Ten Movies in Ten Words

Two posts in two days, this is a record I haven't reached in a while! I have for you a list of my current Top Ten Must-See Films. Subject to change as I see more movies, of course.

This is a very subjective list, and is not influenced by what other people consider the "best" films of all time. It's more like, if someone were to ask me "what is film?" or "what are movies all about?" this is list I would give them. Right now, anyway. Ask me again in a few months' time when I've seen more movies and it'll probably be different. It was a HUGE struggle just to get it down to ten. I had another 5 or 6 that were vying for spots but missed out. 

I've called this post "Ten Movies in Ten Words" because ten words is short and sweet and cuts to the point (so screw sentence structure!). And this way you don't have to read big long opinionated paragraphs that will skew your own opinion. We don't want to start any arguments, here. 

If you're reading and you have your own blog (or even just a facebook) I encourage you to do your own "Ten Movies in Ten Words" post, because I'd love to compare. 

So without further ado, the list. In order by year. 

1. A Trip to the Moon (George Méliès, 1902)

110 years old. 14 minutes. Still brilliant, creative, and funny. 

2. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)

Ahead of its time, fast-paced, ridiculous. I laughed constantly.

3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

Let's just say I watched it thrice in one week.

4. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Creepy, clever, thrilling. One of Hitchcock's finest. Perkins is unforgettable.

5. The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner, 1987)

A loveable cult classic. Inconceivably quotable. Fantasy at its finest.

6. Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)

You haven't seen this? You uncultured swine! It's freaking genius.

7. Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

It's about love! An artistic masterpiece! You'll want to sing!

8. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

THE TAVERN SCENE IS SO, SO GOOD. BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED. ARGH. 

9. The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

Edge-of-your-seat dialogue. Incredible script, score, and acting.

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

Beautiful cinematic artwork. 
Pretentious? Yes, but Lubezki's cinematography is breathtaking. 

And there you have it. Ten Films in Ten Words. Your turn!

Why Veronica Mars Is Worth My Time

Howdy. Once again, it's been a while. I know, I know. I fail at blogging. I really do. But here I am, with something you may or may not find interesting: An analysis of that teenage TV show from years gone by, Veronica Mars.

Kristy put me on to this earlier in the week, and usually I'm terrible at looking up things that people tell me to investigate. It usually takes me forever to get around to it, because I'm lazy and don't know what's good for me (Sorry, Keira and Sherlock, and anyone who told me to watch Doctor Who once Matt Smith joined. Also anyone who has told me to read Jasper Fforde. I'm still getting to that one. The Eyre Affair is sitting on my shelf.).

For those unfamiliar with Veronica Mars, it's basically a teenage drama show with a film-noir-ish overlay. The title character is a seventeen-year-old girl living in a prestigious zip-code with her Private Investigator father. Veronica has her father's talent and spends her time conducting her own detective work, all the while dealing with the trouble that has been following her since her best friend was mysteriously murdered a year ago.

Anyway! When other people refer me to things I'm hopeless, but when I get my own mind set on something I have to do it NOW. It's a curse, really. One time I unpacked my entire suitcase hours before out flight to Hawaii because I'd buried my book at the bottom and I needed to read it RIGHT AWAY. So I was looking up random things on the internet and on iTunes, and somehow came across Veronica Mars. I was still annoyed at the video store for not having the Orson Welles movies that I wanted to watch, and was desperate for something to chill over while my brother was out at bible study.

Well. Wouldn't you know it, I could purchase the pilot on iTunes for $2.99.

Unfortunately my account only held $2.74.

It's little things like that that get me. I'm so close to getting what I want and the tiniest thing (like 25 cents) gets in my way. IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I searched Youtube for the episode, even dangerously googled "watch veronica mars free online" and prayed my computer wouldn't get spammed when I clicked a link, all to no avail. I wasn't having that. So I marched into my parents' room and begged my dad to let him use his credit card.

For what? he says.

For a TV show I know nothing about but I HAVE TO SEE NOW.

It took a bit of convincing. But once he figured it was only three dollars I got my way.

I waited the agonising twenty minutes for it to download and then settled down in bed with my headphones on to fulfil my random urge to watch this random show, thinking "THIS BETTER BE GOOD" (but I knew it would be, because Kristy recommended it. I forgot to mention that was the second selling point when I was asking dad for his credit card).

So, there's the backstory. That was probably totally unnecessary reading material, so sorry if you bothered through that. Right now I'm just really enjoying my fingers racing across the computer keys because I haven't typed so much in several days and I'm going a bit stir-crazy. So I'm actually making this blog post as long as possible on purpose. Feel free to skim, I only have like eleven readers anyway!

