First, a VERY kindly write-up that talks about what I’m doing with Ethiopia Reads:
Now, here's the interesting thing about MERCY - it's really a story about a mother (named Georgina Fulci - this book is fun) who will do anything to be reunited with her young adopted daughter (Mercy) and husband (Rob). The plane crash and zombies are the obstacles. So it's a story with lots of heart.
Second, my very first two-start review:
The main reason I struggled with this book was the timeline. The first fifty pages especially needed a more linear layout. (…) I get that at the beginning of most chapters she’s flashing back, but then the tense would switch and leave me confused. I honestly read the first fifty pages multiple times due to timeline confusion, and I never recovered from it to enjoy the rest of the novel.
Why link to a bad review? Well, because I don’t think it’s a bad review. The reader got confused. So far, this is the only review I’ve gotten that says as much. I find it interesting. And hey! They still reviewed it…
Thursday, June 30, 2011
My Favorite Movies: 1 – Edward Scissorhands
There are certain things in life that just hit you at the perfect time, in the perfect place.
That was Edward Scissorhands.
It’s an old story. Awkward kid, dealing with all the emotions and new and exciting pressures and experiences that come with puberty and high school.
Honestly, most people go through an awkward phase. It’s part of life. As a teen, it’s hard to see, but as an adult you find yourself looking at the kids in your life, and you want to tell them, “You are loved, and handsome/pretty, and you’ve got a brain in your head, and this will all suck and then it will be okay.”
But that’s a hard thing to say to a kid, and most of the time, you suspect that they won’t really hear you.
Sometimes, though? They can hear it in other places.
I heard that, to some extent, in Edward.
Here’s a guy with no parents. No understanding of the social structure of the world. He ends up living in a house with a beautiful girl, but lacks the words to tell her how he feels about her.
He just wants to make people happy, but doesn’t really understand how.
Things go well for him, and he smiles.
Things go poorly, and he lashes out.
If you’re a human, you probably went through this.
From all this, I learned:
FIND NEW WAYS TO TALK ABOUT UNIVERSAL HUMAN EXPERIENCES
There’s another lesson in Edward Scissorhands, though I think most people forget about it today.
It’s this: Tim Burton, before making Edward, made a movie called Batman. It made lots, and lots and lots of money.
And that’s why Tim got to go on and make Edward.
(Christopher Nolan did the same thing, years later, with Batman, and Inception.)
Lesson?
MAKE A BATMAN MOVIE
No, wait. Sorry.
BE WILLING TO DO THE BIG COMMERCIAL MOVIE, AND THEY’LL LET YOU MAKE YOUR ORIGINAL IDEA
Which is to say, there’s nothing wrong with what so many people call “Selling out.” Take the gig. Get the clout. Then come back and create something small and personal, if that’s what you “really” want to do.
There are probably other ideas I’ve taken away from Edward over the years. It makes sense, since I’ve seen it 19 times.
(Yes, I really did start counting. It’s also one of three movies I saw in theaters twice.)
As I finish writing up why I love my five (well, six) favorite movies, I’ve noticed a bit of a theme.
Most of the movies don’t have happy endings.
Evil Dead? Sad (well, unhappy, anyway) ending.
Dawn of the Dead? Ambiguous, trending towards bad.
When Harry Met Sally? Happy! The only one, though. And the flick is shot through with misery.
Trust? Ambiguous, trending towards sad.
Student Bodies? Unhappy ending.
And Edward Scissorhands?
The movie that kind of taught me that everything was going to be okay? That really, I would come out of things okay?
Sad ending. An ending that says we’ll walk out of terrifying situations remembering the good, and that might be the only happiness we ever get.
In the end (and skip this, if you’ve never seen the movie) Edward doesn’t learn to get along with the world, and he doesn’t get the girl.
Instead, he spends the rest of his life, locked away in a remote tower, remembering the girl he loves as she once was.
That’s a pretty solid summation of life, right there. Sometimes, all you’ve got are the memories.
And yeah, life can be sad, and ambiguous. And sometimes you do get lucky and meet the girl of your dreams.
So maybe there’s a final idea in there:
TELL THE TRUTH
Good luck.
That was Edward Scissorhands.
It’s an old story. Awkward kid, dealing with all the emotions and new and exciting pressures and experiences that come with puberty and high school.
