2012 King of the Hill: July Clean-Up

I thought it would have won...

Another Battle Royale
I just got back from The Dark Knight Rises and this movie needs a detailed review.  To get there, I need to clean out my ENTIRE July list of movies.  Yes, that's right, it is time for another speed review.  Nine films, four rounds, and all of it will be absolute chaos as I knock down the list to one film to go head-to-head with The Dark Knight Rises.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.



Round 1:  Bolt v The Grey v Hugo


Bolt was the first movie that I watched this month and it was a good flick.  Bolt is an animated film about a stunt dog that thinks he has super powers.  After accidentally getting shipped to the other side of the country, he joins forces with a cat and a hamster to make his way back to his owner.  The movie was a great film, a bit emotional at times, and had a very satisfying ending.

The Grey is a must see film.  It is a powerful film that delves deep into the male psyche.  Liam Neeson plays a sharpshooter in Alaska.  His job is to protect the oil workers from wolves.  When the plane they are on crashes in Alaskan wilderness, he leads a group of survivors across the harsh wilderness before the wolves claim them.  The survivors are society's undesirables.  Yet, as the story progresses, you feel and connect with each of them.  The movie is a story of survival from yourself as much as surviving the world around you and impacted me to my very core.  My only complaint was my disappointment with the ending, but I understand it.

Huge sucked.  I hated it.  'Nuff Said.

Winner:  The Grey

Round 2:  True Grit v We Bought a Zoo v Sherlock Holmes

True Grit is a Coen Brother's western about a young girl played by Hailee Steinfeld.  She is seeking revenge for the death of her father.  She hires a US Marshal played by Jeff Bridges.  The US Marshall is less than satisfying for her needs.  The film is a dark story of the fall from innocence and the less that glorious truth behind western justice.  True Grit was a great film and I enjoyed it enough to call it my favorite Coen Brother's film.

We Bought a Zoo is a cute movie about a father of two trying to start a new life after the death of his wife.  The story is cute, heart warming, and more importantly, entertaining.  It is one of the better films out there about grieving for a loved one.  It isn't the best film in the world, but I enjoyed it all the same.

Sherlock Holmes was a movie I was afraid to watch and glad I finally did.  I'm a big fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.  If there is one thing that this movie proved, it is that the marketing department of big movie houses suck.  The trailer for this film, made the movie like it would have no grounded connection to Conan Doyle's work.  The trailer was a lie.  This film hit the real Sherlock Holmes perfectly.  It was great film and I'm glad I finally got around to watching it.

Winner:  Sherlock Holmes


Round 3:  Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist v A Beautiful Mind v The Fall


This is a simple round because I hated two of these three films.  Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist wasn't a great film.  The term "hipster" definitely applies to this film.  Still, it was a cute film that was amusing and I liked watching it.

A Beautiful Mind is about a genius with schizophrenia.  The movie is unnecessarily long and is more focused on the life of John Nash (Russell Crowe).  The movie spends most of the screen time focusing on John Nash's life and struggle of social awkwardness and less about his issues with schizophrenia.  Actually unexplained by the film, those strange behaviors of John Nash are symptoms of his illness.  This movie, basically uses a unique story of a real person with schizophrenia to make a good story.

There is one good lesson to be taken from The Fall.  Alice was the one who pointed this out, and I think that it is worth mentioning.  Stories don't just belong to the creator; they belong to the audience as well.  This movie is basically about an asshole who manipulates a young girl so that he can attempt to commit suicide.  I did not like the movie at all.

Winner:  Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist


Final Round:  The Grey v Sherlock Holmes v Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

The Grey and Sherlock Holmes both easily blow Nick and Norah out of the water.  The Grey and Sherlock Holmes are both good films.  They both had great stories.  Deciding which of these two films has been a struggle.  Though I greatly appreciate seeing a high quality Sherlock Holmes film, I cannot overlook the amazing work that is The Grey.  The Grey is an original story with an atypical ending and it leaves you feeling drained, but in a powerful way.  The movie was too good to be bested by the world's best detective.

Winner:  The Grey

2012 King of the Hill - June Madness

Battle Royale
So far, I have watched nine movies this month.  In order:  How to Marry a Millionaire, Brother's Grimm, Burlesque, Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman, Iron Lady, Salt, Brave, and In Time.  Nine movies is a LOT of ground to cover and in order to make this faster, I'm going to lighting round four match-ups of two or three movies and drop the list down to four movies to compare.  Those final four will get a more in depth review.  This also means that after this post, I will finally be caught up on blog posts.  [Applause]

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

Match 1: How to Marry a Millionaire v Brother's Grimm
In other words: Marilyn Monroe versus a pile of dog crap.  Winner:  How to Marry a Millionaire

Match 2: Burlesque v Prometheus
The one good actor could not save Burlesque.  Winner: Prometheus

Match 3: Snow White and the Huntsman v Iron Lady
There was so much bad with Snow White and the Huntsman, I almost posted a rant.   Winner:  Iron Lady

Match 4: Salt v Brave v In Time
Salt easily obliterates In Time in story and acting.  Despite the fact I saw a portion of Salt being filmed, Brave defeats Salt without question.  Winner:  Brave

Four movies remain:  How to Marry a Millionaire, Prometheus, Iron Lady, and Brave.