Actually no, if you haven't skimmed by now you've missed your chance, because we're finally getting to THE POINT. I'm here to talk about why Veronica Mars actually is a good show and why I didn't waste $2.99 (and later $10.00 downloading the rest of the season) purchasing it.

If you've known me for a while, or at least been reading past posts on this blog, you'd know I have a fascination with characters and more importantly what makes a good character. I like analysing story lines and characters and trying to work out why an audience likes them. What makes the story work? There's a lot that needs to be included (and a lot that needs to be left out) for a character to be really likeable.

The creators of Veronica Mars are (thus far) surprisingly good at this. I've only watched the first five episodes of this show but I'm rather amazed at how much character development we already have. I've bored you enough with short paragraphs and single lines, so I'm going to change pace now and work with bullet points (brace yourselves).

Why Veronica Mars Is A Good (but not perfect) Character, 

And Why Her Show Allows Her To Be That: 

• The show gives plenty of backstory - The pilot episode is, in fact, almost entirely backstory. This kind of annoyed me to begin with, but once the rest of the show went on I was grateful that the writers had spent so much time setting up the story, because it gave it, shall we say, meat to it. By episode two I was interested in the title character's "past life" and the connections it had to the life she was living now. It gave the story depth very quickly. 
• The majority of recurring characters are introduced within the first two episodes - This may not seem like a big deal, but I've seen other TV shows where they take FOREVER to set up the recurring cast. It can be a little confusing. I was glad to get all the introductions out of the way so I could focus on the main character and what she was up to rather then trying to catch up on who was who.
• We are given ample opportunity to emotionally invest in the main character - The third episode is what really hooked me, because aside from the flashback moments, this episode is the first time we see present-day Veronica showing a true sign of weakness, which is, of course, a necessary step in creating a well-rounded character. It's perfect timing too because we know enough about the character now that when she is weak, we actually care. 
• Veronica hasn't always been the underdog - The problem with most underdog characters is that they've never been on top, so they spend most of their time wimping out, wishing they were better and annoying the hell out of you. I'm exaggerating and stereotyping a little here, but I'm sure you can think of at least one character that fits that description (not going to taint this blog post by naming any names...). Veronica used to be one of the popular kids, so she isn't constantly wishing she was one of them. Neither does she give them the cold shoulder and say 'we don't need them' and huff off with her band of misfits. So, that's major bonus point for defeating both those cliches.
• Veronica is smart but an idiot - I'm not kidding here, I rejoice any time a character has a some real honest-to-goodness flaws. ESPECIALLY one I've already emotionally invested in. In the five episodes I've watched, Veronica is portrayed a very smart, intuitive girl who can be friendly and selfless when she wants to be, but also intentionally rude, bossy, intrusive and selfish. No human is perfect and therefore no character should be. What I hate more than a character who has no flaws is a character who passes off their "mistakes" for flaws. Therefore I love it when Veronica is aware that something is wrong, but does it anyway. 

That's only a few points as to why I like this show and think it's worth my time. I could go on, and even include what I don't like, but I have other things to do (like watching episode 6) and I really ought to stop typing now. So I will leave you with that. I didn't intend for this to be a plug - I am in no way telling you GO WATCH THIS SHOW NOW, just writing about what I appreciate about character and story, and how this show is an example of that. 

So thanks, Kristy, for knowing what's good for me.

Screencap Saturday #2

After managing to capture The Social Network in 160 frames, I decided to try and bring the next film to you in about 40 less. Unthinkingly I chose The Help, which made the number impossible to shrink down.

Framing a human face in a film is all about expression. What does the frame convey about the person's emotions? How does the frame explain the story? What do we learn about the character through the frame?

The Help is a story about expression, about women who were not afraid to express themselves no matter what other people thought. Hence, when I began sorting the screencaps I took of the film, it was impossible to leave a lot of them out, because without a lot of the frames the story could not be conveyed. In many scenes of the movie, the characters rapidly go through emotional changes, and you'll notice a few frames side-by-side that are almost identical aside from the characters' expression. That's what tells the story.

Tate Taylor and his casting directors did a fabulous job of finding women who are incredibly talented at expressing their feelings without words. Bryce Dallas Howard, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain and Viola Davis are all brilliant at this (Spencer, Davis and Chastain are all Oscar-nominated). So without further ado, I present to you The Help, in 210 frames (Directed by Tate Taylor, cinematography by Stephen Goldblatt, editing by Hughes Winborne)

*spoilers beyond this point*

Get It Right The First Time

That's what my brain has been telling me all week, and it sucks. Every time I sit down to write chapter four of Semblance, my brain stops me because I know I'll do it wrong and I'll have to rewrite it later.

Um.

Hello, brain?

