Shmart Babiesh
Mar. 30th, 2005 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustOkay: Chapter One is now entirely done. This brings me to the problems of Chapter Two, which will be an interstitial narrated by someone we won’t get introduced to for quite some time, someone inhuman and (hopefully) offputting. On the one hand, it’ll incoporate a whole bunch of stuff I’ve already written—things which were previously meant to be part of the book’s prologue, when it still had one; on the other, I need to figure out how much of said stuff I want to keep, how much I want to toss or save ‘till later, and how it should be reshaped to fit the book as it’s begun to develop. Plus there’ll be entirely new passages, because there always are.
So because of those inherent difficulties, I’m going to put recording a word-count off until I close out Chapter Two entirely, because to do otherwise sort of seems like cheating. I will, however, say that the manuscript is now roughly 41 pages long, with an overall word-count of 8,876—I do that four more times, and I’ll be pushing "Pen Umbra" territory. Not to mention how if I do that ten or twelve more times after that, I think the whole book will probably be done. Go, me.;)
In other news, Cal is a bit better today, but only a bit. He’s still squirming and creeping, tripping and screaming, puking and weeping bitterly over his inability to crawl as fast, far or expertly as he’d like to. This afternoon, while checking my ‘mail, I was amazed at how quickly he was able to pull himself off the blanket and reach the bedroom door, grinning at med the whole way. Then, naturally, he slipped and went headfirst into the door-frame, prompting a tantrum which could only be soothed by judicious application of bottle(s).
"He’s a very horky bobo," I told Steve, when he got home. Then added: "Hey, that sort of sounds like a minor Star Wars character, doesn’t it? ‘Horky Bobo, pirate king of Bespin!’"
Naturally, after The Incredibles, I’m also now playing Mozart, for all that Cal’s already asleep. Because even if they’re not awake to hear it, shtudiesh show that playing Mozart makes babiesh shmarter!
And here’s yet another list, while I’m thinking of it—the beginning of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
renka54's movie meme, gakked from dargie, which I’m going to do in parts, so I can explain why I chose what I chose in the sort of nutty detail I so love. Which goes li’l something like this:
5 Movies I Love That Everyone Else Hates
Gangs of New York
It’s too long, too violent, too racist, not racist enough; the hero is ambiguous and passive, the villain charismatic and active; check out those weird hats (the hats are whack!). I’ve heard it all, and I continue to cheerfully not give a damn: This is three hours of pure pleasure. I saw it thirteen times in the theatre, and even my faithful Steve—who was there for twelve of those screenings—tends to fall asleep during the election sequence. But not me.;)
From Dusk Till Dawn
Once of the few pleasures of my tenure as a professional film critic (aside from plundering it for background details in Chapter One of Blood From The Air) was getting to debate this film’s relative merits and drawbacks with Roger Ebert, while we sat waiting for a Toronto Film Festival Screening. Briefly, my argument goes like this: It is not two separate movies, but one movie which switches genre in the middle; all the characters then react to this genre shift in ways which are utterly consistent with their behavior and characterization in Part One, so what’s your fucking problem; if you don’t like vampires/Mexican titty bars/demented bikers and Vietnam vets (yet, for some insane reason, like all the stuff that happens in Part One), you have a perfect demarcation point built right in; shut the hell up, Roger.
The Village (Signs, Unbreakable)
Or, as I like to say, "the later films of M. Night Shyamalan". All three suffer, in varying degrees, from the ever-more-virulent backlash against The Sixth Sense’s unprecedented success…people now think they know Night’s method, his pattern, and rejoice so much in being able to spot "the twist" coming from a mile away, they basically ignore everything else that goes into the mix. But The Sixth Sense didn’t make $200 million just on twists: It worked because it had great performances, wonderful framing, a beautiful score, cinematography perfectly keyed to the strictures of the story, plus classic characterization—people you believed in and cared for, whose undeniably air of detailed "reality" made the more surreal elements of the narrative acceptable. And so have all the rest of these. I’m particularly disgusted by the hatred shown The Village, which seems to have been shit on from a height just because audiences felt misled by its advertising campaign. "I thought I was getting lobster, and you gave me steak instead—I’m suing you, you nasty Hindu Hitchcock!" Jesus Christ, grow fucking up.
The Blair Witch Project
Again, pretty much a case of "don’t—don’t—don’t believe the HYPE", crossbred with "These people swear too much! Heather’s a bitch! That shaky-cam is giving me a headache! It’s a glorified campfire story, and I want my two hours back!" Fine, have ‘em, you Philistines; all the more for me. For its stark simplicity and lacuna-like grandeur, this fill-in-the-blanks pseudo-documentary flip-book of fear will always have my vote. The knobs who decry the fact that it made $100 million remind me strikingly of those morons who came out of Session 9 saying (loudly): "That was the most boring movie I ever saw in my life!", causing me to wonder…so how many HAVE you seen, exactly? ‘Cause I’ve seen upwards of 4,000, and I know you’re wrong.
