back on “schedule”

Ooops, I think I missed a regularly scheduled blog post, which was not easy to do, since I don’t have a regular schedule.

So, here’s some interesting stuff:

1) I saw this article at the AV Club website: “Is Stephen King justified in hating Kubrick’s vision for The Shining?”

It reminded me of this blog post, where I described my idea of how to adapt a book for a movie (in brief: throw out the book and make a good movie). Which is obviously what Kubrick did.

After all, Shakespeare did a lot of violence to his sources, too, on his way to writing some pretty good plays.

 
2) Also from the AV Club: “Mulholland Dr. defined the modern puzzle-box movie”

I have my theories about Mulholland Dr., but no theories about it are “true,” because the movie doesn’t offer answers. Which is fine.

Worth seeing (and then you may well want to see it again).

Mulholland Dr. is also an illustration of what a vital factor random chance can be, since it was intended to be the first episode of a TV show, then the show fell through, Lynch got some more money, and figured out how to shoot new scenes to make a movie out of it.

It came to him, he has said, one day when he was drinking a milkshake at his favorite coffee shop. In a flash, he knew how to take all the footage he had and make it all work.

 
3) I’m still very happy with “A Princess in U-town,” though I am a little disappointed that I couldn’t work the phrase “letters patent” in there somehow. I tried, but it would have been awkward.

 
4) In point #3 up there, I started by saying I was “pretty happy” with the story, but then I remembered a recent post over at Maggie’s blog called “Weak Language,” and I decided to own up and admit that I’m very happy with the story. Which I am.

Not writing anything right now, but I may well go back to “It was a dark and stormy night…” (or whatever it ends up being called). That story has potential (hey, it already has a really cool ending 🙂 ).

 
5) Coming soon: some deep analysis of thematic depth and mise en scène in the “Fast and Furious” movies, or possibly a blog post entitled “Fast & Furious 6 is a way better movie than Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

Which it totally is.