Honestly, most people go through an awkward phase. It’s part of life. As a teen, it’s hard to see, but as an adult you find yourself looking at the kids in your life, and you want to tell them, “You are loved, and handsome/pretty, and you’ve got a brain in your head, and this will all suck and then it will be okay.”
But that’s a hard thing to say to a kid, and most of the time, you suspect that they won’t really hear you.
Sometimes, though? They can hear it in other places.
I heard that, to some extent, in Edward.
Here’s a guy with no parents. No understanding of the social structure of the world. He ends up living in a house with a beautiful girl, but lacks the words to tell her how he feels about her.
He just wants to make people happy, but doesn’t really understand how.
Things go well for him, and he smiles.
Things go poorly, and he lashes out.
If you’re a human, you probably went through this.
From all this, I learned:
FIND NEW WAYS TO TALK ABOUT UNIVERSAL HUMAN EXPERIENCES
There’s another lesson in Edward Scissorhands, though I think most people forget about it today.
It’s this: Tim Burton, before making Edward, made a movie called Batman. It made lots, and lots and lots of money.
And that’s why Tim got to go on and make Edward.
(Christopher Nolan did the same thing, years later, with Batman, and Inception.)
Lesson?
MAKE A BATMAN MOVIE
No, wait. Sorry.
BE WILLING TO DO THE BIG COMMERCIAL MOVIE, AND THEY’LL LET YOU MAKE YOUR ORIGINAL IDEA
Which is to say, there’s nothing wrong with what so many people call “Selling out.” Take the gig. Get the clout. Then come back and create something small and personal, if that’s what you “really” want to do.
There are probably other ideas I’ve taken away from Edward over the years. It makes sense, since I’ve seen it 19 times.
(Yes, I really did start counting. It’s also one of three movies I saw in theaters twice.)
As I finish writing up why I love my five (well, six) favorite movies, I’ve noticed a bit of a theme.
Most of the movies don’t have happy endings.
Evil Dead? Sad (well, unhappy, anyway) ending.
Dawn of the Dead? Ambiguous, trending towards bad.
When Harry Met Sally? Happy! The only one, though. And the flick is shot through with misery.
Trust? Ambiguous, trending towards sad.
Student Bodies? Unhappy ending.
And Edward Scissorhands?
The movie that kind of taught me that everything was going to be okay? That really, I would come out of things okay?
Sad ending. An ending that says we’ll walk out of terrifying situations remembering the good, and that might be the only happiness we ever get.
In the end (and skip this, if you’ve never seen the movie) Edward doesn’t learn to get along with the world, and he doesn’t get the girl.
Instead, he spends the rest of his life, locked away in a remote tower, remembering the girl he loves as she once was.
That’s a pretty solid summation of life, right there. Sometimes, all you’ve got are the memories.
And yeah, life can be sad, and ambiguous. And sometimes you do get lucky and meet the girl of your dreams.
So maybe there’s a final idea in there:
TELL THE TRUTH
Good luck.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
My Favorite Movies: BONUS – Student Bodies
I’ve spent years trying to explain Student Bodies to people.
For a long time, it was pretty tough. I’d bring up the name, and people would go, “Is that a…” and they’d look around, trying not to talk too loudly.
And I’d go, “No, it’s a kind of spoof comedy. Of horror movies.”
Then came Scary Movie, and people would say, “Like Scary Movie?”
And I’d go, “No, because Student Bodies is actually funny, stars no one famous, and is mostly forgotten.”
To my surprise, the last few years have been kind to Student Bodies. At one point, it was pretty much impossible to find. Barely released in 1981 in theaters, one of the producers took an alias as their credit rather than own up to producing it, last released on video in 1987.
Impossible to find to rent. Most of the time.
But here, again, was a flick that was sort of a USA Up All Night staple. It wasn’t the 10 PM movie, though. Or the midnight movie. It was the 2 AM movie, just like The Evil Dead.
When EBay became a thing and I wasn’t living a totally broke life, I actually bought an unused copy of Student Bodies for 15 bucks. This was after DVD had arrived, but before everyone started tossing their videotapes into the trash and re-buying their favorite movie on shiny discs.
I sort of figured I was would never own a copy of Student Bodies on DVD.
Then it came out. In 2008. Crazy.
