU1MPaDMjPgFaPdY3FUPXJaPHhHn7ow5sVnqLL90DNkyM804ZLapGX8LJSD95J6maQQ/s2400/Mission-Impossible-Dead-Reckoning-1-Culture-mi7-ff-262rc3-1.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="2400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinsUqcaP1oix3CrmRnpIdsz8zM6sAXCfaPe9-UN3SOEzaZpquQKqxTbngd5IUUQSofSY_aOQHHSebn7hhlsn8oplvcGQOrdPsGTRy8Cnif7MuPZ-NWkhiaU1MPaDMjPgFaPdY3FUPXJaPHhHn7ow5sVnqLL90DNkyM804ZLapGX8LJSD95J6maQQ/s400/Mission-Impossible-Dead-Reckoning-1-Culture-mi7-ff-262rc3-1.webp" width="400" /></a></div>
Yes, it’s too long, especially considering it’s only “Part One”, but this is a tremendously fun movie. Certainly, this movie ends much more satisfactorily than this year’s Spider-Verse movie. That movie just abruptly halts in the middle of everything, but this movie comes to a very satisfying climax. The promise that there will be more to come feels like a reward, not a threat.
<br /><br />This was the only movie this year I was in a hurry to watch again. I asked for the Blu-Ray for Christmas and then happily hopped on the elliptical runner to exercise to it over the course of five great work-outs. That was so much fun, I then did five more workouts while watching the <i>director’s commentary! </i> A movie has to be pretty thrilling to get a good workout out of the commentary.
<br /><br />Fans of the “Marvel Reread Club” podcast know how much I love to see fighting on top of trains, and this movie has one of the greatest train fights of all time, all the more thrilling knowing that Tom Cruise keeps it real. The movie is too long, but I couldn’t complain when the climax founds ways to keep topping and topping and topping itself. I’ve talked before about how modern action movies sometimes leave you “exhausted, not exhilarated”, but this movie, which is ten pounds of fun in a five pound bag, manages to do both.
<br /><br />I’m so happy there’s another one coming, though it was pushed back a year by the strikes. Unfortunately, this movie, crushed by Barbenheimer, was a commercial disappointment, but I hope they don’t change anything in response. It’s my understanding that it was mostly in the can, and it would be disastrous to start second-guessing themselves now.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-18118886460283416162024-02-29T10:00:00.006-05:002024-02-29T15:31:19.761-05:00Best of 2023, #7: Dumb Money<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6mDRRuqUPRmWaZykFTPypdzJAcl9xlGF5SUuXMTEGSLDiNnNF48dQM_eDUnJ_9NjNuK2lHv7QvWy7_wjMsqZwWOHNjDtkzu0xb3MzzBmUvYIdvnmdFRvUYAd1KNeXigFyYEf9uDpDIECSXJel26g0r0lSC3gepTCaRqcNHi5ZJVYpgECvvgkdQ/s960/image-11.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6mDRRuqUPRmWaZykFTPypdzJAcl9xlGF5SUuXMTEGSLDiNnNF48dQM_eDUnJ_9NjNuK2lHv7QvWy7_wjMsqZwWOHNjDtkzu0xb3MzzBmUvYIdvnmdFRvUYAd1KNeXigFyYEf9uDpDIECSXJel26g0r0lSC3gepTCaRqcNHi5ZJVYpgECvvgkdQ/s400/image-11.png" width="400" /></a></div>
I loved Michael Lewis’s book “The Big Short” and I loved Adam McCay’s movie of it even more. I had it as my favorite movie of that year. But I had to keep reminding myself: shorters are assholes, and we shouldn’t be celebrating these guys.
<br /><br />In fact, between the Big Short book coming out and the movie coming out, I wrote a screenplay-for-hire where the villain had elements of the main characters in the book. I then was surprised when they turned the book into a movie and somehow convincingly portrayed the shorters as heroes. The movie worked wonderfully well: I kept forgetting how much I would hate these guys in real life.
<br /><br />But it was great to see this movie about the actual underdogs of the stock market, the “dumb money”, mounting a coup and pulling off the ultimate dream: squeezing the shorters. This was the feel-good movie of the year. We root for these scrappy investors, cheer when they pull off their squeeze, howl with indignation when the system screws them over and then breathe a big sigh of relief when they still pull off a bit of a win.
<br /><br />Everybody in <i>The Big Short</i> ended up a billionaire at the end of the movie, profiting off of America’s misery. Nobody in this movie makes out like that, but some of them do okay.
<br /><br />Ultimately, the movie comes down to a fascinating dilemma: the squeezers find that their portfolios have shot up as a result of the squeeze, but they don’t want to sell because they want to make a point, even if they lose everything. Ultimately some sell, but some, like America Ferrara’s character, decide to die on their hill. We, as viewers, can’t decide which they should do. That’s a great dilemma I’ve never seen on screen before. Ferrara got deservedly nominated for Barbie but she was also great in this.
<br /><br />It’s interesting that this movie came out the same year as Lewis’s <i>new</i> book, “Going Infinite”. In this case, the public turned on Lewis for the first time for being overly-admiring of his “maverick” subject. Everybody read the new one and simply pitied Lewis for getting duped by Sam Bankman-Fried. Lewis insisted on seeing SBF as another one of his patented rule-breaking geniuses, whereas everybody else, even if they <i>just</i> read Lewis’s book, could see he was merely a petty crook.
<br /><br />It got so bad that Lewis was featured on the great podcast “Behind the Bastards”. Robert Evans skewered Lewis quite effectively. He points out that Lewis loves it when SBF does Zoom meetings while playing video games, as if that’s a sign of his genius, but Evans points out that everybody in Gen Z does that, and Lewis just didn’t know any young people.
<br /><br />So this movie was the perfect movie for “the year that everybody turned on Michael Lewis.” <i>The Big Short</i> is great, but everybody who sees it should be forced to watch this right after.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-78418939679694308842024-02-28T10:00:00.008-05:002024-02-28T10:00:00.134-05:00Best of 2023, #8: Asteroid City<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIk6P2xyUq5Ee9ihAgfo6VWsQNtOyadt5xzOkjTo7Vy2svMDQP08qmR0nZN2pQnf231qxIEdEH7I87LkN6i5O-Kq6HMjBJqufsmgcDLPkH9HaRbaJLDCkWprUshHf74nfRbLOcoBCGsOu5igJ5gnUljGud7MuRYh_uMKQiCIUlJbxmT77X-DzV2A/s1200/interviews_mayahawkerupertfriend.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIk6P2xyUq5Ee9ihAgfo6VWsQNtOyadt5xzOkjTo7Vy2svMDQP08qmR0nZN2pQnf231qxIEdEH7I87LkN6i5O-Kq6HMjBJqufsmgcDLPkH9HaRbaJLDCkWprUshHf74nfRbLOcoBCGsOu5igJ5gnUljGud7MuRYh_uMKQiCIUlJbxmT77X-DzV2A/s400/interviews_mayahawkerupertfriend.webp" width="400" /></a></div>
My affection for this movie (which I haven’t seen on any other year end lists) was increased by how I saw it. I was vacationing for a week in Stratford, Ontario with my family and my wife’s parents. On a night when the kids were with their grandparents, Betsy and I came across a storefront that billed itself as North America’s smallest movie theater and they were showing this movie. We couldn’t resist. We bought our refreshments, and were shepherded into a 12-seat movie house. There was a curtain that parted to reveal the screen, but it was still slightly blocking the edges of the screen. Normally, that would have been annoying, but it was perfect for a Wes Anderson movie. It was a very pleasant evening.
<br /><br />I think Anderson’s most underrated quality as a director is his work with actors. Some find the performances in his movies mannered, but I think that the actors actually do spectacular work, all while staying within a certain deadpan tone. I feel for his characters, even when the characters are reluctant to feel things on the surface themselves. There’s a reason he attracts such stellar casts. This movie stars, among others, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie and Jeff Goldblum, and they’re all very entertaining. You don’t attract that level of talent if you don’t know what you’re doing.
<br /><br />One of my favorite working actors is Maya Hawke (who’s also great in <i>Maestro</i>). She’s so tremendously appealing in this movie. I wish Hollywood would do more with her.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-51137717599232184422024-02-27T10:10:00.001-05:002024-02-27T10:10:02.810-05:00Best of 2023, #9: American Fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt1ZeEh_ilmdCjiQgFqr-MR3QfsiWYEIThYnL5e_TKT7yg_wf-gV07Zue1VR0dz8qWCQrbH5VJ92P5lM_CgGEj_b0xpth4qTdzPurKmgYCXYySbYSIuwvYrfSQcOAHSh4kzd8jxea1et0HiY_FQoS8f8rL6rDi4WRKuSxcPgCCAZ65de4aQEKAEQ/s1200/ca-times.brightspotcdn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt1ZeEh_ilmdCjiQgFqr-MR3QfsiWYEIThYnL5e_TKT7yg_wf-gV07Zue1VR0dz8qWCQrbH5VJ92P5lM_CgGEj_b0xpth4qTdzPurKmgYCXYySbYSIuwvYrfSQcOAHSh4kzd8jxea1et0HiY_FQoS8f8rL6rDi4WRKuSxcPgCCAZ65de4aQEKAEQ/w400-h210/ca-times.brightspotcdn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>This is definitely the sort of movie where giving it a Best Picture nomination does it no favors. It’s a sly, funny dramedy, but a modest one. It’s nice for Jeffrey Wright to finally get a nomination, but it would be odd if he won for this, and the same with Sterling K. Brown. They’re great actors who will hopefully eventually win for meatier roles.</div><br />The movie kept reminding me of the worst-titled movie of all time, <i>The 40 Year Old Version</i>. I liked that movie slightly better, but they’re both good. Both have a similar skewering of white gatekeepers hungry for stories of black suffering, while making life miserable for black authors looking to tell more complex stories. I wish that movie had had some of this movie’s acclaim.
<br /><br />It was amusing watching this movie with my wife, who has actually served on literary award committees and kept blowing her top, saying “That’s not how awards committees work!” I think everybody says that when they unexpectedly see their profession onscreen.
<br /><br />The whole movie essentially builds to one very deadpan, very funny joke, when the two black authors don’t want to give the award to the parody-of-black-misery novel, but the three white authors on the committee outvote them, and justify it by saying, “We really need to listen to black voices right now.” A great example of a joke that’s entirely serious for everyone onscreen.
<br /><br />The movie ends in a meta way by acknowledging the tension between how it <i>should</i> end and how it <i>would</i> end. Every writer grapples with this. In real life, people avoid conflict, and things rarely climax satisfactorily. When we force things to climax, we know that we’re bending out characters out of shape. This movie cleverly has it all, giving us the good (which is to say, realistic) ending, the better (more dramatic) ending and the best (tragic) ending, then lets us choose, knowing that our choice might implicate us as being no better than the gatekeepers the film pillories.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-18243178004568326232024-02-25T22:46:00.000-05:002024-02-25T22:46:42.012-05:00Best of 2023, #10: Maestro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjQNW00dzmB3CY8rWzoZThm_vvHZKA5FMbWW7FYynCGF5J_w9FiBLIDdXmK1Xs28TicWsNuUHUogWSnTVRQsQGPvciMYSPb_XjHMXC0V7W5blh8Q-lHJOE2L-GEPQeyOr3_kuQy2LvW_86VopSCkRgHN9eMxbAqKHKbhZ0oGL1Y4HXYx8ts-rSQ/s500/MV5BOTg1YjU4ZjQtYzZjMi00M2RhLWI0YmQtZDIyNzAwMzRlY2JkXkEyXkFqcGdeQVRoaXJkUGFydHlJbmdlc3Rpb25Xb3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjQNW00dzmB3CY8rWzoZThm_vvHZKA5FMbWW7FYynCGF5J_w9FiBLIDdXmK1Xs28TicWsNuUHUogWSnTVRQsQGPvciMYSPb_XjHMXC0V7W5blh8Q-lHJOE2L-GEPQeyOr3_kuQy2LvW_86VopSCkRgHN9eMxbAqKHKbhZ0oGL1Y4HXYx8ts-rSQ/w400-h225/MV5BOTg1YjU4ZjQtYzZjMi00M2RhLWI0YmQtZDIyNzAwMzRlY2JkXkEyXkFqcGdeQVRoaXJkUGFydHlJbmdlc3Rpb25Xb3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>Some thoughts:</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I thought I was going to dislike this movie because of the make-up, which looked terrible in ads, but in the actual movie, it was fine and I forgot all about it.
