INDELIBLE FRECKLES

There’s a montage in Commando where Arnold Schwarzenegger packs on a few hundred pounds of munitions:

(The poster neglects to show the shotgun and rocket launcher/pod that are part of his kit. Maybe the PR elves thought it all a little overkill or something.)

When it comes to writing, I haven’t been picky with my kit. All of my handwritten notes are consistent in their random ink colours – and occasional pencil – because I don’t care for my writing implement (and because I lose pens on a regular basis). As for the electronic records, they include Word, text-only, rich-text and Open Document formats – although that last one has been the standard since 2007.

A couple of years ago, I started playing around with Celtx and, well, nothing has been the same ever since. I use Final Draft now. I understand now the zeal of the convert: FD makes (screen)writing so much easier. But it’s only a tool.

Commando will always have a special place in my heart but it’s been a quarter-century already, and in this post-Bourne world where a rolled-up magazine is as handy in a fight as a Rambo knife, it’s no longer about suiting up for every possible situation. Save the montage for a flashback or Michael Bay homage.

Use whatever you have to hand to put words on the page or screen.

Is it the season or am I just being mean?

• Screen Junkies has an excellent selection of kids’ letters to Michael Bay, my favourite being:
  
  
  
  (Fedora-tip: The Big Picture.)
• Ken Levine has his 2009 Summer Movies preview, with all-time classics like:
  
  • Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – A new spin on the single most tired premise in RomCom history — hire a leading man who is an enemy of comedy. Stars Matthew McConaughey and the lovely but not-exactly-hilarious Jennifer Garner.
  • Whatever Works – Woody Allen’s 285th movie, the 247th with the same theme: older neurotic Jew in a relationship with hot young girl who could be his granddaughter. Larry David as Woody Allen. Reviews are mixed. Middle-aged Jews love it, young girls are appalled.
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife – “Where were you last night and don’t tell me the Middle Ages, you bastard!?”

  (Fedora-tip: The Big Picture.)

• Forget Robert Rodriguez and his Ten-Minute Film School. I give you Mark L Lester‘s Commando is the Best Film Ever (with parts 2 and 3).
  
  [This] film wasn’t an accident, just like Jesus wasn’t an accident. It took real vision to pull off, starting with the theme of a parent’s love for his child, and the lengths he will go to to get her back from a wily South American dictator. Also, it has explosions, and a rockin’ saxophone-driven soundtrack that really gets the people moving in their seats.