Scriptwriting

27 April 201627 April 2016

Box Watch: Marvel’s Jessica Jones

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47431125

Ten episodes in and I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel where:

our heroine, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) catches her nemesis, Kilgrave (David Tennant);
Jones’ Greek chorus of friends, family and/or acquaintances sing, Kill Kilgrave else he will continue to murder people;
Jones counterpoints with, No, I must not kill him yet somehow he must still pay — wait one while I ponder…;
Kilgrave escapes — trimming Jones’ chorus by one enroute — and continues his murdering ways;
Jones catches Kilgrave…

Do this catch-and-release routine once and if the heroine learns from the experience, it’s a learning experience.

Do it twice, and if the heroine prevails in the end, it’s one of those rule-of-three narrative devices.

Do it three times and there’s still three goddamned eps to go in the season, one begins to wonder: are the writers undercover wingnuts highlighting the inherent weakness of liberals in this harsh, harsh world? or have I just been inured by decades of Old Testament-moral-style action films in which all manner of personal, societal and political problems can be resolved in a hail of lead?

9 April 201623 August 2016

Box Watch: The Flash (2014 onwards)

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50741037

… a man who moves so fast that his life is an endless gallery of statues

— Saga of the Swamp Thing, 24 May 1984, Roots, Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, John Totleben

Alan Moore‘s description of the Flash has always stuck with me, capturing both the speed at which the character lived as well as the loneliness that his powers burdened him with.

The current television show approaches those notions very differently and I really enjoy what the writers are doing.

It’s not my typical small screen fare — it’s got men with six-pack abs and women with stick figures — but it has an infectious charm and a lightness of touch that makes me look forward to each episode. I can obviously suspend disbelief with the whole fastest-man-alive, sharing the screen with super-heroes and -villains aplenty, in a world where everyone is under thirty (unless they’re a victim) and the maximum permissible body size for women is 8.

But my suspension goes only so far when:

See all those moments of time when he’s gawping when he could be rescuing? Really? Aren’t you the fastest goddamned man alive?

30 March 201623 August 2016

KINGSWOOD: post-reading

By Sicbird – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39196356

After a two-day workshop under the direction of Katie Wolfe and Ahi Karunaharan, with dramaturg Jo Smith providing overwatch, Kingswood was read by Jason Te Kare, Louise Tu’u, Joy Vaele, and Jason Wu on a warm Wednesday evening in Balmoral, Auckland.

The audience laughed in the right places, their applause was gratifying, and the Q-and-A that followed was enlightening for all present. Afterwards, it was nice to chat with individual audience members like: Auckland Theatre Company artistic director Colin McColl; Bright Star and Pasefika playwright and Playmarket respresentative Stuart Hoar; the indomitable Webmistresse (retired) and her husband; Luncheon and Officer 27 playwright Aroha Awarau; screenwriter Kathryn Burnett; and Titirangi Theatre stalwart and early supporter of the work Duncan Milne.

During the two-day workshop, these four words were used to describe "Kingswood" — and upon hearing them I felt inordinately proud. — During the two-day workshop, these four words were used to describe “Kingswood” — and upon hearing them I felt inordinately proud.

Where to from here?

I have no idea.

24 March 201628 March 2016

Narcissism is —

— when one sees there’s a film out called Risen and one immediately assumes one’s grand plan to make a feature-length adaptation of Sure to Rise, one’s short comedy about erectile dysfunction, has been preempted by Hollywood.

But no:

By Source, Fair use

Suppose one had better get on to it, then.

9 March 201616 March 2016

KINGSWOOD: a reading

By Richard Lewis - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3977365 — Holden Kingswood (1971-1974 HQ series)

What’s the connection between film director Katie Wolfe, writer Jo Smith, Radio New Zealand producer Jason Te Kare, theatre practitioner Louise Tu’u, and thespians Joy Vaele and Jason Wu?

They’re all pitching in for a reading of Kingswood later this month!

If you’re curious, in the neighbourhood, or at a loose end on the (almost) eve of Easter Weekend:

Wednesday 23 March 2016 at 6:30pm
Auckland Theatre Company
Mt Eden War Memorial Hall
Lower Ground Floor
487 Dominion Road
Auckland.

Chur.

28 January 201623 August 2016

Boxwatch: The Return of Fox and Dana

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17424488

The original run of The X-Files was not quite the appointment viewing that Law & Order was. When I did watch it, I thrilled to the case-of-the-week but quickly tired of the overall story arc — especially once I realised how that was progressed:

a witness reluctantly testifies to Mulder with potentially earth-shattering information;
Mulder leaps to the conclusion that this witness is The Key to the mystery or conspiracy he is trying to unravel;
the witness disappears or dies;
the witness’s uncorroborated testimony has a sliver of information that leads to another witness;
repeat from 1. above.

The above recipe worked a treat for the show but my viewing began to slip as I tried with less and less success to block out the conspiracy blah-blah and enjoy the case-of-the-week. The last I saw of The X-Files was the feature film Fight the Future which was two hours of conspiracy gibberish, made slightly passable by the gravitas of Martin Landau and Armin Mueller-Stahl and feature-budget SFX.