</li><li>But I kept asking “Why the 4:3 aspect ratio?” What did it mean? What was Cooper trying to say with the black bars on the sides of the screen? I can’t imagine. I have no problem watching old movies and TV with the black bars, but I can’t figure out why any modern movie would do it. </li><li>At times, this movie was quite beautiful, but there were other times I was frustrated that the camera wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Again, as with the aspect ratio, I found myself taken out of it.
</li><li>I kept comparing the movie to <i>Tar</i>, which ultimately was a better movie. Conducting is a fairly silly-looking job, especially for a viewer like me who isn’t into classical music, but Blanchett did a better job selling me on its not-silliness than Cooper did.
</li><li>Ultimately, there’s not as much drama as there could be, but I’m not sure if that’s a problem. According to the movie, Leonard Bernstein had various problems in his life and marriage, but ultimately was a pretty happy, successful guy who managed to basically get away with having it all. It’s to Cooper’s credit that he doesn’t fall into “tortured homosexual” cliches, and captures a certain joie de vivre in Bernstein’s voice in every phase of his life. Cooper’s Bernstein is a happy family man who also sleeps with men, not because of some dark compulsion but simply because it’s fun. If he was more tortured, maybe he would actually win the Oscar, but it’s probably to his credit that he won’t.
</li><li>Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife gets more drama than he does, as she eventually dies of cancer. She’s excellent, and there’s more of a case to be made that she should win, but it’s probably not her year either.
</li></ul>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-12511719167454742082024-02-22T15:10:00.002-05:002024-02-25T22:39:05.463-05:00Not on the List: Spider-Man: Preposition the Spider-Verse Part 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and Nimona<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWBOJXDCU5IszvDebvFAbL8KDdoKs7dSRZzt6tjF8bjjjDwcEUYqghHkUTn1spRtXMacuY6lWJmr_OhrdiQ3LuCPWMJdA-6P_CpKOO_mCciKvud-XaiRRfclLVsj0dCtH5JZ_-jyIzSO7DjMvQ0GCkWrpG6f3U5ki6m0q3VcWy217B17J264sxQ/s1200/beyond-the-spider-verse-ewk-header.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWBOJXDCU5IszvDebvFAbL8KDdoKs7dSRZzt6tjF8bjjjDwcEUYqghHkUTn1spRtXMacuY6lWJmr_OhrdiQ3LuCPWMJdA-6P_CpKOO_mCciKvud-XaiRRfclLVsj0dCtH5JZ_-jyIzSO7DjMvQ0GCkWrpG6f3U5ki6m0q3VcWy217B17J264sxQ/w400-h200/beyond-the-spider-verse-ewk-header.webp" width="400" /></a></div>Continuing our look at the movies that didn’t make the “Best of 2023” list:
<br /><br /><b>Spider-Man: Preposition the Spider-Verse Part 2 </b>(That’s the only way I can tell this trilogy apart. I always forget the actual prepositions)<div><br />This was better than the first one, and retconned away one of the things I liked the least about that one (by retroactively explaining where Miles’s spider came from), but I still disliked this movie. We watched it in the theater when my daughter was away at summer camp, thinking she wouldn’t want to see it, but when she was home and it was streaming she asked to watch it for family movie time. I <i>never</i> beg out of family movie time, no matter how disinterested I am in the movie, but this time I left the room. I just couldn’t sit through this movie again.</div><div><br />As I watched it the first time, knowing that the movie was only part 1, I knew it could just end at any time, and indeed I wanted it to end many times. The first place I thought, “Is it going to end here?” is when they went to India. Only later did I realize that that was only about an hour in to an interminable almost-3 hour movie. Later in the list, we’ll be looking at another part 1 that was also too long, but was a thousand times better than this movie.</div><div><br />And more importantly, I still hated the visuals, which I thought were just as headache-inducing as the first movie. That brings me to another movie that didn’t make the list…
<br /><br /><b>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
</b><br /><br />This was a similar situation. My wife took my son to this movie, and loved it, so when it came out on streaming, she insisted we all watch it for family movie time. I can’t see why. The whole time, I was thinking, “Isn’t this just a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie?” It had big names involved, but I didn’t feel that they rose above the source material.
<br /><br />Most importantly, I just really dislike the current animation style. I liked Mitchells vs. the Machines with its mix of 3-D and 2-D, but I dislike all the movies that have tried to recreate that magic.
<br /><br />That brings us to <b>Nimona</b>, a very well written movie which <i>almost</i> made the list, but again, I wasn’t crazy about the animation style. I think that in future years, people will look back on animated movies made around this time and they’ll be so dated.
<br /><br />Okay, enough of the movies that <i>didn’t</i> make the list. Next week, let’s start in on the top ten.
</div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-27481247791041995062024-02-21T09:24:00.003-05:002024-02-21T09:24:41.670-05:00Best of 2023: Not on the list: Ant Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and The Marvels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2pJhMygskPo2mpzsl-yKQ1HZyzVal6WCoBLbN73KOXDm1Gi77cZGPNTIKccR3fkLNE00Hr8del2IaOqAeMiSzQ609hgwlbW3qQYx4UBS-ANjQoILMrpZ3EfMxvhdKw6yRDwF63l2w97dFT5JGLxkuAxJG_S98A2MI5mYdglI4AU8zSBCdU5bgeg/s1200/projected-box-office-standing-of-the-marvels-in-comparison-to-other-phase-5-mcu-films-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2pJhMygskPo2mpzsl-yKQ1HZyzVal6WCoBLbN73KOXDm1Gi77cZGPNTIKccR3fkLNE00Hr8del2IaOqAeMiSzQ609hgwlbW3qQYx4UBS-ANjQoILMrpZ3EfMxvhdKw6yRDwF63l2w97dFT5JGLxkuAxJG_S98A2MI5mYdglI4AU8zSBCdU5bgeg/w400-h210/projected-box-office-standing-of-the-marvels-in-comparison-to-other-phase-5-mcu-films-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>None of these movies were terrible. My whole family saw <i>Ant-Man 3 </i>and <i>The Marvels</i> in the theater and we all enjoyed them. The worst knock against <i>Ant-Man 3 </i>was the CGI on Modok’s face, which was terrible. <i>The Marvels</i> had an exceedingly unmemorable villain, but was a lot of fun in its admirably-brief runtime.
<br /><br />I think that <i>The Marvels</i> wouldn’t have been the megaflop it was if they had just, once the movie was in the can, changed its name to <i>Captain Marvel 2. </i> Lots of Marvel movies have guest-stars that take up a lot of screentime, so it wouldn’t have been weird for Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau to have such big roles. The movie flopped because so many people didn’t watch (or didn’t finish) the Ms. Marvel series on Disney + (which was moderately entertaining) and felt that they wouldn’t be prepared to see a movie in which she co-starred. (And bizarrely, the marketing seemed to imply that the Marvels name applied to Monica Rambeau as well, who in the comics had the “Captain Marvel” role for a while, but never has had a “Marvel” name in the MCU.) The first <i>Captain Marvel</i> made a billion dollars and if they had just said, “that’s the only thing you need to have seen, come on out for <i>Captain Marvel 2!</i>” it would have at least made its money back.
<br /><br />My least favorite of the three was the one that was best received by the general public, <i>Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. </i> I intended to take my family to this one, but we were too busy the first weekend, and then I kept hearing that it was inappropriate for children. I tested out seeing it without them and I agreed. All of the gruesome animal experimentation was totally inappropriate for families. What on earth is Marvel thinking? The movie was pretty good for adults, but I’m glad I didn’t take my family, which made it a big disappointment.
<br /><br />So a mediocre year for Marvel. Time to right the ship. Due to the strikes, they’re mostly taking the next year off, so let’s see how they’re doing when they return.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-59995206574291154902024-02-19T23:37:00.001-05:002024-02-22T23:08:29.483-05:00Introduction to Best of 2023, and Not on the List: John Wick 4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaqyq2P1kXUQ2F8tZU93jXhfKxJF491-uML-x3rndu3Zqx66fb0FC1plftnw21ckVyWtkveQMmfLhoKOjvSL5eSyw_1nsKN83ku6pM-A2-vGOkJks62jAxUIsMhMPbLQK30sKNxhO9lAVJ7FipoW29mmSurnF6T6lhchfv4DrHzB9UHxSynVogw/s1920/JohnWick4_Janelle_Jonathan_ITW_12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="1920" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaqyq2P1kXUQ2F8tZU93jXhfKxJF491-uML-x3rndu3Zqx66fb0FC1plftnw21ckVyWtkveQMmfLhoKOjvSL5eSyw_1nsKN83ku6pM-A2-vGOkJks62jAxUIsMhMPbLQK30sKNxhO9lAVJ7FipoW29mmSurnF6T6lhchfv4DrHzB9UHxSynVogw/w400-h234/JohnWick4_Janelle_Jonathan_ITW_12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>Welcome to the Best (Hollywood) Movies of 2023 List! Sometimes, I’ve included world cinema on this list, but this year I decided to stick to Hollywood, which means that the wonderful <i>Anatomy of a Fall</i> did not make the list. As always, I’ll start with the movies I wish I’d seen: <i>Past Lives, Zone of Interest, Wonka, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, No Hard Feelings, Wish, Elementals</i>, and <i>The Boy and the Heron</i>. So don’t expect to see those either.</div><br />I will now begin with a few days of movies that I <i>did</i> see but didn’t make the list, and, as always, try to glean some writing advice from them:
<br /><br /><b>Not on the List: <i>John Wick Chapter 4
</i></b><br /><br />One movie I greatly enjoyed this year and almost made the list was <i>John Wick Chapter 4.</i> Ultimately it didn’t because, like so many movies this year, including some that made the list, it was too ridiculously long.
<br /><br />I’ve been saying throughout the year that I should move to Hollywood and get a job as the “Cut 20 Minutes Out Guy”. I could get rich, just taking the finished edits and cutting 20 minutes out just before release. (I would also have loved to take my scissors to <i>Indiana Jones 5,</i> another movie that didn’t make the list.)
<br /><br />But there was another problem as well, which speaks to one of the pitfalls of relying on irony.
<br /><br /><b>Major spoilers</b> for the movie! Stop reading here if you haven’t seen this fun movie yet.
<br /><br />So this movie, and this series, ends when John Wick is shot and killed in a duel with a blind assassin.
<br /><br />But here’s the problem: If the whole series comes down to a gun duel with a blind man, there’s only one way it can end. If our hero easily shoots and kills a blind man, that’s lame and anti-climactic. We’d say “Of course he beat the blind man in a duel!” The only way the story works is if the blind man kills <i>him</i>. But it’s not good to have a story that only works one way. Irony is great but it shouldn’t be the only non-lame option.