Match 5:  How to Marry a Millionaire v Prometheus
How to Marry a Millionaire is a comedy production of three ladies trying to find success by getting married to a millionaire.  Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall rent an expensive apartment for one year and survive by selling off the room's possessions while they attempt to locate and snag millionaires.  The movie in many ways resembles a Shakespearean comedy and is highly entertaining.  If one thins is certain, Monroe films stand the test of time.

Prometheus is an action packed flick, set before the events of the classic movie Alien.  It focuses heavily on philosophy and leaves the audience with nearly as many questions at the end as the audience had at the start of the film.  The movie was fascinating, the actions was interesting, and the plot was somewhat entertaining.  The movie however left a lot to be desired.

Winner:  How to Marry a Millionaire

Match 6:  Iron Lady and Brave
Do yourself a favor and rent Iron Lady.  Meryl Streep does a phenomenal job in this movie depicting the life of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  The movie is a bit disjointed as elderly Margaret Thatcher remembers bits and pieces of her her life as she adjusts to her growing mental health issues.  The story unveils the trials the Iron Lady went through to get her start in politics and hold herself in power.  It is a good film and I greatly enjoyed watching it.

And then there is Brave.  Brave is Pixar's latest film about a Scottish princess who is facing a forced marriage between the first born from one of three clans.  Merida has other things in mind for herself and tries to change her fate against the wishes of her mother, Elinor.  The movie is absolute, positively, fucking amazing.  The story is both unpredictable and formulaic.  I was able to make some predictions as to where the movie would go, but I did not see it all coming.  Remaining completely spoiler free, this movie tackles what it means to be Brave on MULTIPLE levels and brings to the box office one of the strongest female characters I have ever seen.  While Merida can shoot a bow at the same level of Katniss of The Hunger Games, it is not that part of herself that makes her strong.  Go see this immediately.

Winner: Brave

Match 7:  How to Marry a Millionaire v Brave
How to Marry a Millionaire is a good film and has proven that it can stand the test of time.  It has three characters all very unique and interesting.  And here comes the "but" you are undoubtedly expecting... But, How to Marry a Millionaire has nothing on the movie Brave.  Brave is a surprisingly very strong film that I think deserves the chance to try and win out for the movie of the year.  Will it?  I honestly don't know, but we are about to find out if it can do the job.

Ultimate Winner:  Brave


Ultimate Loser:  Brother's Grimm.  Holy crap that movie sucked ass.

2012 King of the Hill - May Catch-Up Post

The Avengers Stands Alone

Normally, for the King of the Hill Challenge, I would compare two movies together to see how they stand up. The only problem with this is that in May, I only watched The Avengers. The movie wins, no debate here, but just declaring it a win, isn't really much of a blog post. So, I'm going to weigh in on the movie by talking about the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. And there WILL be spoilers of the very ending of the film, sorry.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

The Good

There was a lot of Good in this movie. The story was great. The acting was excellent. The dialogue was witty and fun. The fight scenes were spectacular. It is really hard to pick out and focus on the good, because there was a lot of good to go along. It was a movie that I actually went and saw twice, in the theater, something that is rare for me to do. So yeah, it had a lot of good qualities. But, it wasn't a perfect movie either and I'll discuss that next. Just know that I liked this film.

The Bad

There isn't too much that was bad about this film. My first time watching the film, I actually had little complaints. The second time I watched it, I wasn't as entertained. Most of what made this movie good was either the action sequences, or this witty, humorous moments that aren't quite as good the second time around. Also, the selective ignorance was a bit more apparent on the second watching.

The biggest example I have of this is in the initial appearance of Loki. Loki appears through the Tesseract with this epic helmet and spear. Orders are shouted for him to put down the spear. Loki begins attacking. Loki pins Hawkeye against a wall and speaks his first line. Hawkeye reacts, but not in the way I would expect. If an alien appeared in front of me, began attacking anyone and then spoke to me, I'd be surprised that he spoke English. Yet, we find that that the idea that the Hulk could have a consciousness is unfathomable.  The movie picks and chooses what it wishes to gloss over.  There are other examples, but for me, this was the most obvious.

The Ugly

The Avengers is a movie about a team of super heroes. There is one scene, however, that really upsets me. On the flying aircraft carrier, the ship is attacked and Black Widow and Bruce Banner fall to another level. Bruce begins to change into The Hulk and the reaction of Black Widow is one of complete horror. This reaction was unsettling and it didn't get better at any point in time during the second watching of the movie.