I bought it for my birthday, and sat down to see it in widescreen with actual audio mastering. I could hear the words! Words I never knew before!
I quite literally planned to watch 5 minutes. Then 10. Then the credits were running, and I went upstairs and went to bed.
It was a beautiful thing.
So what’s it about?
Tricky to say. It’s about a girl named Toby who plans on keeping her (ahem) innocence, and encourages her friends to do the same.
They don’t, and because this is a horror movie, they end up dead.
And that’s it.
There are no direct spoofs of scenes from other movies. There are no stars, though I just learned that the old woman in the movie apparently had along career on stage and screen. Which is strange, because she looked REAL old in 1981, and kept working until 2005. There’s even a documentary about her.
So what makes the movie great?
Probably just one thing:
IT’S QUOTABLE
Seriously. That’s it. The movie looks terrible, even after re-mastering. The sound is sketchy in spots.
The acting… well, there’s a reason most of these people never worked again.
Most of the cast isn’t even terribly attractive, which was usually how you sold el-cheapo movies like this to cable.
The movie kind of makes fun of this – there is no graphic person-on-person action. Most of the violence is implied. No one removes all their clothing.
To get an R rating, they literally have to pause the whole movie and let a guy drop an F-bomb.
And much of the slapstick is… a little too slappy. Too obvious, and often too overdone.
But the dialogue!
Where did you learn to speak English? A zoo?
Ms. Van Dyke: What makes your voice sound so funny?
The Breather: I'm disguising it.
Ms. Van Dyke: How?
The Breather: By talking through a rubber chicken.
Ms. Van Dyke: I thought it sounded like you were speaking through a rubber chicken.
Toby: Who could have done these murders?
Hardy: I don't know. It could have been anybody.
Toby: Well, it can't be ANYbody. It's gotta be somebody.
Hardy: Of course it's somebody, but that somebody could be anybody.
Toby: Well, look, we didn't do it, right?
Hardy: Right.
Toby: So you can't say it could be anybody. WE'RE anybody.
Hardy: True, but we're also somebody.
The Breather: [on the phone] I'm gonna kill next at the football game. Click.
Ms. Van Dyke: Did you hang up?
The Breather: No, I just said "click".
(Confession: I use the zoo line on people ALL THE TIME.)
If there’s another lesson to take away from this movie, I don’t know what it is. This flick was long-lost and forgotten, except by a chosen few, which was enough to get it released on DVD.
And then, so help me, on Blu-Ray.
The movie? On Blu? Looks awful. If they spent any time re-mastering it, it doesn’t show.
But the flick is so much fun, and even history couldn’t kill it.
So maybe that’s the lesson, here:
EVEN IF YOUR MOVIE DOESN’T FIND LOVE RIGHT AWAY – IT STILL CAN, EVEN IF IT TAKES THREE DECADES
So write a movie worth discovering three decades later.
For a long time, it was pretty tough. I’d bring up the name, and people would go, “Is that a…” and they’d look around, trying not to talk too loudly.
And I’d go, “No, it’s a kind of spoof comedy. Of horror movies.”
Then came Scary Movie, and people would say, “Like Scary Movie?”
And I’d go, “No, because Student Bodies is actually funny, stars no one famous, and is mostly forgotten.”
To my surprise, the last few years have been kind to Student Bodies. At one point, it was pretty much impossible to find. Barely released in 1981 in theaters, one of the producers took an alias as their credit rather than own up to producing it, last released on video in 1987.
Impossible to find to rent. Most of the time.
But here, again, was a flick that was sort of a USA Up All Night staple. It wasn’t the 10 PM movie, though. Or the midnight movie. It was the 2 AM movie, just like The Evil Dead.
When EBay became a thing and I wasn’t living a totally broke life, I actually bought an unused copy of Student Bodies for 15 bucks. This was after DVD had arrived, but before everyone started tossing their videotapes into the trash and re-buying their favorite movie on shiny discs.
I sort of figured I was would never own a copy of Student Bodies on DVD.
Then it came out. In 2008. Crazy.
I bought it for my birthday, and sat down to see it in widescreen with actual audio mastering. I could hear the words! Words I never knew before!
I quite literally planned to watch 5 minutes. Then 10. Then the credits were running, and I went upstairs and went to bed.
It was a beautiful thing.
So what’s it about?