<br /><br />(And can we talk about how weird it was that this movie lifted characters wholesale from two other movies? Didn’t Donny Yen already play a blind assassin in <i>Rogue One</i>? I kept thinking, “They wouldn’t hire the same actor to play the same character? Am I just racist and I can’t tell Asian actors apart?” Nope, it was the same actor playing the same character. And the radio DJ is lifted straight from <i>The Warriors</i>! I guess these were homages? Some borrowing is too wholesale to count as homage.)
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-1613428300352758092024-01-30T09:55:00.003-05:002024-01-30T09:57:44.760-05:00Tune in Thursday at 7 Central for Table Talk!<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr6REwNwKHnSFCTYkPBjIBUivWtx_nn60l-EHk4VUJD-yvSqLF9X1iq0MAqYo_whhFZQvD7jaIJlr5YRP-ad70CZVyaVD2y2VzkuGinIN1d6Q9Tzf7tvrHqsLF-HNV3POLFIKZBWgNt51HJeCo95d13C5iBq8thFkL2z5KNi16qkWUN3yQ6xDN6w/s2368/Screenshot%202024-01-30%20at%208.54.32%20AM.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1346" data-original-width="2368" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr6REwNwKHnSFCTYkPBjIBUivWtx_nn60l-EHk4VUJD-yvSqLF9X1iq0MAqYo_whhFZQvD7jaIJlr5YRP-ad70CZVyaVD2y2VzkuGinIN1d6Q9Tzf7tvrHqsLF-HNV3POLFIKZBWgNt51HJeCo95d13C5iBq8thFkL2z5KNi16qkWUN3yQ6xDN6w/w400-h227/Screenshot%202024-01-30%20at%208.54.32%20AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Hey guys, the first draft of the novel is almost done! On track to finish tomorrow.
<br /><br />
Meanwhile, Thursday at 7pm central <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DE30lECoUQ">I'll be a guest on the You Tube show Table Talk</a>, and I gather that if you go there live you can actually pelt me with questions and potshots! We will be discussing story, possibly from a geeky perspective. When I asked how long it would go, they said "I mean, we once did 16 hours analyzing Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. So, there you go." See you there!
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-85363286331057373412024-01-16T19:36:00.001-05:002024-01-16T19:36:24.990-05:00Episode 46: Organizing Chaos with Sophie Beal and Gary Dalkin<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1719485025&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/matt-bird-35537727" title="The Secrets of Story Podcast" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">The Secrets of Story Podcast</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/matt-bird-35537727/organizing-chaos-with-sophie-beal-and-gary-dalkin" title="Organizing Chaos with Sophie Beal and Gary Dalkin" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Organizing Chaos with Sophie Beal and Gary Dalkin</a></div>
Sophie Beal and Gary Dalkin return to discuss novelists’ relationship with editors, whether freelance or at a publisher. All four of us have been on one side of that divide or another, and most of us more than one, and we have a grand old time discussing it.
<br><br>
And hey, to see that Sophie and Gary know what they’re talking about, check out the first novel they published, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SOLD-What-will-take-freedom/dp/1914578023/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sold+sue+barrow&qid=1705450949&sr=8-1">SOLD</a>, by Sue Barrow, which was chosen as the School Library Association’s summer pick for the best recent book for ages 13-16.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjizr5IMfH5IwECJQ-aOa58Pdc82T3LrGcmEhAi1gLmXhD-vP-syb5KpFVULebi-rgzT5CXnjGOkfnnQUkoCKM_3u4c8e3-F4q7HwxXbksrgadJRwYrdtqyCf5KuUkPX93is5xwr50W9Pi2ckha2uMHqa_-pNNKQpvf6YrPZLFzzyQXtR118NtjMg/s1280/63272463.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="600" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjizr5IMfH5IwECJQ-aOa58Pdc82T3LrGcmEhAi1gLmXhD-vP-syb5KpFVULebi-rgzT5CXnjGOkfnnQUkoCKM_3u4c8e3-F4q7HwxXbksrgadJRwYrdtqyCf5KuUkPX93is5xwr50W9Pi2ckha2uMHqa_-pNNKQpvf6YrPZLFzzyQXtR118NtjMg/s600/63272463.jpg"/></a></div>
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-87401373998917216262024-01-01T13:17:00.004-05:002024-01-01T13:19:05.595-05:00New Year's Resolution Time!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5YkwtGBH0lBdtqPiDwBqX5_ypFZyG0o1O-B4ag5SY4vz1FKxvrXO4fC5swAHa6p7OfTYlpD0wRVR35LsEY7Ep_L9-Jj4Qc7ezyFZseZcch2RB7EaoNfFYoyneiR2coS21K2T20c585-l_5NpIEBuPsbKwBuaXrel1C3ir-3VjcodHp69VOGuGg/s2420/fs_Little%20Nemo%20-%201905-12-31.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="2420" data-original-width="1764" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5YkwtGBH0lBdtqPiDwBqX5_ypFZyG0o1O-B4ag5SY4vz1FKxvrXO4fC5swAHa6p7OfTYlpD0wRVR35LsEY7Ep_L9-Jj4Qc7ezyFZseZcch2RB7EaoNfFYoyneiR2coS21K2T20c585-l_5NpIEBuPsbKwBuaXrel1C3ir-3VjcodHp69VOGuGg/w467-h640/fs_Little%20Nemo%20-%201905-12-31.jpg" width="467" /></a>
Hi, everybody, so my New Year’s Resolution was going to be to do at least two Shakespeare posts a week, but I didn’t finish my novel in 2023, so instead, my resolution will be to write at least five pages a day of my book until a first draft is done, then do two Shakespeare posts a week. So the blog will be quiet for a while (maybe a month?) and then spring to life. 25 Shakespeare plays to go! Starting with his two most offensive plays!Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-2559260324220062142023-12-07T10:02:00.002-05:002024-01-20T15:59:22.705-05:00Episode 45: Specific vs. Generic (Or is it Factual vs. Archetypal?)<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1684605648&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/matt-bird-35537727" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="The Secrets of Story Podcast">The Secrets of Story Podcast</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/matt-bird-35537727/episode-45-specific-vs-generic-or-is-it-factual-vs-archetypal" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Episode 45: Specific vs. Generic (Or is it Factual vs. Archetypal?)">Episode 45: Specific vs. Generic (Or is it Factual vs. Archetypal?)</a></div>
It's always good to load up your story with specifics, right? Not so fast! James talks about his decision to leave some information out of his new novel Bride of the Tornado, and I quibble.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwvXYD68jCPNUJMiYC4Upf_h7P9B_nYCNWFc0x5L5LBMrktg-oPIDf9mQpG7q6g4KXlCRVDkjaDctB5lvM6lwkHFvl3Y5Hnl1F-ujA2XK_XV62I4exq3m5vgAuZpmlaPPVFN_Pp55lRkzfbqVqfZOd1ZTVNvQTCt8eEVQ5vQzsllNzKB3VNnLmw/s500/41xTPh-xM7L.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="328" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwvXYD68jCPNUJMiYC4Upf_h7P9B_nYCNWFc0x5L5LBMrktg-oPIDf9mQpG7q6g4KXlCRVDkjaDctB5lvM6lwkHFvl3Y5Hnl1F-ujA2XK_XV62I4exq3m5vgAuZpmlaPPVFN_Pp55lRkzfbqVqfZOd1ZTVNvQTCt8eEVQ5vQzsllNzKB3VNnLmw/w419-h640/41xTPh-xM7L.jpg" width="419" /></a></div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-52767047675106324872023-12-06T15:55:00.000-05:002023-12-06T15:55:19.919-05:00The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist is Complete!I started this project on August 2nd, 2021, and now it’s finally done on December 6th, 2023!
<br><br>
For each item in the Ultimate Story Checklist, I’ve created a new post with the text from the book, followed by every Rulebook Casefile and every Straying From the Party Line post I did on that topic, followed by a table with how each of the thirty movies I analyzed answered that question. Now that they’re all up, I’ve relinked the Expanded Checklist in the sidebar to link to the expanded posts. I left the original Checklist in there too, which links to the original posts I based the book on, and, crucially, has all the comments those posts attracted, which are well worth reading.
<br><br>
So what’s next? I’ll finish 37 Days of Shakespeare soon. That was going to be my New Year’s Resolution, but it may get delayed, we’ll see.
Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-46622297070574273642023-12-05T10:00:00.028-05:002023-12-05T10:00:00.146-05:00The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Do the characters refuse or fail to synthesize the meaning of the story?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1v8gsDvC0ZCtBQsoOpmf8zt23__RGgR_ba5YJkfMvqAKa8px_3y7_Vqe1K8b24VlwkvQ19-1d17Y_hpobtjv73Z17x8Sls6FDo4SRQ_4S3V8Zx0dmVi6Ojst5mD6FpQEy6RyOZ4js8vAM0-_wlkXPj1lMcqMOFFpRnFZhBN7jrXlGjhH3g_cJ0g/s1280/does-the-office-hold-up-gq.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1v8gsDvC0ZCtBQsoOpmf8zt23__RGgR_ba5YJkfMvqAKa8px_3y7_Vqe1K8b24VlwkvQ19-1d17Y_hpobtjv73Z17x8Sls6FDo4SRQ_4S3V8Zx0dmVi6Ojst5mD6FpQEy6RyOZ4js8vAM0-_wlkXPj1lMcqMOFFpRnFZhBN7jrXlGjhH3g_cJ0g/w400-h225/does-the-office-hold-up-gq.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div>Meaning must be created in the minds of the audience, not on the page, the stage, or the screen. While it’s tempting to preprocess your conflict and present your finalized synthesis to the audience (to control what their takeaway will be), there’s no point, because they won’t care. </div><br /><i>Modern Family</i> can be an entertaining sitcom—as long as you turn it off two minutes early. At the end of each episode, you have to watch a member of the family come onscreen, look right at you, and point out how all three of that week’s storylines were really about the same big theme and how glad that person is to have learned so much. Any meaning the episode may have generated is quickly slaughtered by this clumsy exegesis.
<br /><br />Compare this to any of the far-superior, documentary-style sitcoms this show mimics, especially the American version of <i>The Office</i>. Boss Michael Scott frequently appears at the end to sum up what meaning has been created by that week’s episode. But he gets it all spectacularly wrong and forces us to do the work.
<br /><br />You need to have the courage to let your audience draw their own meaning, even if that means they might not “get it,” or they might even come to the opposite conclusion you intended.
<br /><br />What were Shakespeare’s politics? In <i>Julius Caesar</i>, did he agree with Brutus or Marc Antony? Does he side with Prince Hal or Falstaff in <i>Henry IV</i>? No one knows. His plays are filled with huge ideological conflicts but few definitive statements. He gives us a thesis and antithesis and leaves the synthesis to us. That’s why he’s immortal.