That's the point of a first draft!

So this morning I got up and did some cleaning. And after I write this post I'll go and do some more cleaning, and then I will cart myself and my laptop off to the library for a distraction-free/internet-free environment and write the stupid thing. And it doesn't matter if it sucks. I would have to rewrite and edit it anyway.

What's difficult about chapter four is not just the content (I'm almost parodying the typical "protagonist-has-to-learn-new-skill-in-order-to-proceed-with-the-story" scene). This is point in the story where two of my three heroes get over the hump of being acquaintances and become real friends. They let loose a bit. They show each other their true colours. They do silly things. They argue a little. They have fun, but then things don't work quite the way they wanted. At the end of the chapter they feel much closer to each other, but as one character has super powers and the other doesn't, there's still a kind of distance between them. Urgh. In terms of character development, it's the most difficult chapter until close to the end of the novel. If I can get past chapters four and five it will move quicker from there.

As mentioned in my last post, I tried just skipping it but when I did that I accidentally screwed up my order-of-events because I forgot about the gap in the timeline between the end of four and the start of five. It's messier than it sounds. Better to write this first. On with the show!

Blah.

January's nearly over so I thought I'd better make a post. Have nothing to write about though so this will just be a brief spewing of my thoughts. It's really hot right now. The tennis ended last night and it was amazing and Novak won and I was so happy but now I'm bummed it's over. Next year! Haha.

I need a job. Don't have one yet. Will get one eventually.

Trying to read the third and last Hunger Games book. Sort of left it too long and forgot where the second one ended so I'm a bit confused. It's good though so I'm sure my brain will catch up. I'm stupidly pumped for the movie coming out in March. I hate how loads of weirdos are comparing it to that unspeakable vampire franchise. It's nothing like that. Katniss would only have to look at Bella and she would be dead. Also, Katniss is Jennifer Lawernce, and Bella is Kristen Stewart. Only takes a nanosecond to work out which one of them is more kick-ass. Anyway, aside from the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo teaser, The Hunger Games had the best trailer I watched all last year. It was so well put together. Perfect set up and build up without giving too much of the plot away. I'm so excited! I also found out that Elizabeth Banks is playing Effie Trinket. And when I realised who Elizabeth Banks was I was like WHAT. Weird. Weird choice. But I'll take that....

Justin is having a murder mystery party thing and I'm writing the story. Didn't realise it would be so insanely complex. I have to write fifteen characters. All of which have to be pretty rounded. I think I'm stretching myself in quick character development by doing it though so it's all good. Sort of annoying that I have to put my actual novel on the back-burner for a day or two while I get a good portion of this out of the way, but it is fun.

Speaking of my actual novel, completely and utterly stuck on chapter four. I think I'lll skip it and come back later, even though I hate doing that. I feel like it's going to be a good point of development for Jordan's character so I really don't want to skip ahead, but trying to write it is just not working at all. Not sure why. I know it's a difficult couple of scene but I didn't think it would be this hard! Never fear, I will either jump over it or force through it in order to continue writing asap. The end of the hard slog is in sight!

Laptop battery dying. Brain melting in the heat. Need to find water.

Thus ends my brain-spew.

Murdered Darling Monday #1

Got another segment for ya. I stole this one from the lovely girl who runs *Headdesk*, which I insist you check out if you haven't before. Especially if writing is your thing.

This segment, appropriately titled Murdered Darling Monday, is for scenes that I've written that I liked but had to cut for various reasons. If you're one of my beta-readers for "Semblance", you'll be familiar with a lot of the dialogue in this brief scene, but I thought I'd post it anyway. This was the first draft of the meeting between two of my main characters, Jordan and Hayden. The context is a funeral (changed to a wake in the current draft), and previously Jordan spotted this boy during the service, looking like he might faint from the heat. "Semblance" is the first in what I expect to be a series about some teenagers with super powers. In this scene, Jordan is unbeknownst to the fact that Hayden is a cryokinetic, someone who can create and manipulate ice. 

  ‘Hey, excuse me.’ 

  She looked round. The sweaty boy was standing by the air-conditioner, motioning for her to come closer. She glanced back to see her father nowhere in sight, and so went towards him. The boy smiled as she approached. ‘I saw you earlier - you look really familiar - have we met?’ he asked. 

  His eyes were bright green. Jordan scanned the rest of his face and shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ 

  The boy shrugged. ‘Can’t place you anyway. My name’s Hayden Connor.’

  She took his outstretched hand and shook it. ‘Jordan Elliott.’ 

  At that, his eyes widened. ‘You’re an Elliott? Is your dad’s name Daniel?’ 

