I’ve been bereft of ideas for posts on this site for some time. You’ve likely noticed. Oh, I’m still writing. For my sins. But the blogging… even just thinking about what to post about, I’ve felt… unworthy. Questions I thought I’d answered in the early days of this writing gig and blog were pulling at [...]
This shall be my one sop to the Rugby World Cup insanity that is engulfing these South Pacific isles. INT. CAMRY SPORTSWAGON – TRAVELLING – DAY Our WRITER drives, the radio on low. Beside him, THE BOY devours the Special Rugby World Cup edition of “The New Zealand Herald” NEWSPAPER. The Boy looks up: THE [...]
Last year, The Boy and I went to see the restored cut of Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon a Time in the West. He’s a child of the generation of Playstation, Wii and iPods so I half-expected him to be bored out of his skull. Aside from a couple of fidgety moments, he was in its [...]
Watched a detective show recently and found myself sighing and harrumphing a lot. The dynamic between the male private detective lead and the female police inspector was frustratingly one-sided: he barked, she jumped. It just reminded me of the following kind of scene that we’ve seen a million few times already: (Following a budget-straining action [...]
What is it with long flights and the bad terrible tragically awful films that I choose to watch? It’s not the carriers’ fault. Nowadays, all international carriers have screens on the back of the seats with hundreds of channels of choice at each traveller’s fingertips. So why’d I watch an eight-figure budgeted action comedy when [...]
One of my wonderful Imaginary Readers wondered how on earth I could get hooked into a show when they kill off a cool character – was/am I a sick perv for getting hooked so? Back in the day, I was an occasional watcher of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Thanks to Wiki, I know that I [...]
Opened a graphic novel recently and got this on the first page: My name’s [JOHN SMITH]. I’m a man of few words. Have to be. Used to make my trade as a [DEBT COLLECTOR], forcing [DEBTORS] to pay for their [LOANS]. I guess it was a good life. [ABOUT] seven years ago that changed, when [...]
I’ve come across some scripts that have assumed a lot more of me than I’m comfortable. Hey, I like to stoke my mind-reading and thought-control reputation whenever I can but I have my limits. EXT. SUBURBAN STREET – DAY The BOY steps off his FRONT LAWN and onto the FOOTPATH. He hitches his BACKPACK. Looks [...]
The following took place not long after a discussion of Kate Atkinson‘s Case Histories and a character’s naming of her newly acquired cat after a Not Very Nice Racial Epithet. INT. FORTRESS MAMEA – NIGHT The WRITER and his GODDESS sit on the COUCH watching the nightly news. The DOG, a black and tan mongrel, [...]
Whenever I think of narratives that escalate as exquisitely as Aliens, I think, I should blog about that – y’know, how character decision A leads to situation B which requires character decision C but whenever I sit down to write it, I keep flashing on this, from Pulp Fiction: INT. PAWNSHOP -- DAY Butch sneaks [...]