<div><br /></div><div><b>Rulebook Casefile: Denying Synthesis in An Education</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhokZinOF9V9ldQNDyfoZg0iVyhLMobUAobMxbd5qAuqD1fJsxyDeqkybodhGwxK33LMVEDbJEvHUT0wn1PqzpsptJv-LuuwvaxuidtPGekh5-akntGGxDqjYEYU15ZecuyVCsbZw/s1600/vlcsnap-2013-10-24-17h20m43s120.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhokZinOF9V9ldQNDyfoZg0iVyhLMobUAobMxbd5qAuqD1fJsxyDeqkybodhGwxK33LMVEDbJEvHUT0wn1PqzpsptJv-LuuwvaxuidtPGekh5-akntGGxDqjYEYU15ZecuyVCsbZw/s400/vlcsnap-2013-10-24-17h20m43s120.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Yesterday, we looked at one reason why the
“third act” of <i>An Education</i> is so short: the story isn’t as interesting once Jenny has dumped her con man fiance, and we don’t want to watch her study for her tests. That works out just fine. Nobody misses those beats, and the ending is still satisfying.<br />
<br />
This was true in Nick Hornby’s script as well, but somewhat less so. Director Lone Scherfig is
extremely faithful to the script overall, but she cuts several exchanges out of the last part of the script, and replaces the last page entirely. These judicious cuts made the movie much better, and exemplified the importance of <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2013/03/know-more-than-you-show-conclusion-theme.html">not allowing the characters to process the theme</a>. <br />
<br />
In the finished film, we end with Jenny, at Oxford, happily riding a bicycle through campus with a boy she seems to be dating, as we hear a voiceover (for the first time in the movie), saying that she tried to forget the whole thing, and one day, when a boy asked her to go to Paris with him, she said yes... “as if I’d never been.” Fade to black. <br />
<br />
On the last page of the original script, we also have Jenny bicycling through Oxford, but then, one day...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TSdrVKc7hc8kccMxvxTfzuk3YJeBq7t2q9_jPjvoA9G2IvL2UOw4P280zbF1Ch8PpE2bQ2QrVNK8Mb10sJUjQI24BCCK_sZO4Wmfdd-QZWPsYvNMFOEOnC3XtcFY69DnPAjfiw/s1600/Screenshot+2013-10-23+23.57.07.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TSdrVKc7hc8kccMxvxTfzuk3YJeBq7t2q9_jPjvoA9G2IvL2UOw4P280zbF1Ch8PpE2bQ2QrVNK8Mb10sJUjQI24BCCK_sZO4Wmfdd-QZWPsYvNMFOEOnC3XtcFY69DnPAjfiw/s400/Screenshot+2013-10-23+23.57.07.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_Q_4k6UF6gz4SRyJuOrkZos7GpJTMMfj2b6q0IrVbkcybznhu_ii0eMUjnkWkSSYVFvUcE1blZlB9PRfjkUUmsbnbfRRGIem9QXaFsyt46RvH-YuUk6sAxtBfMfYCuanMvRa7A/s1600/Screenshot+2013-10-24+00.13.13.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_Q_4k6UF6gz4SRyJuOrkZos7GpJTMMfj2b6q0IrVbkcybznhu_ii0eMUjnkWkSSYVFvUcE1blZlB9PRfjkUUmsbnbfRRGIem9QXaFsyt46RvH-YuUk6sAxtBfMfYCuanMvRa7A/s400/Screenshot+2013-10-24+00.13.13.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqMZZwPDKx1mqrWH_gQd6n19kBeXjoXEQ747TgS9m1ZEosF1ZLZVF7EWRgYYix-OTX698doQeNnZR-2PG_ha4DL4HP5nv7W4oNHVmcdYWWwqbXVuy4cTaUqDCAlg7SCmkX-Lhk8w/s1600/Screenshot+2013-10-24+00.13.39.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqMZZwPDKx1mqrWH_gQd6n19kBeXjoXEQ747TgS9m1ZEosF1ZLZVF7EWRgYYix-OTX698doQeNnZR-2PG_ha4DL4HP5nv7W4oNHVmcdYWWwqbXVuy4cTaUqDCAlg7SCmkX-Lhk8w/s400/Screenshot+2013-10-24+00.13.39.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuV7gvxoW3utiv6x7YiIecwlfOh8HNO5pcx6x7yjLZb_AV3Msts913Po4Syw7y2k1L8RKFVGTQDDLTi_nZ0pOmSBrvGCzqjqJTdjuK3uZARjY4LZt4X4wNSwyMhdmzWTvRB4P7VQ/s1600/Screenshot+2013-10-24+00.13.50.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuV7gvxoW3utiv6x7YiIecwlfOh8HNO5pcx6x7yjLZb_AV3Msts913Po4Syw7y2k1L8RKFVGTQDDLTi_nZ0pOmSBrvGCzqjqJTdjuK3uZARjY4LZt4X4wNSwyMhdmzWTvRB4P7VQ/s400/Screenshot+2013-10-24+00.13.50.png" width="400" /></a></div>
This is way too much closure. What’s so great about the final onscreen
ending is that it’s <i>haunting</i>. She never expunges the ghost of
David, so he hovers over her whole life. She can pretend that it never
happened, but she’ll always know better.<br />
<br />
Director Lone Scherfig knew she had a brilliant script on her
hands...but she also knew that the last page blew it, and a better last
page would make it a classic. She kept pushing until she found the last
page the movie needed. <br /><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The 40 Year Old Virgin<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He never says what he learned.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Alien<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. She doesn’t say anything about the evils of corporate sovereignty in her final recording.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">An Education<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The original script contained much more recriminations in the third act, but in the finished film, most of those questions land in the viewer’s lap, which is better.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Babadook<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Her reversible behavior is very subtle. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blazing Saddles<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blue Velvet<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. they never talk about what it all means.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Bourne Identity<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. he and Marie don’t discuss it at the end. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Bridesmaids<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. There is no analysis of what she’s learned after the wedding.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Casablanca<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Pretty much. He tries to say what it all means, but that’s just to get her on the plane, he hasn’t really processed the pain yet.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Chinatown<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. He chooses to “forget about it”<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Donnie Brasco<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Donnie literally doesn’t speak again after Lefty is killed.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Do the Right Thing<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. They do discuss it, but they don’t kill the meaning or settle the dilemma as they do so. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Farewell<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fighter<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. the epilogue hits it pretty squarely on the head, but that’s fine. It’s a sports movie.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Frozen<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. There’s not a lot of talk about what it all means. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fugitive<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. They just barely do it, and that’s fine. Gerard admits that he did come to care, this one time, but he laughs it off and says “Don’t tell anybody.” There’s no serious rapprochement. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Get Out<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Chris barely speaks in the final third of the movie and won’t talk about what happened to him when Rod rescues him. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Groundhog Day<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He doesn’t go back and figure out what was different about that last day.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">How to Train Your Dragon<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. By knocking Hiccup out for the denouement, we skip the actual rapprochement between the Vikings and the dragons, but there’s still a lot of talk about what it all means.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">In a Lonely Place<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He synthesizes it in a pat way, but because we saw him coin that phrase before, we suspect that he is only pretending to feel the impact, or that he’s summoned up so many canned feelings for Hollywood that he can’t summon up any raw, authentic feelings anymore.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Iron Man<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Stane isn’t mentioned again after he’s killed. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Lady Bird<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. she basically synthesizes it. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Raising Arizona<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. Nope, he does a lot of synthesizing, at the end and throughout. Even when he doubts his conclusion (about Reagan, for instance) we don’t. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Rushmore<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Max has learned a lot, but he doesn’t want to talk about it much.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Selma<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Nope. Both King and Johnson give big speeches summarizing the meaning. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Shining<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. the epilogue was cut. There is no attempt to process that we see. Danny doesn’t even speak after the finale begins.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sideways<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. We never hear the final conversation. He doesn’t say what the kid’s essay means to him, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Silence of the Lambs<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. We never see them second-guess the value of working with Lecter.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Star Wars<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The finale is wordless.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sunset Boulevard<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. he returns from the dead to spell it out for us. Wilder was not the type to leave anything unsaid. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-20698315327554160612023-12-04T10:00:00.074-05:002023-12-04T10:00:00.129-05:00The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: In the end, is the plot not entirely tidy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnWLXN4XAoK1N2xeAVA-NTA1rAuDoV89XP_qaISCcFS5LWSw6RY-hbengxtu3ImQV7eypSjQY5Ql9DyEVQGM028g8lb0VqFolVxsehQc2jqKfVu4mIxIgytk2PCM9OLCZjfxRyYzxs3SgsS4CEg_gwMi4l92WIh0bOI48sP7cq0t3c8KaG-jSr9Q/s828/s-l1200.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="828" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnWLXN4XAoK1N2xeAVA-NTA1rAuDoV89XP_qaISCcFS5LWSw6RY-hbengxtu3ImQV7eypSjQY5Ql9DyEVQGM028g8lb0VqFolVxsehQc2jqKfVu4mIxIgytk2PCM9OLCZjfxRyYzxs3SgsS4CEg_gwMi4l92WIh0bOI48sP7cq0t3c8KaG-jSr9Q/w400-h296/s-l1200.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator">I had the good fortune to teach a section of Andrew Sarris’s Hitchcock course at Columbia. Mr. Sarris did more than anyone to cement Hitchcock’s critical reputation in this country, and there was no better education than watching the films with him, hearing his lectures, and then facilitating a discussion with my half of the class the next day. My favorite student questions were those I never thought to ask. When we were discussing Vertigo followed by <i>North by Northwest</i>, I was asked an odd but interesting question. Allow me to paraphrase the student: </div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Everybody pretty much agrees that <i>North by Northwest</i> is a perfectly constructed film. It fits together better than any other Hitchcock movie. And, yet, you say <i>Vertigo</i> is considered to be “greater” by almost every critic. How can Ve<i>r</i>tigo, which is really messy, be better than North by Northwest, which is perfect? </li></ul>It was a good question. <i>Vertigo</i> has a very odd structure. It slows down to a crawl in places. It leaves plot threads dangling and forgets to pick them back up. The plot is untidy and so are the character arcs. We’re left wondering at the end about everybody’s motivation. We can guess, but we can’t be sure. <i>North by Northwest</i>, on the other hand, builds and builds and then pays off seamlessly. We understand every beat of Cary Grant’s journey, strategically and emotionally. It’s an immensely satisfying movie to watch.
<br /><br />But depth is found in holes. A few unanswered questions and unresolved emotions are necessary to really have a profound effect on a viewer. Right at the beginning of <i>Vertigo</i>, we abruptly cut from Jimmy Stewart, dangling from a building in terror, with no rescue in sight to several months later, as he talks with a friend about leaving the police force. We can figure out what happened in between, but because we never see the rescue, we’re left with the unresolved disturbance of his emotional reaction.
<br /><br />Similarly, I mentioned earlier that Madeleine’s disappearance from the hotel room is never explained. Again, we can hazard guesses, but the refusal to tidy up this loose end gnaws at us on a subconscious level.
