read: Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

I gave it 3 stars: Shelfari review

Next up: Spook Country by William Gibson

Characters Are The Thing

Even in a plot-driven story, characters are key. I've found that one of the easiest things to do is to get so wrapped up in my protagonist, that I fail to create an adequately drawn antagonist. It's often unclear what exactly the antagonist wants and what they're willing to do to get it. And without that, the story withers and dies somewhere in the middle and has no clear ending.

For my current project, I've already sketched out both characters, but need to spend more time. Again, the antagonist needs clearer goals and motivations. I also need to make sure that the cast of secondary characters is well-rounded, since the plot will be complicated and they will add much to the texture of the story.

The good news is that I'm actually working on the project, instead of just thinking about it.

Once Again, I Have Been Remiss

Blogging is hard. So is writing. Trying to do either one on a fine summer day is even harder, as I'm obviously finding. Trying to do either one, while keeping up with everyone else's blogging and writing is also difficult. Something needs to be ignored. Alas, for me it has been both this blog and my writing.

Mind you, I have actually worked on a couple of new projects. Just a little. I've captured a few bones of the skeleton of one novel and the idea for another. What hasn't happened is the actual committing to characters and plot and launching into the writing. That needs to happen soon. I'm pretty sure it can happen soon. This week? Let's assume so.

A new month starts tomorrow. It's as good a time as any. Then again, a new day starts tomorrow. It's also as good a time as any. Lest I forget, a new day started today. It was also as good a time as any. Too bad the morning is gone and my day job beckons. Tonight is another chance.

Villains

A great rule of thumb from the Screenwriting Tips blog:

"Good villains have something to gain. Great villains have something to prove." Then the killer: "Your villains have no comprehensible reason for doing anything."

"Up" [A]

The opposite of the self-explanatory movie title is "Up". It could be about almost anything. In fact, it's about a man who seeks to fulfill his promise to his dead wife by going to a mysterious place in South America known as "Paradise Falls". He does so by hoisting his house out of the city with several hundred helium balloons just as they come to cart him off to the old folks' home. He encounters a young Wilderness Explorer, the actual wilderness, a wiley giant bird, an outcast talking dog, and his boyhood hero, now gone bad.

What worked: characterizations, story elements, gags ("squirrel!"), and animation. The 3D system was more astonishing and less intrusive than with Coraline.

What didn't work: my disbelief system kept kicking in whenever the old man stopped needing his omnipresent cane and was able to accomplish physical feats worthy of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. His disabilities vs abilities shifted a bit to conveniently for the plot.

"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" [B]

The self-explanatory title is one of the many indulgences of this film. There are few surprises here. Jesse James is alternately a bad man, good father, and psycho. Robert Ford is alternately a weasely hanger on and a calculating, cold-blooded killer. They spend the entire film in a sort of macabre dance, like a moth and a flame, ultimately destroying each other.

What worked: The characters are rich and deep and well acted. This history is palpable. The story is as sparse as the landscape and feels like that's as it should be. The color palate and narration give the work a feel similar to Ken Burns' epic "The Civil War". There is tension in every scene, which is the only thing that allows the deliberate pacing to work.

What didn't work: As I wrote above, this is a self-indulgent film. It often languorously wallows in its own sense of self-importance, perhaps a bit like Bob Ford. And while it inhabits the same vast landscapes as other Westerns, it seems to give that up for a claustrophobic fixation on the two antagonists.

Ultimately this is a good, but flawed, film. One must be in the right mood to tolerate its moodiness.

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" [B-]

An alien who appears to be a man lands in the middle of New York's Central Park and tells us that he's here to save the Earth. It takes another hour and a half for him to reveal and us to realize 'from whom'.

What worked: I added marks for being a little more sciency than much of what passes for science fiction today. I also actually liked Keanu Reeves as the detached alien. Given the situation, there was little hope of him acting entirely human. The response and response team of the government was almost realistic. The little kid. John Cleese. Some actual thought and philosophy.

What didn't work: Jennifer Connely as the astro-biologist. What? Why did GORT have to appear as a super-buff humanoid? I'd have thought we'd learned by now that robots have no business looking like humans, especially if they're coming from a non-human planet. I didn't like that the government was portrayed as quite so heartless. The overall feel of the movie was a little too deliberate (plodding?).