A Novel is a book in most people’s minds. Saying “I wrote a novel,” and “I wrote a book” are synonymous with most of the population. Thus, saying “I wrote a novella” indulges in jargon, and jargon always sounds mildly pretentious to those outside of the group that invented it. Also, it sounds like “lesser… Read More What Even is a Novel?
Unless the story is already told… Holt McCallany makes a strong point: most TV is writer/producer-driven. You gotta grind out the script, then grind out the shoot. Rehearsal is a minimum and re-shoots are not a thing. How then, to square this with my disappointment with the new season, which felt exactly like a selection… Read More TV is Contrary to Good Storytelling
Especially when you’ve never done it. And really, everything you do is something you’ve never done. We feel that days are the same, but they aren’t. Monotony is a frame of mind, a passivity to pattern. So when you say, “I’ll do this by time X” you’re expressing a wish or an intent. The important… Read More Everything Takes Longer Than You Think
They’re gonna do a Fourth Matrix movie. I predict it sucks so hard, it makes Revolutions look good. Now that’s an easy prediction to make, because if I’m wrong, I’ll have something mildly decent to watch whenever it shows upon Amazon Prime. But odd are I’m right, because… No one cares about this series. It’s just… Read More The Flop Sweat is Real: Hollywood’s Death March Continues
Woody Allen’s ‘A Rainy Day in New York’ to Open Deauville Film Festival https://variety.com/2019/film/global/woody-allens-a-rainy-day-in-new-york-deauville-film-festival-1203309106/ — Read on variety.com/2019/film/global/woody-allens-a-rainy-day-in-new-york-deauville-film-festival-1203309106/ I’ve tried to like Woody Allen movies, but I can’t, because they usually involve having to like Woody Allen. And I have never managed to pull that off. Woody Allen is what happens when someone takes Mel… Read More Woody Allen is Still Making Movies
TV tropes are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they exist because they work: they create a kind of structural shorthand that writers can use to keep producing content reliably. On the other hand, used at the wrong time, or in the wrong show, they can smother any unique voices or angles. I believe… Read More Quick Review: Mindhunter Season 2
Mud. Music. Bad acid. The blueprint for every Grateful Dead Phish tour ever? The dress rehearsal to Alatamont? A bunch of histrionic nonsense that doesn’t merit our attention? The birth cry of our post-modern Return of the Primitive? Or maybe it was just a thing that happened, and meant something to someone, and got pictures taken… Read More Woodstock is a Bird
Quentin Tarantino has a new movie out, which has the Tate-LaBianca killings in its backdrop, and I both do and don’t want to see it. I want to see it because I’m a fan of Tarantino’s work and have been since I first saw Pulp Fiction as a college freshman. Then as now, no one makes… Read More Thoughts on Charles Manson
There’s doubtless a more-approved critical term for this phenomenon, but I only took one lit-crit class in college, and also I don’t care. This is my term, and I’m finding it all over Play It As It Lays, which I’ve mentioned before I’m reading. Observe: In the care she counted the stiff bills. They stuck together… Read More The Disassociated Protagonist
There’s apparently a trailer, or a teaser, or whatever, for the new Amazon series, but I’ll be damned if I can find it. The important fact is, Amazon doesn’t get to hose this the way everyone expects they will. Amazon has a relatively free hand when it comes to adding something, since, as I said,… Read More The Tolkien Estate Gets to Veto Amazon
Content Blues 