Tricky to say. It’s about a girl named Toby who plans on keeping her (ahem) innocence, and encourages her friends to do the same.
They don’t, and because this is a horror movie, they end up dead.
And that’s it.
There are no direct spoofs of scenes from other movies. There are no stars, though I just learned that the old woman in the movie apparently had along career on stage and screen. Which is strange, because she looked REAL old in 1981, and kept working until 2005. There’s even a documentary about her.
So what makes the movie great?
Probably just one thing:
IT’S QUOTABLE
Seriously. That’s it. The movie looks terrible, even after re-mastering. The sound is sketchy in spots.
The acting… well, there’s a reason most of these people never worked again.
Most of the cast isn’t even terribly attractive, which was usually how you sold el-cheapo movies like this to cable.
The movie kind of makes fun of this – there is no graphic person-on-person action. Most of the violence is implied. No one removes all their clothing.
To get an R rating, they literally have to pause the whole movie and let a guy drop an F-bomb.
And much of the slapstick is… a little too slappy. Too obvious, and often too overdone.
But the dialogue!
Where did you learn to speak English? A zoo?
Ms. Van Dyke: What makes your voice sound so funny?
The Breather: I'm disguising it.
Ms. Van Dyke: How?
The Breather: By talking through a rubber chicken.
Ms. Van Dyke: I thought it sounded like you were speaking through a rubber chicken.
Toby: Who could have done these murders?
Hardy: I don't know. It could have been anybody.
Toby: Well, it can't be ANYbody. It's gotta be somebody.
Hardy: Of course it's somebody, but that somebody could be anybody.
Toby: Well, look, we didn't do it, right?
Hardy: Right.
Toby: So you can't say it could be anybody. WE'RE anybody.
Hardy: True, but we're also somebody.
The Breather: [on the phone] I'm gonna kill next at the football game. Click.
Ms. Van Dyke: Did you hang up?
The Breather: No, I just said "click".
(Confession: I use the zoo line on people ALL THE TIME.)
If there’s another lesson to take away from this movie, I don’t know what it is. This flick was long-lost and forgotten, except by a chosen few, which was enough to get it released on DVD.
And then, so help me, on Blu-Ray.
The movie? On Blu? Looks awful. If they spent any time re-mastering it, it doesn’t show.
But the flick is so much fun, and even history couldn’t kill it.
So maybe that’s the lesson, here:
EVEN IF YOUR MOVIE DOESN’T FIND LOVE RIGHT AWAY – IT STILL CAN, EVEN IF IT TAKES THREE DECADES
So write a movie worth discovering three decades later.
My Favorite Movies: 2 - Trust
I once knew a guy who told me that two of his favorite movie-watching experiences were achieved by going into the video store, renting something with an interesting box, and walking back out.
I forget what the two movies were – or rather, I can’t recall one of them. The one I remember was The Boondock Saints, a movie with a cult so big it’s resulted in a documentary about the director, and a direct-to-video sequel, even thought the flick was a flop at first.
It was also hard to find. When it was first released, it was a Blockbuster exclusive. That was the only place you could rent it.
There’s something a little magical about the movie that’s hard to lay your hands on, but it’s a sword that cuts both ways. If the movie is so-so, your desperate search to find it can turn you against it.
But if the flick is good, you will pretty much oversell it to everyone.
Such is, I fear, the case with Trust, a movie I rank as my number-two favorite.
At this point in my life, I think it’s been more than a decade since I’ve seen it. And my last viewing of the film was so poorly reviewed by the person I shared it with, that to this day I’m a little afraid to go back and watch it again.
The thing of it is, the movie isn’t available in the United States any more. It was released on video, but the music wasn’t cleared for DVD (because, hey, who knew?) and so it hasn’t been released, and probably won’t be.
I only saw it because my local college had a movie channel, which was run by… I dunno. Someone who had a thing for teeny-tiny movies few people had heard of.
I bumped into Trust in the listings on my TV set one night, and I sat around for a few minutes just to see what it was. Action? Drama?
It came on, and I sat there, captivated. I found out when it was playing, and I taped it the next time it showed.
Then I kept on showing it to friends. And they all liked it. Except for that last friend…
What’s the movie about?
Well... A cheerleader gets pregnant, and her boyfriend wants nothing to do with the baby. At the start of the movie, she tells her parents she’s pregnant, her father says some very unkind word, and she slaps him and walks out.