<br /><br />These aren’t really plot holes; they’re just holes, gaps in the story, and that’s what makes <i>Vertigo</i> a greater film than <i>North by Northwest</i>. Great art shouldn’t be <i>entirely</i> satisfying. It has to disquiet us a little—and have a few holes for us to get stuck in. <div><br /></div><div><b>The Ending Doesn’t Determine the Meaning in Whiplash</b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYpL4lvVxH0VtnjAdgAV_mszBYNgOWy7348BkFDb1nOwfx99c5NQtJx1kNk18lE9x9Na8eo7FU2Q2_KxfnixoHye_NyhUo10UGId5AGvRguwoi1Su_Myn5kj00AM3qb-EIIh_9cQ/s1600/miles_teller_jk_simmons_whiplash_a_l.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYpL4lvVxH0VtnjAdgAV_mszBYNgOWy7348BkFDb1nOwfx99c5NQtJx1kNk18lE9x9Na8eo7FU2Q2_KxfnixoHye_NyhUo10UGId5AGvRguwoi1Su_Myn5kj00AM3qb-EIIh_9cQ/s1600/miles_teller_jk_simmons_whiplash_a_l.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2014/07/storytellers-rulebook-your-ending.html"><b>The Ending Doesn’t Determine the Meaning</b></a>: One problem with these sorts of movies is that it’s so hard to keep the ending from determining the meaning—If the pupil succeeds, it was all worth it, and if he fails, it wasn’t, right? Some great movies have tried to have it both ways (<i>The Black Swan,</i> <i>The Color of Money</i>, <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2011/07/underrated-movie-126-downhill-racer.html"><i>Downhill Racer</i></a> and <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2010/12/underrated-movie-99-loneliness-of-long.html"><i>The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner</i></a>) but this movie just may top them all. The climax of this movie mercilessly toys with our hard-wired need to determine if it’s “all worth it”, whipping our emotions back and forth several times. Ultimately, the only conclusion we can reach is that, no matter how this ends, both sides will lose, because “greatness” itself may be an unhealthy and inhumane concept.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>Rulebook Casefile: The Value of the Untidy Gaps in Blue Velvet</b></div></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjOmW04DmDDNITBZ4rnRbh6buXpRj-dJvTNc9Dike7n9HNuBp5s96RJQqzZB1abwsAXx70RfpnRyrUIdEK3eZAZEnsa1E34shWTOW6YNuePt4Qwh-x_1Tj0tT9DCN3zRg9YkZk-A/s1600/vlcsnap-2014-03-31-22h44m17s182.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjOmW04DmDDNITBZ4rnRbh6buXpRj-dJvTNc9Dike7n9HNuBp5s96RJQqzZB1abwsAXx70RfpnRyrUIdEK3eZAZEnsa1E34shWTOW6YNuePt4Qwh-x_1Tj0tT9DCN3zRg9YkZk-A/s1600/vlcsnap-2014-03-31-22h44m17s182.png" width="400" /></a></div>
The first cut of <i>Blue Velvet</i> apparently ran a full four hours, but producer Dino DiLaurentiis had given Lynch complete freedom with one condition: it had to be under two hours. Sure enough, the final cut is precisely one frame shorter than 120 minutes!
<br />
<br />
So how do you chop four hours down to two? Well, there are a lot of candidates for cutting here: odd cappers on scenes that feel creepy and unmotivated (“You know the chicken walk?”), long silences while Jeffrey watches things, the strange visit to Dean Stockwell’s house, generic montages of small town life, etc… The natural impulse would be to cut out everything but plot essentials until you have a lean, mean two-hour movie that “really moves”, as the critics say.
<br />
<br />
But Lynch could tell the difference between the baby and the bathwater. He left the idiosyncrasies in and chopped huge chunks of the plot out. The result is that we never make much sense of what’s really going on, but that’s fine. Lynch knows that <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2010/04/storytellers-rulebook-12-depth-is-found.html">untidiness can increase the meaning and power of a movie. </a><br />
<br />
He could have said “Wait, if we don’t see them finding the second ear in the sink, then won’t it be confusing that Don is missing two ears when they find his body at the end?” And the answer is of course, “yes,” but it’s the right sort of gap: one we can fill in on our own if we care to (presumably the same people cut the second one off too, right?) but we don’t need to. It’s just another unexplained detail that make the world seem bigger than the movie, which is something the audience <i>likes</i>.
<br />
<br />
Of course, even with the plot sliced way down, there was still more to cut, so Lynch’s decision to cut out many of Jeffrey’s early scenes was even more daring. We originally met Jeffrey at college, watching from afar as a girl is almost date-raped, and only stopping it when someone else approaches the scene. This clearly sets up his longstanding problem. Then there were a lot more scenes when he first arrives in town that showed his frustration with his mom and aunt, including one where his mom tells him that they won’t be able to afford college for him anymore, causing him to worry that there will be no outlet for his darker impulses at home.
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFizwz-DGtm71AigQdw6Ce96QribghXQDJq91zK5329y1Vo7_W0NNMvIib3IYQf4JoSC_b5t6emwLlqOSq4AL6M1njGORpcrcyEk6e48bvmUI_nIOglEQA16HPo8vUKAFG8Lkgcg/s1600/vlcsnap-2014-03-31-22h50m18s255.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFizwz-DGtm71AigQdw6Ce96QribghXQDJq91zK5329y1Vo7_W0NNMvIib3IYQf4JoSC_b5t6emwLlqOSq4AL6M1njGORpcrcyEk6e48bvmUI_nIOglEQA16HPo8vUKAFG8Lkgcg/s1600/vlcsnap-2014-03-31-22h50m18s255.png" width="400" /></a></div>
As I wrote about before, <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2010/09/storytellers-rulebook-46-sometimes-you.html">sometimes you have to write deleted scenes</a>. Without those scenes on the page, the character would have seemed much less compelling until almost halfway in, but Lynch discovered he could cut them from the final movie because his amazing star, Kyle McLaughlin, managed to convey all of that deviance and frustration beneath the placid surface of his creepy/charming face. Just the curious way he looks at that ear basically tells us everything we need to know.
<div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Straying from the Party Line: The Tidy Conclusion of Raising Arizona</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ePStHOGCEg7aD8UkJOCVwLklSek0-gJXxHe4veQdUyIGYL1MINTLgKUpxW7NWziXhp1ZAj98OzMz0UyVKT4OVKx1epdzkoH65IlL_UV-JamQ9WxSO9G6E7Jeq5jna39uggT3IQ/s1600/Screenshot+2014-09-24+18.59.59.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ePStHOGCEg7aD8UkJOCVwLklSek0-gJXxHe4veQdUyIGYL1MINTLgKUpxW7NWziXhp1ZAj98OzMz0UyVKT4OVKx1epdzkoH65IlL_UV-JamQ9WxSO9G6E7Jeq5jna39uggT3IQ/s1600/Screenshot+2014-09-24+18.59.59.png" width="400" /></a></div><div></div><div><b>Deviation: </b>The movie ends with another long voiceover montage in order to wrap everything up.
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Problem: </b>This should also be off-putting, denying the audience a chance to decide for ourselves what everything means in the end. And by tying off all of the loose plot threads, we have less to think about afterwards.
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Does the Movie Get Away With It? </b>Somewhat, but it’s more problematic than the opening montage. Let’s start with the montage of what happens to all of the other characters. On the one hand, it’s delightful to see Gale and Evelle go back to prison by climbing back into the mudhole they climbed out of, but surely there was no need to show brother-in-law Glen getting his eventual comeuppance after telling a Polish joke to a Polish cop?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5VS8pHnyXcvgMcNwSJFOvQ3wbF5eNVHszq-HIuiGch-QmXBfcGkKN8tKx7oVx2Mxx1efiFAMdkgbZ35nyGf5183Z-NCI56TQ2Vx3FpuGrhq0RRmdYpaa3dZUw_YANmiQ1q5m3w/s1600/Screenshot+2014-09-24+18.56.44.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5VS8pHnyXcvgMcNwSJFOvQ3wbF5eNVHszq-HIuiGch-QmXBfcGkKN8tKx7oVx2Mxx1efiFAMdkgbZ35nyGf5183Z-NCI56TQ2Vx3FpuGrhq0RRmdYpaa3dZUw_YANmiQ1q5m3w/s1600/Screenshot+2014-09-24+18.56.44.png" width="400" /></a></div><div>Recently, the Coens’ endings have been anything but tidy. For the most part that’s good: We enjoy the frustration of not knowing what happened to the money in <i>Fargo</i> or <i>No Country for Old Men</i>, for instance. One could argue that in their most recent movies they’ve actually take this a little too far in the other direction (see the anticlimactic endings of <i>A Serious Man</i> and <i>Inside Llewyn Davis</i>) but their recent instincts are still good: it’s better to trust the viewers rather than hold their hands at the end.
<br />
<br />
As for Hi’s summation of what happens to himself and Ed, the ending tries a little too hard to be satisfying by having it both ways:
<br />
<ul>
<li>First we get the “real consequences” version, in which the couple, still childless, content themselves to send anonymous gifts to Nathan Arizona, Jr, every year, and live vicariously through his accomplishments.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTV4w3xLdqMHL5tJ6ChLrx-iZGDv8mPx-Cb6QNGMI2R9e_2nNWBF5zW2DOnYQYM0rXH05FB0wsaN32R0NyJUC-mF7268drSN94KJBL-3Z3rp8F_FjW1dBzxf-2GDYdmEoR2kBRfA/s1600/Screenshot+2014-09-24+19.02.33.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTV4w3xLdqMHL5tJ6ChLrx-iZGDv8mPx-Cb6QNGMI2R9e_2nNWBF5zW2DOnYQYM0rXH05FB0wsaN32R0NyJUC-mF7268drSN94KJBL-3Z3rp8F_FjW1dBzxf-2GDYdmEoR2kBRfA/s1600/Screenshot+2014-09-24+19.02.33.png" width="320" /></a> </li>
<li>But then we get another vague ending tacked onto that one, implying that Hi and Ed somehow did get to raise kids and have a large family of their own someday.
</li>
</ul>
This feels a little “80s” to me, like the Coens are being overgenerous to the their characters. This was still a point when indies were anxious to prove that they could be just as satisfying as Hollywood films. Don’t get me wrong, this is far preferable to modern indie movies, which too often equate “realism” with bleakness and misery, but I do wish that the Coens had trusted their bittersweet “root for Nathan, Jr. from afar” ending.
</div><div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The 40 Year Old Virgin<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES, the other guys’ relationships remain vague.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Alien<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. We know very little at the end about what was really going on. If only someone would do a prequel!<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">An Education<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. What was his plan? Bigamy? A phony marriage? Leave his wife? We never know.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Babadook<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. The ending is very tantalizing and bizarre. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blazing Saddles<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. everything is vague at the end.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blue Velvet<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. huge questions are left unanswered.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Bourne Identity<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. It’s fairly tidy, but that’s fine.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Bridesmaids<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Somewhat. The romance certainly isn’t tied up with a bow.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Casablanca<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. we don’t find out the fate of the other couple trying to get free, for example.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Chinatown<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. If you go back and think about it, little of it makes sense, but the audience doesn’t care. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Donnie Brasco<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Do the Right Thing<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Will Mookie comes back to Tina, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Farewell<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It’s very untidy. We never find out if Billi finds a way to make it in NYC, etc. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fighter<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. The events are very messy. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Frozen<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. We never find out the source of the powers, etc. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fugitive<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Not really. We even see that Cosmo is okay. It’s a pretty tidy ending. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Get Out<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Lots of them. Will he be able to explain any of this to the cops? What about all the other victims? (Of course, there are even more loose ends in Peele’s <i>next</i> movie.)<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Groundhog Day<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. What caused this? We’ll never know.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">How to Train Your Dragon<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. Hmm… It’s pretty tidy.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">In a Lonely Place<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. we never find out how and why the murder happened.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Iron Man<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. In the truly terrible deleted scenes, everything is explained in much more details, and as a result the story feels leaden and meaningless.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Lady Bird<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. She still hasn’t found love. She still hasn’t told anyone the truth about being from Sacramento. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Raising Arizona<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. It’s fairly tidy, using lots of voiceover to explain lots of little things, like what happened to the brother-in-law, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Rushmore<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. everyone is there for the finale, but their stories don’t wrap up neatly.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Selma<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The tension with SNCC and with Coretta is mostly left unresolved. It would be great to see a sequel. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Shining<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. We don’t understand the final shot, for instance. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sideways<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It’s not clear what will happen when he shows up at her door. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Silence of the Lambs<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Lecter remains free, and we never fully understand the mechanics of his escape.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Star Wars<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Vader lives, the empire continues, and Jabba’s debt is still looming over Han. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sunset Boulevard<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 3.75in;" valign="top" width="360"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It’s fairly tidy, but one big question is never answered, though: Did Joe decide to leave Norma before or after he sent Betty away?<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-39101921968705788102023-12-01T10:00:00.035-05:002023-12-01T10:00:00.143-05:00The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Does the story’s outcome ironically contrast with the initial goal?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkaAg2qKKeGaklp-EZxANm21EiS7JZRG56ICMOV0H40WhUjz1V7apAV1C94J5rhccfvUjPkeo5_87yuUa2qCyqKPlmZLpKZ2EZ1dX8PMLqZtYXxta0hv4H9s1g2CYjFi3BhhXpzqWWNztzgXQ9XP6oAsIQSd9XDGchwgTwnrcHaoWkPQuyceaPVQ/s895/ArchivesRaidersOfTheLostArk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="895" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkaAg2qKKeGaklp-EZxANm21EiS7JZRG56ICMOV0H40WhUjz1V7apAV1C94J5rhccfvUjPkeo5_87yuUa2qCyqKPlmZLpKZ2EZ1dX8PMLqZtYXxta0hv4H9s1g2CYjFi3BhhXpzqWWNztzgXQ9XP6oAsIQSd9XDGchwgTwnrcHaoWkPQuyceaPVQ/w400-h169/ArchivesRaidersOfTheLostArk.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>And so we arrive at our final irony: the ironic final outcome. Way back when we started, we discussed how the basic concept of your story should have a fundamental irony. That overriding irony should be apparent by a quarter of the way in, but it shouldn’t be confused with the final irony that isn’t clear until the end.