So… Mulder and Scully are together again, and the truth is still out there. As an audience member, I’m like, Yeah, nah. As a writer, it’s disappointing to see it hasn’t refreshed its find-witness-leap-to-conclusion-lose-witness recipe — I mean, after nine goddamned seasons and two feature films, don’tchathink the heroes would’ve learned to protect their witnesses better by now? And, shockingly, it suffers from say-my-name-ism — following is an exchange verbatim:

EXT. PUBLIC MEETING PLACE -- DAY

FOX MULDER exits a car and joins DANA SCULLY on a busy city street. It’s been years since they last saw each other.

SCULLY

(off Mulder’s mode of transport)

Uber?

MULDER

I hitchhiked.

(off Scully)

Relax, Scully, I’m kidding.

SCULLY

I just worry about you, Mulder.

Really? Haven’t they been reading my blog?

20 January 201623 August 2016

500

That’s the number of posts I’ve written, including this one.

On the not-too-distant horizon is this website’s tenth anniversary.

Check out The Dog before this blog began:

The Dog — Pic courtesy Howie B — The Dog, Jan05

— and now:

She can run five kilometres again, too, despite a not-quite-obit almost two years ago. We think this is due in large part to the The Puppy‘s arrival early last year, and the all-you-can-sniff opportunities the new property offers.

There’s hope for me yet.

30 December 20158 January 2016

2015 by 4K and 720p

Ay caramba, that was quick.

“Sicario poster” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Enjoyed immensely on the big screen:

A Most Wanted Man
Top Five
Ant-Man
Love is Strange
Inside Out
Amy
Sicario
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Spotlight
Steve Jobs

“Top Five poster” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Honourable mentions to John Carpenter‘s remake of The Thing which was enjoyed with a bunch of millenials who were genuinely freaked out by Rob Bottin‘s 1980s-era SFX, Cartel Land, The Guest, and Warrior which I finally watched after years of ravings by the inestimable Mr Fyers.

Devoured with great pleasure on the small screen:

Justified S06
Transparent S01
The Americans S02
Game of Thrones S05
Mr Robot S01
Nurse Jackie S07
Catastrophe S01
The Good Wife S06
Arrow S02–03
The Flash S01–02

“Catastrophe (2015 TV series) title” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Honourable mentions to the CW’s one-two combo of Arrow S03–04 and The Flash S01–02, the not particularly innovative crime-fixer show Ray Donovan S03 which is made compelling by Liev Schrieber, Eddie Marsan and Jon Voight, Humans S01, and The Walking Dead S06E01–06.

“MrRobot intertitle” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

So much good television and so little time…

29 December 20151 January 2016

2015 by Dots per Inch

I actually read stuff this year — 91 titles as a matter of fact, seven of which I didn’t finish for various reasons. This compares very well with 2014’s measly 24 titles.

Highlights, in no particular order:

Justified pilot script by Graham Yost;
Transparent pilot script by Jill Soloway;
Steve Jobs 19 March 2015 draft script by Aaron Sorkin;
The Fade Out issues 1–12 by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips;
Alex + Ada by Sarah Vaughan & Michael Luna;
Lazarus issues 1–20 by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark;
X-ed Out, The Hive, and Sugar Skull by Charles Burns;
Down Under by Bill Bryson;
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout;
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy;
Cop Killer by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.

Honourable mentions to The Ballad of Halo Jones by Moore and Ian Gibson, The Walking Dead issues 136–149 by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Stefano Gaudiano, and Cliff Rathburn, and Ms Marvel issues 1–5 by Sana Amanat, G Willow Wilson, and Adrian Alphona.

I feel like I should read more text-only books but I suspect that’s my easily triggered inferiority complex.

17 November 201530 January 2016

Stalk and Leaf

I’m obsessed with Jerusalem cherry: I’m walking the dogs, I see it, I pull it; I’m dancing through the Orange Grove, inhaling its citrus fragrance when I see a certain leaf shape and I stop and pull it — you get the idea. And the thing is, there’s so much of it around that if there’s one, there’s usually his friends nearby (and those friends have their friends nearby, if you knowhumsayin).

So there’s the shape recognition thing going on (I can pick it out from a carpet of green — and I’m talking the non-fruiting plant), and there’s the method of pulling it out (grab it as low as possible to the ground for maximum effect). This weed is an hardy little bastard where if just the stalk is removed, the root will continue to grow.

I’ve come across pockets — goddamned handbags, more like it — where careful pulling on a tiny stalk and leaf reveals a substantial root.

This is the enemy: Jerusalem cherry, which may not look like much above ground, but is a bugger to remove intact. — The enemy.

Great characterisation does that, too: a mild-mannered wall-flower of a reporter is also a Son of Krypton with powers beyond imagining; a traumatised warrant officer returns to the planet she warned everyone about is also a natural leader, a resourceful fighter and mother; a taciturn consultant who joins a special task force steals the film right out from under the named lead… and so forth.

I’ve got a one-person theatre project where I’ve got all the first impressions down pat: funny, opinionated, long suffering, and compassionate. But I’m having some difficulty getting across the character’s history without turning the piece into a long recitation of who-done-wrong, how-I-got-here, and variations on My-Cat-Blackie.

I’ve got the stalk and the leaf to tempt the audience with. I just have to come up with the root.