  ‘Well, yeah -’

  ‘Oh, my gosh. Your dad is Daniel Elliott. The Daniel Elliott?’ His hands curled into excited fists. ‘I don’t believe this!’ 

  Jordan frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’ She’d never heard anyone talk about her father like that. ‘What’s so special about him?’ 

  ‘Daniel Elliott,’ Hayden repeated. ‘He was on the last elite team in the academy. His strength powers are amazing, I’ve heard.’ 

  ‘Strength powers? I - what?’ 

  Hayden stared at her. His shirt collar rippled under the blast from the air-con. ‘But you must know…’ His eyes darted back and forth, and for a moment he was silent. Then he said, ‘Do you … not have powers?’ 

  She couldn’t make sense of his words, and so she just shook her head. His shoulders sagged a little. 

  ‘Oh. Well,’ he added, with a twitch of smile, ‘Maybe you’re like a late bloomer, y’know? If something ever changes, you can come train with us. My dad says his powers lay dormant until he was almost sixteen. Maybe it’s the same with you. Sometimes you just gotta give them a kick-start.’

  She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but at that moment she heard her father call her name. 

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. She started to trail backwards, and his green eyes followed her as she went. 

  ‘See ya round,’ he said.

  Daniel was waiting by the door, his sunglasses hanging around his neck. ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ he asked. 

  Jordan shrugged. ‘His name’s Hayden. He knew Hezekiah.’ And you, she thought. 

  A look of recognition flitted across Daniel’s face, but for some reason he didn’t elaborate on it. She wondered what he would say if she told him what Hayden had said. Maybe Hayden had had the wrong person. Either that, or her father was hiding a very big secret. 

Why it's a Darling: I was really happy with the description of Hayden and the air conditioner, and was disappointed that it wasn't fitting in the rewrite of the scene. I did, of course, keep some of the lines of dialogue the same in the rewrite, because in terms of character they worked very well for me. I also liked the way Hayden just sees her and starts talking, leading the conversation the whole way, which is very like him. He still does this, but in a slightly different way, in the current draft.

Why it got Murdered: The big problem was that the context created a huge problem for me when I tried to write the scene after this. The setting was too vague, and I knew I had to make it more specific. That's why I reset the scene at a wake, in a house, by the pool in he backyard. It works much better for me.

Anyway! Currently writing chapter four, which is going well, albeit slow. Better keep going with it. The goal for today is to finish it, which means I have about 1800 words still to write! Gonna get cracking. Ta ta. 

Screencap Saturday

I've been wanting to do some kind of 'segment' on this blog, so I thought I'd start with something fairly simple. Introducing Screencap Saturday! Basically, I screencap a movie and put up sequences of my favorite stills. I find screencaps interesting because they literally do 'capture' a very purposeful moment in the movie. It makes me more attentive to the lighting, the framing, the facial expressions of the actors, the relationships between various shots, and the length of pans and dollys. Looking at various snippets from a film give you a huge insight into the director's style. I'll try and do Screencap Saturday at least once a month.

So I will begin with what is currently my all-time favorite film. Directed by David Fincher. Cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth. Editing by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall. I give you The Social Network, in 160 frames.

Stuff. And Movies.

So, as is typical of me, my blogging has failed again. It's pretty lame that I haven't blogged since I watched The Tree of Life.... So a quick update!

I had an awesome Christmas, and made t-shirts for my family.

I went to Carols in the Domain with some amazing people.

Celebrated NYE with the same amazing people.

And went on a camping weekend with - yeah - those same amazing people. Because they're amazing. And we cooked dinner all by ourselves and were cool.

Anyway! Back to the present. I got on here to blog because I've been reading this gigantic book that I got out of the library called Film History: An Introduction. It's incredibly interesting. I'm reading all about how film became a new medium and expanded into an art form, a method of entertainment, and new way to tell stories. I've decided that as I read through the book I'm going to watch the films from 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die that corresponde with the various chapters.

In the first chapter, the main two films mentioned are Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902), and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903). It's crazy that they started making such elaborate films that early! Full sets and costumes, stop-motion and special effects. If you are interested in movies but have never seen Le Voyage Dans La Lune by George Méliès, you need to jump on the internet and view it on Youtube right now. It only goes for about 11 minutes, so you have. It really is an astounding piece of work for its time. I'm yet to watch Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I plan on doing that today. They use cool techniques like exposing the film twice to add in extra effects. 


And yeah. Hopefully I'll blog again soon but I don't want to make any promises unless I fail, ha. But I'll be back at some point. 


Oh yeah, and I got a twitter. So if you come on here and I haven't updated the actual blog, you can view my obnoxious tweets (I hate that word) in the sidebar about the Australian Open and the Oscars. Won't that be fun? I'm a loser, I know.