<br /><br />In chapter three, we explored why these story concepts are ironic. Now let’s jump to the ending to see their ironic final outcomes:
<br /><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Casablanca</i>: Rick gets Ilsa back only so he can send her away. </li><li><i>Beloved</i>: Sethe still thinks her daughter’s vengeful ghost was “my best thing.” </li><li><i>Silence of the Lambs</i>: One killer is stopped, but the worse killer gets away in the process. </li><li><i>Groundhog Day</i>: Phil finally figures out how to get out of the town he hates by deciding he wants to stay there forever. </li><li><i>Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone</i>: The most scared teacher turns out to be most useful to the villain, rather than the mean teacher. Then Harry and his friends win the house cup by breaking all the rules. </li><li><i>Sideways</i>: Miles discovers the way to get the girl is to have the courage to do nothing. He finds the book that failed to earn him the love of the world has ironically done its job after all, because it’s moved the one heart he really needed to move. </li><li><i>Iron Man</i>: Tony’s own business partner turns out to be the villain. </li><li><i>An Education</i>: At Oxford, Jenny gets the education she originally wanted, but she has to pretend she hasn’t already received a far more worldly education. </li></ol>Even stories that are already ironic can always benefit from another ironic bit at the very end. Because the Nazis are defeated by their own treasure, the ending of <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> is already quite ironic, but it has one last kicker waiting for us. After all the action, suffering, and shouts of “It belongs in a museum!” Indiana and Marion finally bring this legendary artifact (and powerful weapon) home to the United States, where it gets dumped in a vast warehouse and forgotten.
<br /><br />It’s ironic that Indiana’s efforts have the opposite effect of his intentions, but even more ironically, the audience realizes this forgotten bureaucratic warehouse is probably the safest place possible for this dangerous artifact. The audience has seen Indiana’s goal come to naught at the last possible second—and they love it. They actually enjoy a good ironic reversal more than a straightforward payoff.
<br /><br />We don’t want to live in a clockwork universe, and we don’t want clockwork stories. We don’t want to watch authors plug numbers into a machine, pull the big lever, and get the expected result. We want irony because it’s surprising, because it’s clever, and, more than anything, because it’s <i>realistic</i>. There are no straight lines in nature, and we don’t want any in our stories, either. We love to see our heroes get what they want in the end—as long as they don’t get it in quite the way they wanted.
<div><br /></div><div><b>Rulebook Casefile: Defying Genre Conventions and Finding an Ironic Final Outcome in The Fugitive</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRM0vqHTwtquqWlb0T4iwrAgv0oZUDIMcL1JVBp34JaAV1ZH0JfXd2gFKSmJiFobbktWMy0TeXm2oNoT9ozcBku-xRoHcwuQYoR3diGyKbfIc6-ChGXtORMDfX9xUbCnrtSl1Fw/s1600/vlcsnap-2015-09-18-14h59m25s2774.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRM0vqHTwtquqWlb0T4iwrAgv0oZUDIMcL1JVBp34JaAV1ZH0JfXd2gFKSmJiFobbktWMy0TeXm2oNoT9ozcBku-xRoHcwuQYoR3diGyKbfIc6-ChGXtORMDfX9xUbCnrtSl1Fw/s400/vlcsnap-2015-09-18-14h59m25s2774.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I’ve said before that audiences expect a genre movie to meet <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-manage-expectations-step-3-pay.html">most of the pre-established genre expectations, but defy a few of them</a>. <i> The Fugitive</i> is a classically structured, adrenaline-packed thriller that delivers almost all of the conventions that audience expects, but there’s one nearly-universal aspect of this genre that it pointedly <i>refuses</i> to deliver: the hero doesn’t kill either of the villains (neither hitman nor client.)
<br />
<br />
But rather than leaving audiences disappointed, this was a huge aspect of the film’s success:
<br />
<ul>
<li>It solves <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2010/07/storytellers-rulebook-35-thrillers-are.html">the<i> Collateral </i>problem</a>: “This guy framed me for a killing, so I’ll track him down and kill him, and that’ll clear my name!” Um, no, that’s not how that works (to be fair, this goes back Hitchcock, in moves like <i>Saboteur</i>.)
</li>
<li>It elevates the movie morally. The audience can’t help feel dirtied by the standard logic of “he’s a killer so let’s kill him!” There’s a reason that this is one of the only thrillers nominated for best picture: nobody’s embarrassed to say they like it.
</li>
<li>It ties in nicely with the movie’s <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-big-idea-addendum-ironic-conclusion.html">ironic final outcome</a>:
</li>
</ul>
In most “law vs. justice” thrillers, the hero humiliates the pansy-lawmen once and for all by doing what they refuse to do: deliver swift-and-fatal “justice” himself. This is supposed to make the audience stand-up-and-cheer in righteous wish-fulfillment. But this movie is doing something entirely different. This is a “law vs. justice” movie, but the solution is not to sever the two permanently, but rather to bend them back towards each other. For the first two reasons above, Ford has no interest in killing the two men who killed his wife, but it also ties in nicely to his flaw-as-flip-side-strength.
<br />
<br />
As we discussed last time, it should be frustrating to us that Kimble frequently <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2015/09/straying-from-party-line-not-quite.html">sabotages his quest</a>, but this turns out to be exactly the right thing to do: If he’s not going to kill the villains, then what can he do with them? Make a citizen’s arrest? No, he has to win the lawmen back to his side, and ironically, he can only do so by sabotaging his cause over and over again in the name of compassion.
<br />
<br />
Every time Kimble sabotages his cause, he’s bringing about the only truly-satisfactory outcome: winning Gerard over, and reuniting law and justice. We’ll talk more about that thematic dilemma next time…
<div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The 40 Year Old Virgin<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES, he finds sex but only by marrying a grandmother.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Alien<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. they kill the object of their rescue mission, the most loyal one blows up the ship.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">An Education<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The education she tried to reject actually leads her back to the life of sophistication she wanted, but she has to pretend she hasn’t already had it.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Babadook<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. she’s the monster at the end of the book.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blazing Saddles<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He saves the town instead of dooming it. The townspeople beg him to stay instead of forcing him out. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blue Velvet<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. he defeats evil by absorbing it <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Bourne Identity<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Liman says that his model was The Wizard of Oz: he’s trying to get home, but he’s home the whole time, because Marie turns out to be his home.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Bridesmaids<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Helen helps Annie see that she’s the problem, rather than vice versa. Her archenemy helps her get her guy.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Casablanca<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so: he gets her back only so that he can send her away.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Chinatown<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES, the heroes get the opposite of what they want.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Donnie Brasco<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. he feels worse about betraying his fake family than his real family. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Do the Right Thing<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Mookie just wanted to get paid, but he destroys his job instead.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Farewell<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. She doesn’t achieve her original goal of telling the truth and decides it was better not to. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fighter<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. What starts out as a story about breaking free of your rotten family becomes a story about taking strength from your rotten family.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Frozen<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Elsa’s powers are embraced.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fugitive<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The fugitive and the marshal work together.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Get Out<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The in-laws love him, after all. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Groundhog Day<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He finally figures out how to get out of there: by wanting to stay.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">How to Train Your Dragon<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. The opening dragon attack is paralleled by the final peaceful shots of dragons flying through the village.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">In a Lonely Place<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. he clears his name but loses the girl anyway.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Iron Man<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He earns the right to be a super-hero and then immediately breaks the first rule. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Lady Bird<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. She seeks out the comforts of home (church and calling her mom) in New York. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Raising Arizona<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. they are pushed apart by stealing the baby and brought back together by returning it. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Rushmore<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He tries to hook up Cross with Blume instead of trying to break them up.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Selma<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Yes and no. For Johnson certainly. For King, he tells Coretta at the beginning that his whole goal is to wrap this up and settle down to life in a college town with “maybe an occassional speaking engagement,” and he certainly doesn’t achieve that. But it could be that King was lying to Coretta about wanting to settle down, in which case, he unironically achieves exactly his initial goal. (Of course the fact that Johnson hurts his marriage is certainly not something he planned on)<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Shining<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. they save their family by killing the dad.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sideways<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Miles finds that the way to get the girl is the have the courage to do nothing, waiting for her to re-approach instead of drunk dialing her.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Silence of the Lambs<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. They catch one only to lose another.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Star Wars<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. He defeats the bad guys using the technology he learned at home, not by acting like the other pilots.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 139.25pt;" valign="top" width="186"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sunset Boulevard<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 4in;" valign="top" width="384"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. he gets his pool, she gets her return to the screen, and Max even gets to direct again, but all in the most ironic ways possible. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-21411527225917651312023-11-30T10:00:00.034-05:002023-11-30T10:00:00.132-05:00The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Does the ending tip toward one side of the thematic dilemma without entirely resolving it?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb6FJsH3XDu3yDWneNbKwwrcEqyWOHxchY_ie0JJZEui0G_f0me8_89eqauWNqWra7aFwmcPtJ2QCcm3oXknaMaqZeTLbH8BhZTTMqlQzHfO9K0KfV3tADrXBJJ6g1VO0yJSLjQRd2NlySIndnvR0mLwdKj9G4lB8jUmota2WC5_LU_3V22nEcMg/s608/200901231414092x01-jacklockehatch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="608" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb6FJsH3XDu3yDWneNbKwwrcEqyWOHxchY_ie0JJZEui0G_f0me8_89eqauWNqWra7aFwmcPtJ2QCcm3oXknaMaqZeTLbH8BhZTTMqlQzHfO9K0KfV3tADrXBJJ6g1VO0yJSLjQRd2NlySIndnvR0mLwdKj9G4lB8jUmota2WC5_LU_3V22nEcMg/w400-h221/200901231414092x01-jacklockehatch.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>Your theme should take the form of an irresolvable dilemma, so you should give both sides equal weight for as long as possible until the climax. The trick is to come up with a finale that addresses the conflict and makes a concrete statement about it, without definitively declaring one side right and the other wrong. </div><br />Each of the first three seasons of <i>Lost</i> has a powerful overarching theme:
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Season one: our future is dictated by our past versus our future is a blank slate </li><li>Season two: faith versus skepticism </li><li>Season three: strict, safe order (the Others) versus chaotic, unsafe freedom (the crash survivors) </li></ul>At the end of each season, the characters advocating one side of the debate are proven “right.”
