Divergent: But What Exactly Is Happening?

Title: Divergent

Genre: Drama, Action, Sci-Fi

Director: Neil Burger

Writer: Screenplay - Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, Novel - Veronica Roth

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet, Maggie Q

Tagline: In a world bound within the realms of legalized segregation, a girl tries to change the future and shit while getting at that D.

Grade: C

Good Movie For: Young Adult Fiction Enthusiasts, Segregation Supporters, Jack Dawson

My movie watching patterns are sporadic. Sporadic enough to maybe consider that there are no patterns at all. What can I say. I like living outside the box. But there is no box.

So that being said, I pretty much would be up for watching any genre or type of movie. I almost watched Hansel and Gretel Get Baked last week. Almost. When my friend asked to watch Divergent on the back end of our movie marathon day, I wholeheartedly agreed to go. 

I'm a bit of a young adult softy. I watched and read the entire Twilight series. What? I was young. I was impressionable. This all might have happened last week. Whatever. Let me live my life. So, Divergent wasn't out of the spectrum of my movie watching prow less. Some set up with this reviewy thing, my friend read the books. I didn't. We had slightly differing stances on the film.

From a reader perspective, my friend liked that the movie stayed true to the book. Every scene that was depicted was properly derived from the book. From my perspective I didn't know what the fuck in hell of all christ was going on. I mean it wasn't entirely hard to follow, but I just couldn't see where the story was going at all at any point in the movie. Some people might take that as a good thing, that the storyline kept me guessing, but I think it's just lazy. Maybe not lazy per se, but too much to the book. 

My biggest reason why I didn't love this movie was because there wasn't a single storyline throughout. When I know the film is heavily set in a narrative structure I try and imagine what the end scene would be. Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I get it wrong. With Divergent there were multiple times where I thought the film would come to an organic end. Then it kept going. And kept going. And kept going. 

The ending also seemed too tied up at the end. Knowing that this was a trilogy I expected there to be a huge cliffhanger to propel the audience to anxiously wait another year before the story commenced again, but with Divergent, the ending eluded to a much bigger picture, but it also gave a lot of resolution which made it feel as if the story could end there without the emergence of a Part 2 and Part 3. I probably should have read the book, but ehhh. I'll see this again next year when FX decides to sandwich it in between the saga that is Twilight. 

The Grand Budapest Hotel: I'm Pretty Sure He Has OCD

Title: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Director: Wes Anderson

Writer: Story- Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness, Screenplay - Wes Anderson

Starring: Fucking Everyone Ever In The Existence of Man

Tagline: The fantastical telling of the world's best hotel concierge and his plight with prison, German Nazis, the death of his 84 year old lover, and the boy with an apple.

Grade: B-

Good Movie For: Wes Anderson groupies, fairytale lovers, cougar bait, people who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

I've never seen a Wes Anderson movie. Yea. I know. It's like I've committed murder or something. It seems like we're in a time where current film students think he is god, but I have not yet stumbled into his house of worship. This was my introduction. It's cool to like Wes Anderson. Right? I've surveyed a hundred hipsters and they all say yes. 

With all of this talk about Mr. Anderson in the halls of my schools, it's deplorable that it took me this long to finally grace my eyeballs with the magnificence that is his creations. But alas. I'm in the group now. I get it. I understand. 

I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel during a double feature movie day with one of my best friends. We're both movie people. She loves Wes Anderson, so I thought, shit. Win, win, win, win. Right? 

Yea. I guess.

The movie itself was, good. But the verdict is still out whether or not it is great. The story and the visuals were outlandish, outlavish, and out...luxurious? I fell in love with the world that Anderson created. With all of the stills that I've seen of his work you can distinctly tell that his mind is one that works in different ways than the normal mind, but that's good. That's what I want. 

Everyone that I have talked to basically worship thine holiest Anderson because of his masterpiece The Royal Tenebaums. I think maybe that should have been my introduction into Wesandersonity. I love the realms that he effortlessly creates, but I don't know if The Grand Budapest will outdo his greatest film. I can't find a pinpoint as to why this movie didn't surpass into the levels of greatness, it just didn't. It's a good film, but I don't believe it's great. 

Also, if homeboy doesn't suffer from OCD with all of the precision that he uses to create his visuals then fuck if I know what OCD actually is. 

Tumble, Tumble, Tumble.

So I made a thing with my friend.

Like this, but more Female Power Rant-y.

Check it out if you want to. 

The Film Fatales

Also, getting back to posting regularly. 

Ok. "Back to"?

I'm going to start posting regularly now.

Paradise Lost: Metallica, The Root of All Evil

Title: Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hill (1996)

Genre: Documentary

Director: Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky

Tagline: Whose innocence is really lost?

Grade: B

Good Movie For: People with a strong stomach, teenage sleuths, Metallica fanatics

I don't entirely know how I came about selecting this movie for my Netflix queue. It might have been mentioned on a tv show that I was watching. A friend might have recommended it to me. A stranger might have whispered it into my ear. All I know is that it ended up in the top slot and I had to watch it. I had briefly read the synopsis of the film on the DVD cover so I knew the gist of what the film was about, but it didn't fully prepare me for what I watched. 

The film is pretty long for a documentary. Typically docs round out at about an hour and a half. This was two and a half hours, but even with the prolonged build up, I was still completely enthralled in the story of these three young men. The concept reminded me of The Thin Blue Line in the aspect that there is a definitive verdict to the trial, but the filmmakers present a case where you aren't entirely sure who is and isn't innocent. 

