Friday, November 24, 2006

Monster-in-Law

I wanted to like this one. Good trailer, but unfortunately that was the entire sum total of funny bits in the movie.

Damn.

I like Jane Fonda. I like J-Lo. Kinda. Michael Vartan is great in Alias, and is quite funny in the behind the scenes bits for this movie.

But it's the script that lets this one down. It felt like a first draft - needs way, way more work.

What can I learn from this?

  1. Don't spend too long on a set up - it was 15 minutes before there was any meaningful conflict. Way, way too long.
  2. Follow a three-act structure. Don't just have an episodic series of painful encounters between your protagonist and antagonist. This was painful to watch.
There was a good moment - this is a bit of a spoiler I guess so don't read on if you don't want to know that J-Lo's character Charlie decides to call off the wedding, which makes Fonda's Viola character have a change of heart. That was a nice moment, but that was all it was. And it wasn't a movie moment, it was a sitcom moment.

Ah well. Got to be some bad movies, I suppose...

Thursday, November 23, 2006

My sunglasses are broken

...and I have to wait until I go shopping with Marie to find some new ones.

Why? Because I have noooo taste when choosing my own sunglasses. Apparently! :)

In the meantime, I have to ask myself this question:

Am I worried about not having any sunglasses this summer because:

1. The sun might damage my sensitive eyes?
2. I won't look cool
3. People will be able to see where I'm looking!

Monday, November 20, 2006

Wired News: The Secret World of Lonelygirl

Wired News: The Secret World of Lonelygirl

Interesting insights into the future of TV!

Monday, November 06, 2006

Tip of the day: Don't use garlic salt in porridge

Garlic salt is not the same as normal salt. It certainly gave a spicy, savoury tang to my porridge this morning - not nice with brown sugar!

Haven't posted in a while, but have been watching lots of videos in between the rest of life:

Amelie - delightful. Loved it, very clever.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - okay, so I'm not the target audience, but this just didn't grab me. I liked it, but kind of didn't at the same time. I couldn't be bothered sticking around for the commentary - very unusual for me!

Jour de Fete - classic, loved it. Episodic, but funny.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - I know I shouldn't like this, but I still do from a Star Wars story point of view. The comments I've heard from others about the wooden acting and awful dialogue are all true, but not enough to ruin it completely for me.

Also some very compelling special features which make you wish you could work on a huge megaproduction like that - as many thousands of people did!

That's all for now... I also reviewed The Devil Wears Prada and semi-reviewed Flags of our Fathers on the Leadership blog.