Then he dies of a heart attack.
Then we meet our other protagonist, a slightly older guy, living with his dad. Only his dad is just a mean, mean, mean dude. Which rolls down to the son, who starts the movie by quitting his job and putting his boss’s head in a vice.
Both of them attempt to get away from their situations, and then they run into each other.
What happens next? They kind of, sort of, fall into a relationship. Only he has anger issues and she’s not out of high school, and neither of them even know how to be in a relationship. Or how to hold a job. Or are ready to be responsible adults.
I won’t tell you how it ends, but there’s a grenade involved.
Trying to describe why I love this movie leaves me a little stuck, frankly. Brilliant acting?
Eh.
The writing?
Eh.
The directing?
Eh.
Here’s the issue: The movie looks, and looks often, like a stage play. The directing is rarely dynamic. The actors frequently seem to get only one or two takes, and they work so hard to get the words out just right that it feels like ACTING, instead of acting.
And then there are those words. Lovely, some of them, but they feel WRITTEN.
These are not real people talking to real people, which is what you hope for. These are ACTORS on a STAGE delivering LINES.
But some of those lines:
Maria: Can you stop watching TV for a minute?
Matthew: No.
Maria: Why?
Matthew: Because. I had a bad day at work. I had to subvert my principles and kow-tow to an idiot. Television makes these daily sacrifices possible. Deadens the inner core of my being.
And from the same scene:
Maria: Your job is making you boring and mean.
Matthew: My job is making me a respectable member of society.
Now, removed from context, I don’t know if those lines feel as beautiful as they are when spoken aloud. At that point, the boy has tried to subvert everything he is to become a husband and father.
You can feel that he just wants a family. A real family, with someone to look after. (Though he doesn’t yet realize he needs someone to watch over him, as well…)
But he can’t do it, and it’s breaking him.
This is our hero.
In the end, I think I took away these lessons from this movie:
YOUR HERO DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A HERO
When most people talk about telling a story, they claim that the “good guy” needs to be just that – a good guy.
But the boy in this story isn’t a good guy. He wants to be, but he puts people’s heads in vices, and carries a grenade around.
And you root for him.
A character doesn’t have to be a good guy for you to want to follow him. He’s just got to be interesting.
YOUR MOVIE DOESN’T NEED EXPLOSIONS TO BE EXPLOSIVE
Again, the main guy? Scary dude. You can’t really be sure what he’s going to do next, and sometimes, that’s pretty worrisome.
I keep talking about the grenade. He carries it around. It’s always in his pocket. And that’s kind of terrifying to think about.
So, only one explosion in the whole movie, but just about every minute has the potential to become an explosion.
YOU DON’T NEED THE BEST WRITING, DIRECTING, OR ACTING – YOU JUST NEED TO CONVEY YOUR STORY
In the end, Trust works, even with all its flaws, because it’s sure, and steady, and fascinating from the first slap to the final ride in the police car.
Which also leads me to this:
A STORY CAN END IN A HAPPY AND SAD WAY AT THE SAME TIME
Trust ends in a Lady or the Tiger-type way. Two people who seem to love each other are being pulled apart, and that might be for the best.
It might not.
As the credits roll, you get to decide. And that’s something more movies should try.
I forget what the two movies were – or rather, I can’t recall one of them. The one I remember was The Boondock Saints, a movie with a cult so big it’s resulted in a documentary about the director, and a direct-to-video sequel, even thought the flick was a flop at first.
It was also hard to find. When it was first released, it was a Blockbuster exclusive. That was the only place you could rent it.
There’s something a little magical about the movie that’s hard to lay your hands on, but it’s a sword that cuts both ways. If the movie is so-so, your desperate search to find it can turn you against it.
But if the flick is good, you will pretty much oversell it to everyone.
Such is, I fear, the case with Trust, a movie I rank as my number-two favorite.
At this point in my life, I think it’s been more than a decade since I’ve seen it. And my last viewing of the film was so poorly reviewed by the person I shared it with, that to this day I’m a little afraid to go back and watch it again.
The thing of it is, the movie isn’t available in the United States any more. It was released on video, but the music wasn’t cleared for DVD (because, hey, who knew?) and so it hasn’t been released, and probably won’t be.