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Season one: The characters find ways to move on from the past, and even sing “Redemption Song” together on a boat. </li><li>Season two: We find out Locke was right to have faith in the button, and Jack was wrong when he said it did nothing. </li><li>Season three: The chaotic makeshift community of the crash survivors proves to be more sustainable than the cultlike Others. </li></ul>But in each case, the victory is ironic and ambiguous. A statement is made about the dilemma, but it’s not permanently settled.
<br /><br />You have something to say, but you don’t have something <i>definitive</i> to say. You have a point, but your point is untidy. You’re leaving room open for uncertainty and ambiguity, because that multiplies the meaning.
<br /><br />Let’s return to the stories we looked at before. Each has an irreconcilable thematic dilemma, and five of them tip toward one side in the end, but not definitively:
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Casablanca</i>: Patriotism is better than love, but it’s a painful decision. </li><li><i>Beloved</i>: Sethe will never know whether enslavement was better than death for her daughter, but she warily accepts that self-forgiveness is better than self-accountability. </li><li><i>Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone</i>: Justice is better than peace, but it comes with dark consequences. (Harry not only kills Quirrell, but he condemns Dumbledore’s friend Nicholas Flamel to death by destroying the stone.) </li><li><i>Iron Man</i>: Yes, societal responsibility is ultimately somewhat more important than individual achievement, but Tony still wants to be a badass all the time, not a do-gooder. </li><li><i>An Education</i>: Yes, living up to one’s responsibilities is somewhat better than a life of excitement, but we sense she doesn’t really regret her dalliance and still longs to be more sophisticated than her parents. </li></ul>But the other three have interesting variations:
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In <i>Groundhog Day</i>, one of the contrasting values in the thematic dilemma is clearly superior to the others. Phil concludes that acceptance is almost entirely better than ambition. </li><li><i>Silence of the Lambs</i> ends with its moral dilemma still totally unsettled. Neither Clarice nor the audience can decide at the end whether it was worth it to work with one monster to stop another. </li><li><i>Sideways</i> pits Jack’s boundless optimism versus Miles’s clear-eyed cynicism, but each man achieves his own goal by reverting to type at the end and fails to influence the other. Jack’s outrageous, optimistic lies pay off for him, and Miles’s cynical honesty pays off for him. The conclusion looks askance at both of their philosophies but refuses to privilege either one over the other. </li></ul>So this rule isn’t universal: You can resolve the dilemma definitively, tip to one side without resolving it, or leave it totally unresolved, but the middle option is the most common and usually the best bet. You have something to say, so say it, but you don’t want to take away from the fundamental power of the irreconcilable dilemma.
<div><br /></div><div><b>Rulebook Casefile: The Irresolvable Thematic Dilemma in Rushmore</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX81XEVMpM3n-toI6nTAd-jNX-0WrKgIjbpVtHVWv44BKZGRameTULz0ln4NFrt2xxBaiEEaGTTBIuoZ4h1ia3C54_PvtQN8gnD4168MPsxhhfz_gEpXIHqSXYSJYmmZgdcVzvYg/s1600/edwardapplebee1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX81XEVMpM3n-toI6nTAd-jNX-0WrKgIjbpVtHVWv44BKZGRameTULz0ln4NFrt2xxBaiEEaGTTBIuoZ4h1ia3C54_PvtQN8gnD4168MPsxhhfz_gEpXIHqSXYSJYmmZgdcVzvYg/s400/edwardapplebee1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
When I was trying to identify Max’s false <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-create-compelling-character-step_26.html">statement of philosophy</a> in <i>Rushmore</i>, I settled on this exchange: “What are you going to do?” “The only thing I can do: try to pull some strings with the administration.” For this corrected statement of philosophy later, I chose “I’m just a barber’s son.” But what about the movie’s most prominent statement of philosophy?
<br />
<br />
Max’s obsession with Miss Cross begins when he’s reading a book on diving and he finds that she has jotted down a Cousteau quote in the margins: “When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.” Is that statement proven to be false or true?
<br />
<br />
This brings us to another rule: <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2014/07/storytellers-rulebook-ending-should.html">the ending should tip towards one side of the thematic dilemma without resolving it entirely</a>. The central thematic dilemma in this movie is ambition vs. acceptance, and ultimately it tips towards acceptance, but that’s a hard choice.
<br />
<br />
Anti-ambition movies are few and far between. America worships ambition and our movies do the same. It’s hard not to root for Max’s wild schemes. It’s painful to watch him pour so much energy and optimism into things and then admit that his work is too ambitious and ultimately not very good. We want and expect to see those qualities rewarded.
<br />
<br />
And indeed the movie only barely tips towards acceptance. He accepts public school, and gives up on Miss Cross, and admits to everyone that his dad’s a barber, but he’s still making overly ambitious plays and collecting acolytes. So is that quote false or true? Max is not as extraordinary as he thought he was, but he’s certainly unique. How will his life change for better or for worse if he learns to keep that to himself, as least some of the time?
<br />
<br />
Most movies sell us the wish fulfillment message that there’s always something more waiting for us if we’re willing to be bigger and bolder. This is one of the few that raises the possibility that we may be happier and healthier if we learn to accept a life that’s smaller. It’s a painful realization, and that pain gives this movie its emotional punch.<div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The 40 Year Old Virgin<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Respect for women and need for sex remain equally important, self-sufficiency is not as good as co-dependent love.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Alien<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. this movie resolves its moral dilemma far more definitively than most movies: corporations are completely evil, quarantine is totally sacrosanct, self-preservation is entirely better than protecting new life-forms. Personal safety is entirely better than job loyalty. This is fine: horror movies are less ambiguous than most genres.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">An Education<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Responsibility is ultimately better than the glamour. (But given that everything turned out okay, you suspect that she doesn’t really have any regrets)<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Babadook<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Very much so. Grief must be nurtured but controlled. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blazing Saddles<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Solidarity is better than individualism, but Bart is still too discontent to be part of the community he created. Winning people over is better than standing up to them, but both must be combined. Anger is better than subservience, but must be controlled.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blue Velvet<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. Not really, we still can’t decide which is worse: naivete or cynicism. Jeffrey has decided to restore his life to a level of naive idealistic artifice, but it is merely a mask for his yawning chasm of dark cynicism, and we sense that he’s still utterly torn between these two unpleasant choices.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Bourne Identity<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. It tips fairly definitively: conscience is proven to be clearly better than duty. They could have attempted to make this more ambiguous by pointing to important missions that won’t get fulfilled due to Bourne’s crisis of conscience, but this is one case in which ambiguity would feel like the weaker choice: We see that the “vital CIA mission” Bourne was accomplishing was the execution of a deposed dictator and former CIA asset who was going to write a tell-all memoir. In this case, the need to show an irresolvable dilemma is trumped by the need to show the way the world works. We know that the CIA always claims that their dirty tricks are justified by their vital missions, and we also know that that always turns out to be bullshit. Indeed, the hapless reboot <i>The Bourne Legacy</i> does have a “but what about the vital missions?” scene, and it feels cheap and phony.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Bridesmaids<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It’s ultimately probably better to prioritize finding a romantic life partner over holding onto a long-distance friendship. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Casablanca<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. it comes down strongly on the side of country, but love is clearly more appealing. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Chinatown<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It is better to honor the past than shoddily and unjustly build the future. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Donnie Brasco<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Family loyalties are ultimately more important than work loyalties. He chooses to go back to being a cop, a husband, and a father, but he still feels like a gangster inside and he can’t forgive himself for getting Lefty killed. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Do the Right Thing<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It’s still split pretty much evenly at the end, as evidenced by the conflicting quotes from Martin and Malcolm<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Farewell<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Happy lie is seemingly better, but we’re not sure of that. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fighter<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Family and independence must be kept in balance.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Frozen<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Family is better than independence, but both are important. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fugitive<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. justice is better than law, but the solution is to forcibly bend the law back toward justice, rather than abandon law altogether.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Get Out<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. it tips definitively: Vigilance is entirely great, cooperation is fatally naive. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Groundhog Day<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. It’s pretty definitive. Phil concludes that acceptance of one’s circumstances is pretty much entirely better than personal ambition.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">How to Train Your Dragon<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Justice is ultimately more important than loyalty to family, but it’s an impossible choice so the two must be reconciled. The other dilemma is split: They’re able to make peace with most, but have to kill the one who won’t make peace. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">In a Lonely Place<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. self protection is better than sacrificing for love, but it’s a painful choice. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Iron Man<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Societal responsibility is clearly better, but Individual achievement is still pretty cool. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Lady Bird<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. She chooses ambition but realizes she also needs to accept that she should have been more loving towards her mom and her town.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Raising Arizona<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Settling for a meager legal life is better, though disappointing.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Rushmore<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Acceptance is better than ambition, but ambition still looks pretty great. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Selma<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Moderation works, this time, but we sense that DuVernay thinks other methods might have worked, too, and maybe we still have severe problems today because the movement was too moderate.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Shining<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. As in many horror movies, it tips overwhelmingly: Family is better than masculinity, mother is better than father, self-protection is better than loyalty to parents, moving on is better than making it work, trusting yourself is better than trusting your parents. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sideways<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It looks askance at both of our heroes’ philosophies (Jack’s boundless optimism vs. Miles’s clear-eyed cynicism), but refuses to privilege either one over the other. Ironically, each man achieves his own goal by reverting to type at the end and fails to influence the other one: Jack’s outrageous positive-thinking lies pays off for him, and Miles’s cynical honesty pays off for him.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Silence of the Lambs<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. It’s implied that it was probably worth it, (maybe it would have felt very different if we ended on Lecter killing an innocent family, for instance) <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Star Wars<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Spirituality is better than technology, but even more dangerous in the wrong hands. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 143.75pt;" valign="top" width="192"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sunset Boulevard<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 274.5pt;" valign="top" width="366"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. dignity is somewhat better than success. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table>
<div><br /></div></div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-29764699632504705972023-11-29T10:00:00.037-05:002023-11-29T10:00:00.151-05:00The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Are one or more objects representing larger ideas that grow in meaning each time they’re exchanged throughout the story?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi01zbU40WMgUUAjSXPWsFiknwAyrygQViOwadybxJ9CSeSZ2jxXMxf02SCPRa5fDdlaKrjmwTfLuks6vDwJd1Hu8L-v8hcagJLYPc_tGJGvmiLCvno_xN8b98VuQlIZ5eZOZrzS3UQNYZvJl24AbjUdfgKI_QKvPY7DKspKf6I9HORFxW1NAAR6A/s858/freeman_2107432a_2820038k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="858" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi01zbU40WMgUUAjSXPWsFiknwAyrygQViOwadybxJ9CSeSZ2jxXMxf02SCPRa5fDdlaKrjmwTfLuks6vDwJd1Hu8L-v8hcagJLYPc_tGJGvmiLCvno_xN8b98VuQlIZ5eZOZrzS3UQNYZvJl24AbjUdfgKI_QKvPY7DKspKf6I9HORFxW1NAAR6A/w400-h250/freeman_2107432a_2820038k.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>Independent filmmakers Ted Hope and James Schamus had a great list of “No-Budget Commandments” when they ran their own production company. One was “Invest meaning in everyday commonplace things—make an orange a totemic object John Ford would be proud of.” </div><br />You can’t rely on character interactions to reveal all the emotions. When characters talk with each other, they have three different factors influencing them:
<br /><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>their current mood </li><li>what they want the other characters to do </li><li>how they feel about the other characters deep down </li></ol>But when you establish their relationship to an object, they can express their true emotions, unfiltered by other baggage.