Ravenous
No one knew how to take this one—is it supposed to be funny? Scary? Both? (You’re getting warmer.) I find Ravenous all three, with side-orders of Grand Guignol grotesque, tragic, and truly beautiful to watch; it’s pretty damn slashy, too. For those who like that sort of thing.;))
And now I’m going back to Chapter Two, before the boyo hits his 2:00 A.M. shriek-point. Wish me luck.
So because of those inherent difficulties, I’m going to put recording a word-count off until I close out Chapter Two entirely, because to do otherwise sort of seems like cheating. I will, however, say that the manuscript is now roughly 41 pages long, with an overall word-count of 8,876—I do that four more times, and I’ll be pushing "Pen Umbra" territory. Not to mention how if I do that ten or twelve more times after that, I think the whole book will probably be done. Go, me.;)
In other news, Cal is a bit better today, but only a bit. He’s still squirming and creeping, tripping and screaming, puking and weeping bitterly over his inability to crawl as fast, far or expertly as he’d like to. This afternoon, while checking my ‘mail, I was amazed at how quickly he was able to pull himself off the blanket and reach the bedroom door, grinning at med the whole way. Then, naturally, he slipped and went headfirst into the door-frame, prompting a tantrum which could only be soothed by judicious application of bottle(s).
"He’s a very horky bobo," I told Steve, when he got home. Then added: "Hey, that sort of sounds like a minor Star Wars character, doesn’t it? ‘Horky Bobo, pirate king of Bespin!’"
Naturally, after The Incredibles, I’m also now playing Mozart, for all that Cal’s already asleep. Because even if they’re not awake to hear it, shtudiesh show that playing Mozart makes babiesh shmarter!
And here’s yet another list, while I’m thinking of it—the beginning of
renka54's movie meme, gakked from dargie, which I’m going to do in parts, so I can explain why I chose what I chose in the sort of nutty detail I so love. Which goes li’l something like this:5 Movies I Love That Everyone Else Hates
Gangs of New York
It’s too long, too violent, too racist, not racist enough; the hero is ambiguous and passive, the villain charismatic and active; check out those weird hats (the hats are whack!). I’ve heard it all, and I continue to cheerfully not give a damn: This is three hours of pure pleasure. I saw it thirteen times in the theatre, and even my faithful Steve—who was there for twelve of those screenings—tends to fall asleep during the election sequence. But not me.;)
From Dusk Till Dawn
Once of the few pleasures of my tenure as a professional film critic (aside from plundering it for background details in Chapter One of Blood From The Air) was getting to debate this film’s relative merits and drawbacks with Roger Ebert, while we sat waiting for a Toronto Film Festival Screening. Briefly, my argument goes like this: It is not two separate movies, but one movie which switches genre in the middle; all the characters then react to this genre shift in ways which are utterly consistent with their behavior and characterization in Part One, so what’s your fucking problem; if you don’t like vampires/Mexican titty bars/demented bikers and Vietnam vets (yet, for some insane reason, like all the stuff that happens in Part One), you have a perfect demarcation point built right in; shut the hell up, Roger.
The Village (Signs, Unbreakable)
Or, as I like to say, "the later films of M. Night Shyamalan". All three suffer, in varying degrees, from the ever-more-virulent backlash against The Sixth Sense’s unprecedented success…people now think they know Night’s method, his pattern, and rejoice so much in being able to spot "the twist" coming from a mile away, they basically ignore everything else that goes into the mix. But The Sixth Sense didn’t make $200 million just on twists: It worked because it had great performances, wonderful framing, a beautiful score, cinematography perfectly keyed to the strictures of the story, plus classic characterization—people you believed in and cared for, whose undeniably air of detailed "reality" made the more surreal elements of the narrative acceptable. And so have all the rest of these. I’m particularly disgusted by the hatred shown The Village, which seems to have been shit on from a height just because audiences felt misled by its advertising campaign. "I thought I was getting lobster, and you gave me steak instead—I’m suing you, you nasty Hindu Hitchcock!" Jesus Christ, grow fucking up.
The Blair Witch Project
Again, pretty much a case of "don’t—don’t—don’t believe the HYPE", crossbred with "These people swear too much! Heather’s a bitch! That shaky-cam is giving me a headache! It’s a glorified campfire story, and I want my two hours back!" Fine, have ‘em, you Philistines; all the more for me. For its stark simplicity and lacuna-like grandeur, this fill-in-the-blanks pseudo-documentary flip-book of fear will always have my vote. The knobs who decry the fact that it made $100 million remind me strikingly of those morons who came out of Session 9 saying (loudly): "That was the most boring movie I ever saw in my life!", causing me to wonder…so how many HAVE you seen, exactly? ‘Cause I’ve seen upwards of 4,000, and I know you’re wrong.
Ravenous
No one knew how to take this one—is it supposed to be funny? Scary? Both? (You’re getting warmer.) I find Ravenous all three, with side-orders of Grand Guignol grotesque, tragic, and truly beautiful to watch; it’s pretty damn slashy, too. For those who like that sort of thing.;))
And now I’m going back to Chapter Two, before the boyo hits his 2:00 A.M. shriek-point. Wish me luck.