I only saw it because my local college had a movie channel, which was run by… I dunno. Someone who had a thing for teeny-tiny movies few people had heard of.
I bumped into Trust in the listings on my TV set one night, and I sat around for a few minutes just to see what it was. Action? Drama?
It came on, and I sat there, captivated. I found out when it was playing, and I taped it the next time it showed.
Then I kept on showing it to friends. And they all liked it. Except for that last friend…
What’s the movie about?
Well... A cheerleader gets pregnant, and her boyfriend wants nothing to do with the baby. At the start of the movie, she tells her parents she’s pregnant, her father says some very unkind word, and she slaps him and walks out.
Then he dies of a heart attack.
Then we meet our other protagonist, a slightly older guy, living with his dad. Only his dad is just a mean, mean, mean dude. Which rolls down to the son, who starts the movie by quitting his job and putting his boss’s head in a vice.
Both of them attempt to get away from their situations, and then they run into each other.
What happens next? They kind of, sort of, fall into a relationship. Only he has anger issues and she’s not out of high school, and neither of them even know how to be in a relationship. Or how to hold a job. Or are ready to be responsible adults.
I won’t tell you how it ends, but there’s a grenade involved.
Trying to describe why I love this movie leaves me a little stuck, frankly. Brilliant acting?
Eh.
The writing?
Eh.
The directing?
Eh.
Here’s the issue: The movie looks, and looks often, like a stage play. The directing is rarely dynamic. The actors frequently seem to get only one or two takes, and they work so hard to get the words out just right that it feels like ACTING, instead of acting.
And then there are those words. Lovely, some of them, but they feel WRITTEN.
These are not real people talking to real people, which is what you hope for. These are ACTORS on a STAGE delivering LINES.
But some of those lines:
Maria: Can you stop watching TV for a minute?
Matthew: No.
Maria: Why?
Matthew: Because. I had a bad day at work. I had to subvert my principles and kow-tow to an idiot. Television makes these daily sacrifices possible. Deadens the inner core of my being.
And from the same scene:
Maria: Your job is making you boring and mean.
Matthew: My job is making me a respectable member of society.
Now, removed from context, I don’t know if those lines feel as beautiful as they are when spoken aloud. At that point, the boy has tried to subvert everything he is to become a husband and father.
You can feel that he just wants a family. A real family, with someone to look after. (Though he doesn’t yet realize he needs someone to watch over him, as well…)
But he can’t do it, and it’s breaking him.
This is our hero.
In the end, I think I took away these lessons from this movie:
YOUR HERO DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A HERO
When most people talk about telling a story, they claim that the “good guy” needs to be just that – a good guy.
But the boy in this story isn’t a good guy. He wants to be, but he puts people’s heads in vices, and carries a grenade around.
And you root for him.
A character doesn’t have to be a good guy for you to want to follow him. He’s just got to be interesting.
YOUR MOVIE DOESN’T NEED EXPLOSIONS TO BE EXPLOSIVE
Again, the main guy? Scary dude. You can’t really be sure what he’s going to do next, and sometimes, that’s pretty worrisome.
I keep talking about the grenade. He carries it around. It’s always in his pocket. And that’s kind of terrifying to think about.
So, only one explosion in the whole movie, but just about every minute has the potential to become an explosion.
YOU DON’T NEED THE BEST WRITING, DIRECTING, OR ACTING – YOU JUST NEED TO CONVEY YOUR STORY
In the end, Trust works, even with all its flaws, because it’s sure, and steady, and fascinating from the first slap to the final ride in the police car.
Which also leads me to this:
A STORY CAN END IN A HAPPY AND SAD WAY AT THE SAME TIME
Trust ends in a Lady or the Tiger-type way. Two people who seem to love each other are being pulled apart, and that might be for the best.
It might not.
As the credits roll, you get to decide. And that’s something more movies should try.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
My Favorite Movies: 3 – When Harry Met Sally
I spent years not really seeing When Harry Met Sally.
Home from college one summer, it came on cable and I started watching, just for something to do. About an hour into it, my parents came home (yes, I lived with my parents during the summer to save money), and we got to talking and I shut the movie off.
A couple of years later, a friend of mine showed it at an in-dorm movie night… except that she’d taped it off cable, and in the last ten minutes of the movie, the tape had run out, and so she had to put in a different tape, and we had missed two minutes of the movie.