<br /><br />In <i>The Color of Money</i>, Paul Newman trains a naïve young pool phenomenon played by Tom Cruise. Together with Cruise’s shady girlfriend (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), they tool around the Northeast, hustling in dingy joints on their way to a big tournament in Atlantic City.
<br /><br />Sure enough, all of the characters have their own totem objects:
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>First, Newman gives Cruise a fancy pool cue, on the condition he never use it because it would ruin the hustle. It becomes the object of all of Cruise’s frustrations as he tries to learn the business. </li><li>Mastrantonio wears a necklace she stole from Cruise’s mother. She chuckles as she explains to Newman, “He says his mom had one just like it.” As they compete to see who will get to exploit Cruise’s talent, Newman keeps an eye on the necklace to remind himself of whom he’s dealing with. </li><li>Newman doesn’t get his totem object until the end of the second act. It’s what Joseph Campbell would call “the special weapon he finds in the cave.” Newman finally admits he needs prescription glasses and uses them to compete with his former protégé. </li></ul>Count how many glances and comments each one of these objects earns, and how they change meaning over the course of the movie—when they get taken out, put away, or change hands. The cagey characters can’t say what they feel, but their interactions with these objects reveal all.
<br /><br />As Ted Hope points out, this is the sort of thing that creates easy value. Too many stories can be summed up as “people stand around in rooms and talk,” but a story starts to come alive when the audience knows certain objects are fraught with meaning.
<br /><br />The acclaimed BBC series <i>Sherlock</i> updates the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories to modern day, with lots of texting and blogging added in, but show runner Stephen Moffat knows the art of adaptation is about more than technology. Even if his version had been set in 1887, Moffat is smart enough to know that some things must be changed simply because of the transition from prose to television.
<br /><br />The first episode adapts the novel that introduced Sherlock Holmes and his friend Watson: <i>A Study in Scarlet</i>. In the novel, our narrator, Watson, has survived a massacre in Afghanistan without injury, but he’s plagued by depression (which modern readers recognize as post-traumatic stress disorder, though it was still unnamed at the time). Because this is first-person prose, Watson can tell the reader about his depression in the text. As he recounts his adventure with Sherlock Holmes, he explains how it gradually helps him break free of his malaise. This is what first-person prose does best: It allows us to directly commune with the thoughts and feelings of a person as he is changed by an experience.
<br /><br />But television’s moving images are nowhere near as intimate as first-person prose. Sure, you can use a lot of narration or therapy scenes, but television is a visual medium, so the best way to convey a character’s psychology is through his physical interactions. But a condition like PTSD is problematic because no one can see it. How do you show it? You <i>externalize</i> it.
<br /><br />Moffat does this very simply: He manifests Watson’s PTSD as a psychosomatic limp. Watson walks with a cane, but as soon as he meets Holmes, Holmes instantly perceives he doesn’t really need it, which both offends and intrigues Watson. Sure enough, after Watson has gotten thoroughly engrossed in Holmes’s adventures, they find themselves caught up in a sudden chase. Only after the chase is over does Watson realize he’s left his crutch behind, literally and figuratively.
<br /><br />Let’s look at how nicely <i>Iron Man</i> showed the exchange of an object representing larger values: Tony’s heart device.
<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>He, too, is ambushed in Afghanistan, and his heart is injured when a bomb sold by his own company pierces the armor provided by the army. </li><li>Tony finds out the shrapnel is lodged in his chest, slowly making its way toward his heart, and can’t be removed. He can only hold it back with magnets. The man explaining this to Tony understands because he’s witnessed Tony’s bombs kill children in his village the same way. (Tony is being literally and figuratively stabbed in the heart.) </li><li>Tony and his new third-world friend devise a glowing device to keep his heart alive—and to fill a literal and figurative hole in his chest. </li><li>His friend dies and tells Tony not to waste what he’s given him: a heart. </li><li>Tony gets home and invents a sleeker device using his superior technology. He doesn’t trust doctors, so he gets his executive assistant, Pepper, to take out the old heart and put the new one in. She does so by reaching deep into his chest cavity and touching the heart. She asks about the old one, but he forcefully waves it away and says, “Destroy it. Incinerate it. I’ve been called many things, but never a sentimentalist.” Nevertheless, she takes it with her. </li><li>What do you get for the man who has everything? Pepper gives him back the device encased in glass, set in a metal ring that says “Proof that Tony Stark Has a Heart” (even if it is one he lost interest in). </li><li>Stane, Tony’s treacherous partner, builds his own armor, but he can’t figure out how to build the heart of it, in more ways than one. </li><li>So Stane ambushes Tony and rips the sleek new heart device out of his chest, leaving him to die. </li><li>Tony crawls down to his lab and busts the glass on Pepper’s gift at the last second. He gave his heart to the right person! </li><li>The final battle can be seen as Pepper’s heart versus Stane’s heart, or as the authentic, third-world heart versus the stolen, first-world heart. </li></ul>A lot of this sounds heavy-handed when I spell it out, but that’s the beauty of it. The movie doesn’t have to spell it out. We would reject these messages if we heard them, but we’re simply feeling them instead.
<br /><br />Think of all the dialogue this object’s exchange has replaced. Tony doesn’t have to discuss at length how he feels about his weapons killing innocents, his feelings for Pepper, her feelings for him, how it feels to be betrayed, etc. It allows Tony to remain the happy-go-lucky guy we want him to be, because we have this object to tell us a lot of the things he doesn’t want to say.
<div><br /></div><div><b>Rulebook Casefile: Exchange of an Object in The Shining</b></div><div><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-LUEKQ2bPW_O3g0TTfKq4v860QpnBz33xlxHbyo0uLjdnRdoyMlG1XCLd3iynHkmhtgfADbSwCOa_CUwhesF4XJ5-gBUEKTUewMHaLBCftQ-ixE5S4-NRoL54kF_I_nRLFfxwg/s1600/SHINING-HANNIBAL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-LUEKQ2bPW_O3g0TTfKq4v860QpnBz33xlxHbyo0uLjdnRdoyMlG1XCLd3iynHkmhtgfADbSwCOa_CUwhesF4XJ5-gBUEKTUewMHaLBCftQ-ixE5S4-NRoL54kF_I_nRLFfxwg/s1600/SHINING-HANNIBAL.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I’ve updated the Checklist road test for <i>The Shining</i> and you can check it out <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-ultimate-story-checklist-shining.html">here</a>. Now let’s look at one of the answers in more depth:
<br />
<br />
Let’s take a closer look at the scene we examined:
<br />
<br />
At the beginning of this sequence Jack is mildly surprised to find a huge party going on in the ballroom, and orders a drink from the bartender. The bartender serves him and then says that his money is no good there. Jack looks confused, but doesn’t this make sense? Isn’t he the caretaker, and should therefore drink for free? You can see a moment of confusion flit across Jack’s face: he’s not sure what role he’s playing in this little fantasy scenario. At first, Jack says, “I’m the kind of man who wants to know who’s buying his drinks,” The is the first time that he’s shown some interest in probing the ghosts for some time, but he quickly loses interest <br />
<br />
This sets up the next beat, when Jack takes his drink and tries to join the party, only to have a waiter accidentally spill an Advocaat cocktail on him, and insist that they go to the bathroom to take care of it. In the bathroom, Jack realizes that waiter is actually Dexter Grady, the former winter caretaker who chopped up his wife and daughters with an ax. Jack asks Grady about his family, and Grady says yes, his family is there with him. So Jack asks, “Where are they now?” Grady responds, “Oh, they’re somewhere around, I’m not quite sure at this moment,” while dabbing at Jack’s jacket.
<br />
<br />
Suddenly, Jack grabs the towel away and says, “Mr. Grady, you were the caretaker here. You chopped them up to bits, and then you blew your brains out.” Grady only smiles mildly and says, “I’m sorry to differ with you sir, but you are the caretaker, you’ve always been the caretaker. I should know sir, I’ve always been here.” Someone, after all, has to remove a lot of stains in this place.
<br />
<br />
This is a classic example of a <a href="http://cockeyedcaravan.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-build-scene-part-4-push-and-pull.html">seemingly-innocuous exchange of an object</a> that actually encapsulates the meaning of the scene. Jack thinks he’ll get a rise out of Grady by grabbing the towel away, but Grady only smiles: the towel has been passed on to his successor, in every sense.<div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The 40 Year Old Virgin<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Just a little bit: the action figures, the box of porn, though I don’t know if they grow in meaning<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Alien<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. Not really. The “mother” computer “changes hands”, I guess, but it can’t actually be placed from hand to hand.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">An Education<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The C.S. Lewis book, the map, the engagement ring, the letters, etc. The cello represents the burden of her education, David’s able to admire it and offer his car to it when he meets Jenny, making him seem less lecherous, etc.)<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Babadook<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The book, the crossbow, the suits, the photos, the phone, many others.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blazing Saddles<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. Not really.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Blue Velvet<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. the ears, the strip of blue velvet, the party hat, etc.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Bourne Identity<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sort of. The laser projector under his skin, the passports, the guns.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Bridesmaids<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Bill Cosby’s card, the baked goods, the shower gifts, the nice dress. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Casablanca<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. the letters of transit, the song (if that counts)<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Chinatown<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The reading glasses, the property ledger sheet, the watch, the obituary column. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Donnie Brasco<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. the greeting card, the surveillance photos, the boat, the tape recorder and the tapes, the oranges, the article about the boat.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Do the Right Thing<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The bat, the boom box, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Farewell<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. When she chooses to join the lie, it’s in the form of an object she has to forge with difficulty. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fighter<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Charlene’s number on a bar napkin. The “pride of Lowell” cake. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Frozen<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. Interestingly, not really. There is no amulet reprsenting the powers, for instance, and no wilting flower representing the out-of-control cold. The closest thing is Anna’s hair, but that doesn’t really count. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Fugitive<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The ID changes hands from the janitor to Kimble to Gerard, who rips off Kimble’s face to find the janitor underneath, which subtly calls back to Kimble saying that when he wears a tux he’ll look like a waiter.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Get Out<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The teacup, the cell phone, the items in the rec room. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Groundhog Day<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Just slight: the pencil, the clock, the groundhog in one scene. The note he gives her about what Larry is going to say.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">How to Train Your Dragon<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The mom’s helmet, the prosthesis, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">In a Lonely Place<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">NO. not really. The book, maybe. Briefly with the grapefruit knife, and the phone.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Iron Man<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The exchange of the heart devices tell the whole story.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Lady Bird<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Maybe the cast? The math grade book. First Kyle’s reading “The People’s History of the United States” then she’s reading it. Writing boys’ names on her wall then painting over it. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Raising Arizona<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The Dr. Spock book, the baby himself, the guns.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Rushmore<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Max’s medals, the swiss army knife, the fish, the bent bike, etc.<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Selma<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. Well, the tape is exchanged, but just once. Words are passed along: “We shall overcome”<span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Shining<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. the ball, the bat, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sideways<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The bottle of wine, the condoms, etc. Yes, the manuscript, the wine bottle, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">The Silence of the Lambs<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. The death’s head moth, the dog, the pen, the survey, the drawings, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Star Wars<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Somewhat. The plans of the Death Star, the lightsabers.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color: #d9e2f3; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 148.25pt;" valign="top" width="198"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Sunset Boulevard<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td style="background-color: #deeaf6; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 265.5pt;" valign="top" width="354"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">YES. his car, her car, her manuscript, the pool, the gun, the spotlights.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table> <div><br /></div></div>Matt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.com0