The film was good and interesting. What I didn't like about it though was the horrifically graphic images that the filmmakers chose to include. I understand that the images and pictures were used to drive home a point of the gruesome nature of the murders, but there inherently is a fine line between emphasis and the gag reflex. Looking past that though, this was a good watch. But refrain from listening to Metallica after. People will think you're worshipping Satan. 

You might want to say a couple hail mary's before too.

You know.

Just to be safe.

Blackfish: Don't Fuck With Them Killer Whales

Title: Blackfish (2013)

Genre: Documentary

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Tagline: Free Willy has taught us nothing

Grade: A

Good Movies For: People with hearts, People who live on earth, People who breathe

When I was 10 I saw Keiko at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. I had seen the Free Willy movies so I knew who he was. Hundreds of people crowded around the the glass wall of this giant aquarium as the all too familiar curved dorsal fin swam around. We had gotten a new panoramic 35mm camera. I remember snapping shots of him in the water. Those pictures are in a box somewhere, but now I don't know if I have the heart to look over them with fondness. 

I had been hearing a lot of buzz around this movie for the past couple of months. I initially wanted to watch it in theatres, but then it went on dvd and digital stream with a fucking quickness. I had been putting it off because of that pesky thing called school, but when I finally watched it. Shit.

I loved The Cove, and from what I was hearing this was quite similar. It was good. Really good. Good enough for me to force my family to watch it during our happy and joyful Christmas party. They call me The Mood Killer.

 Blackfish is an activist movie, much like The Cove. It has a stance and it's stance is clear, but it's delivery isn't one that is met with a grain of salt. The movie directly tackles the inhumanity that these animals face, specifically when it comes to the realm of America's favorite water spectacle, Sea World, but instead of having random people talk about the horrors, it has a cast of former Sea World trainers to dish the dirt. 

Blackfish was a good movie. It lets you peek behind the curtain to see the sadness and anguish that are covered by the splashes sent by Shamu. You should watch this. Everyone should watch this, but only when your faith in humanity is at an all time high. This is the swift kick needed to tumble you down that optimistic slope.

Well Shit....

I feel like I've written this post too many times.

I'm bad at consistency, blah blah blah.

I'm a sprinter, blah blah blah.

Life gets in the way, blah blah blah.

I've struggled. People struggle. But I'm getting back on the horse. If I want to take this writing thing seriously I need to put in the hours. I need to be somewhat consistent. So I'm going to start again, but this time with less stress.

Shit happened. Shit is happening. Shit is going to happen, and hopefully I can be active enough to jot it down here. One shit that happened is that I finally graduated from college. I'm now what society calls an "adult". Yea, sure, whatever. I guess I'll stick with that title. I've also landed this thing called a job. Weird. I can afford things now, like better quality alcohol. A shit that is still continuing to happen is this writing business. I'm done with school deadlines, but now I have to work up to my own self imposed deadlines. Let's see how that turns out.

Point is, I'm getting my shit together, and hopefully it doesn't hit the fan. I'm still learning and still progressing in this university of life. I still have a shit ton of movies that I need to watch and learn from.

Well shit. Here I go, again.

Again.

The Writers Group That's Not Really A Writers Group

Since my realization that I lack any type of drive or will in my life, I have decided to join a local writers group. It isn't your typical sharing pages and destroy you to build you back up group (ok, not all writers groups are like that) it's a different type of writers group. The only way I can describe it is solo writing, but sitting in a group. Basically you shut the fuck up and get shit done, but instead of doing that by yourself where the temptation of Tumblr lurks across your computer screen, you do it in a crowded Starbucks where you feel less inclined to show people your strangely intense obsession with the show Criminal Minds and Dr. Spencer Reid. I should probably delete my tags on Tumblr. That's a paper trail.

 I was reluctant to join this group at first. It consists of other screenwriters who are some of my best friends so that was the main draw. I was in another group where everyone else was writing novels. I felt like the gimpy kid that gets picked last for dodgeball. And this guy named Stardust kept asking me what I was writing about. The comfort of these friends is what drew me in. I knew that Stardust wasn't going to be lurking over my shoulder. I feel a bit discouraged though. Why is it that I can't write on my own without getting distracted? Is there such a thing as onset ADD? I probably have it. 

Trying to veer back to my point, the writer's group has actually been a huge platform for me. I've only been going for the past couple weeks, but it's been good so far. OK. I haven't actually written anything yet, but I've been reading scripts during the session. That's good right? A step in the right direction. Well actually that's a lie. I wrote an outline for a short, but didn't muster enough drive to actually write anything past Fade In. I'm getting there. Slowly. Really slowly. Excruciatingly slow.

I think my point and the gist of this post is that everyone writes differently. Some feel more comfortable writing in a darkened room where the light that glares off of the computer screen is the only thing that illuminates your tear streaked face as you realize that you've fallen into the bitch known as the 2nd Act Black Hole. Others, like myself, need the structure and nagging eyes of other writers writing to keep me on track. I read a post by Amanda from The Aspiring TV Writer & Screenwriter Blog and she talked about how Diablo Cody could only write in a group with other writers otherwise she would be too tempted to look up the latest gossip on whatever D-list actor stumbled out of jail that day. Diablo Cody is me. I am her. Basically what I'm trying to get at is whatever way you feel comfortable, don't be ashamed by it. Writers need to write. Anyway they can.