Granted, they weren’t critical minutes. Harry had just realized who he was in love with, and was running there, which is supposed to build suspence, but, well, you know.
It’s a romantic comedy. They mostly only end one way. (My Best Friend’s Wedding is one of the few exceptions.)
Through those two semi-viewings, I did come to realize that a) I liked it a lot, and b) it was a strong reflection of a relationship-that-was-not-a-relationship that I was in at the time.
Later that same year, I got a pair of pants for my birthday, and they didn’t fit. So I took them back to Target, and they offered me store credit, and instead of buying more pants I bought a copy of When Harry Met Sally.
If you’ve never seen the movie, well, here’s a warning: It’s pretty plot-less.
If you ask the folks who made the movie, they’ll tell you it’s about Harry and Sally, who become friends, but know that sleeping together would probably be a bad idea. Then they sleep together.
Mind you, that’s not the actual plot, because if it was, the movie would be about 20 minutes long, since the sleeping together thing doesn’t happen until the movie is getting pretty close to being over.
What most interests me about the movie is the fact that, aside from being plotless, it has a few other flaws that should prevent it from being the classic that it is… and those are the lessons I most remember from watching this flick.
YOU DON’T NEED REAL STARS TO MAKE A HIT
Don’t get me wrong. Billy Crystal? Meg Ryan? Nice people, as far as I know. Talented people, sure.
But at the time, neither of them was the biggest thing in the world. Billy Crystal had come off Saturday Night Live, and granted, they loved him there, but imagine in Adam Sandler had left SNL and then gone on to star in a very adult, thoughtful romantic comedy.
Didn’t happen. Adam took all his boy-ish rage and turned it into the Adam Sandler brand.
Billy went for something deeper. And he pulled it off.
Meg Ryan, sadly, filled her role a little too well, as the cute pixie-type girl. She played that role year after year, until she started to get too old, and then she kind of wrecked her poor face in an attempt to keep looking cute and pixie-like.
But she wasn't really much of a star, either. This was the woman who had been in things like Amityville 3-D.
And yet, the movie was good, so people flocked, and now it’s a classic.
Second lesson:
YOU DON’T NEED A PLOT IF THE CHARACTERS ARE FUN TO BE AROUND
Harry and Sally meet. They walk away from each other. They meet again. They walk away from each other.
They meet again.
This is not really a plot. But the little details of what happens at each of these meetings, and the dialogue, and the way… but I’ll come back to that.
Great dialogue, interesting characters. People you kind of want to hang out with. You can make a movie with that.
YOU CAN MAKE A GOOD MOVIE FOR FILTHY LUCRE
A lot of people think you can only make a good movie when you have nothing but love in your heart for its creation.
I sort of agree. When people don’t really care about the movie they’re making, you can usually tell.
Except in this case.
In her last book, Nora Ephron, the writer of When Harry Met Sally, had an essay about the time she thought she was going to come into a lot of money.
She was super-excited about this, because it meant she could quit writing the screenplay she was working on. In this case, it was When Harry Met Sally.
She was flat-out writing it for a check. And it came out just fine. More than fine, really.
Stuff you write just to make money? It can be art, too.
SHOW PEOPLE SOMETHING THEY’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE
This is the magic of When Harry Met Sally – the thing people miss.
They talk about the dialogue. The words.
But you know what makes all those words, and no plot, really work, I think?
The movie never stops moving.
They’ve got a scene in a baseball game. A scene in a mall, with karaoke, back before that was a thing.
They’ve got people having dinner parties in different places.
And they’ve got married couples, seemingly unrelated to the plot, popping up at regular intervals.
Some sequences are thirty seconds long, and take place while two characters are crossing the street.
It’s brilliant.
And you, and I, should strive for that.
Home from college one summer, it came on cable and I started watching, just for something to do. About an hour into it, my parents came home (yes, I lived with my parents during the summer to save money), and we got to talking and I shut the movie off.
A couple of years later, a friend of mine showed it at an in-dorm movie night… except that she’d taped it off cable, and in the last ten minutes of the movie, the tape had run out, and so she had to put in a different tape, and we had missed two minutes of the movie.
Granted, they weren’t critical minutes. Harry had just realized who he was in love with, and was running there, which is supposed to build suspence, but, well, you know.
It’s a romantic comedy. They mostly only end one way. (My Best Friend’s Wedding is one of the few exceptions.)
Through those two semi-viewings, I did come to realize that a) I liked it a lot, and b) it was a strong reflection of a relationship-that-was-not-a-relationship that I was in at the time.
Later that same year, I got a pair of pants for my birthday, and they didn’t fit. So I took them back to Target, and they offered me store credit, and instead of buying more pants I bought a copy of When Harry Met Sally.
If you’ve never seen the movie, well, here’s a warning: It’s pretty plot-less.
If you ask the folks who made the movie, they’ll tell you it’s about Harry and Sally, who become friends, but know that sleeping together would probably be a bad idea. Then they sleep together.
Mind you, that’s not the actual plot, because if it was, the movie would be about 20 minutes long, since the sleeping together thing doesn’t happen until the movie is getting pretty close to being over.
What most interests me about the movie is the fact that, aside from being plotless, it has a few other flaws that should prevent it from being the classic that it is… and those are the lessons I most remember from watching this flick.
YOU DON’T NEED REAL STARS TO MAKE A HIT
Don’t get me wrong. Billy Crystal? Meg Ryan? Nice people, as far as I know. Talented people, sure.
But at the time, neither of them was the biggest thing in the world. Billy Crystal had come off Saturday Night Live, and granted, they loved him there, but imagine in Adam Sandler had left SNL and then gone on to star in a very adult, thoughtful romantic comedy.
Didn’t happen. Adam took all his boy-ish rage and turned it into the Adam Sandler brand.
Billy went for something deeper. And he pulled it off.
Meg Ryan, sadly, filled her role a little too well, as the cute pixie-type girl. She played that role year after year, until she started to get too old, and then she kind of wrecked her poor face in an attempt to keep looking cute and pixie-like.
But she wasn't really much of a star, either. This was the woman who had been in things like Amityville 3-D.
And yet, the movie was good, so people flocked, and now it’s a classic.
Second lesson:
YOU DON’T NEED A PLOT IF THE CHARACTERS ARE FUN TO BE AROUND
Harry and Sally meet. They walk away from each other. They meet again. They walk away from each other.
They meet again.
This is not really a plot. But the little details of what happens at each of these meetings, and the dialogue, and the way… but I’ll come back to that.
Great dialogue, interesting characters. People you kind of want to hang out with. You can make a movie with that.
YOU CAN MAKE A GOOD MOVIE FOR FILTHY LUCRE
A lot of people think you can only make a good movie when you have nothing but love in your heart for its creation.
I sort of agree. When people don’t really care about the movie they’re making, you can usually tell.
Except in this case.
In her last book, Nora Ephron, the writer of When Harry Met Sally, had an essay about the time she thought she was going to come into a lot of money.
She was super-excited about this, because it meant she could quit writing the screenplay she was working on. In this case, it was When Harry Met Sally.
She was flat-out writing it for a check. And it came out just fine. More than fine, really.
Stuff you write just to make money? It can be art, too.
SHOW PEOPLE SOMETHING THEY’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE
This is the magic of When Harry Met Sally – the thing people miss.
They talk about the dialogue. The words.
But you know what makes all those words, and no plot, really work, I think?
The movie never stops moving.
They’ve got a scene in a baseball game. A scene in a mall, with karaoke, back before that was a thing.
They’ve got people having dinner parties in different places.
And they’ve got married couples, seemingly unrelated to the plot, popping up at regular intervals.
Some sequences are thirty seconds long, and take place while two characters are crossing the street.
It’s brilliant.
And you, and I, should strive for that.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Been a While Since I Listed Some Reviews
First, from Pensive Bookeaters:
This book is NOT your typical zombies “OMG BRAAAAAINS” novel.
And I just got my first review on UK Amazon:
Mercy is not a zombie novel. Sure it has zombies. Sure they eat their way through members of the cast - but primarily it's the story of a mother desperate to get back to her daughter.
As always Mercy is available on the Kindle and the nook.
This book is NOT your typical zombies “OMG BRAAAAAINS” novel.
And I just got my first review on UK Amazon:
Mercy is not a zombie novel. Sure it has zombies. Sure they eat their way through members of the cast - but primarily it's the story of a mother desperate to get back to her daughter.
As always Mercy is available on the Kindle and the nook.
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