The movie at no point in time holds back the threats. There are a lot of deaths. An entire base is destroyed in the opening. There is a threat of the world being invaded by aliens that seem to be willing to kill everything. Yet, despite all of this, one character demonstrates true horror. Black Widow, the only female Avenger. Not Tony Stark when he's piloting the nuclear missile to what he believes will be his death. Not Thor when he is trapped in a cage plunging to what Loki ponders might cause his death. Not Captain America, broken and battered as the aliens overwhelm the streets. Not, Hawkeye when he reaches his last couple of arrows. Only Black Widow experiences that fear. And I find it completely and totally unnecessary. Instead of her fighting for her freedom, as a determined hero, she is caught with panic. And, when she escapes, she goes fetal for a time. And that just really damaged the movie for me in a bad way.

Winner: The Avengers (duh)

Complications of the Bechdel Test in Writing

Courtesy publicdomainpictures.net

The Bechdel Test can best be described as a litmus test that is applied to movies to evaluate the role or presence of women in the film.  To pass the test, the movie must have two female, named characters, that speak to each other during the film about any subject other than men.  It is a striking simple test, and yet a vast majority of films fail to meet it.

In literature, you don't have screen time and the rules should be somewhat different.  In theory, with writing, it should be easier to have the Bechdel Test requirements met.  Yet, I've found that depending on the factors behind your story, this can be surprisingly difficult to pass, despite the fact that the number and significance of the female characters in the story exceed the number of males.

In Extrication, the story is told first person through the eyes of a thirteen year old boy.  He has several female characters that he interacts with, three of which are a significant part of his life.  He has his mother, the neighbor, Gail Rosenberg, and his long distance friend, Claire.  Also, being a thirteen year old boy, he is attending school during the day with countless kids his age of both genders.  So, with all of these female characters, it should be easy to have the Bechdel Test passed, right?  Wrong.

One of the problems with writing, is that every scene should carry with it a purpose.  Having an abundance of female characters in the story makes it possible to have two of them interact.  But, they need to interact in such a way to advance the story.  In the case of Extrication, the story is about a young boy finding that he has an extraordinary power.  This greatly limits the options available for two female characters talking to advance the story.

Fortunately, in my bag of tricks, I was able to find a way to work this out.  Part of telling a story is setting the scene of the world.  One way to learn about the world is with conversations between characters.  If the piece of information is important to the reader, but not something your character would necessarily talk about, you have a perfect opportunity.  You can have your character overhear two characters discuss this in front of your protagonist.

If you have a piece of writing that does not meet the Bechdel test, you should look closely and ask yourself why doesn't it.  Adding in a scene where two students talk about an important piece of world news isn't a major change.  You can also look at your existing scenes where a group of characters are holding a conversation and see if you can switch around who's talking to whom to make the story pass the Bechdel test.  This small bit of effort takes nothing away from the story and makes the book just that much more accessible in a world where Bechdel tests are needed.

Movie Ketchup Time (April)

I'm behind on my blog and I'm sorry for the two/three of you out there that check this blog on a regular basis.  I'm also currently dealing with the heaviest bout of depression I have ever experienced in my life.  Still, I feel that when dealing with depression, the best solution is to try and force yourself to do something anyway.  So, for now, while I have the energy, I'm going to start clearing out my projects I'm super behind on.  To start off, let's talk about the King of the Hill Movie Challenge.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

April was not a busy movie month.  I only watched two films during the month Titanic and The Little Princess.  If there was another movie I watched, it was not significant enough to implant itself in my mind.    So today, I have two movies to pit against each other.  Titanic, the extremely popular, massively grossing film by James Cameron.  And The Little Princess (1995 version), an underdog remake of a Shirley Temple film.  For me, the decision was easy, but I don't expect this decision to be quickly accepted by my readers.

Titanic is two movies rolled into one.  It is the disaster movie of the famous voyage of the RMS Titanic.  It is also a "romance" movie.  The romance story follows two characters Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet).  They are two people from different worlds on a voyage to America.  The two meet under the most unusual of circumstances and quickly fall in love with each other.  The disaster story follows the RMS Titanic (CGI) as it crashes into an ice berg (CGI) and begins to sink into the murky depths (either CGI or a giant kiddie pool).

It is the story of the sinking of the Titanic that made this movie great.  The romance had decent moments, but was more of a detraction than anything else.  For one thing, Titanic has some of the worst dialogue I have ever seen in a movie.  The most irritating is how often Jack and Kate use the other's name.  This is not natural dialogue and if you don't believe me, record yourself for a day and see how often you say someone else's name when talking to them.

The Little Princess is a movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón that follows Sara (Liesel Matthews) as she attends an American boarding school while her father, a British factory owner is fighting in World War I.  Her life is comfortable and filled with all of the amenities until her father is reported as having been killed and that the British government has seized his assets.  Suddenly, Sara is without a penny to her name and thrust into working as a servant girl along side Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester).

The Little Princess is clearly aimed for young girls, but the story is a whimsical tale that can entertain a wider audience.  It has moments that are over the top, such as a scene when the neighbor's aid, Ram (Errol Sitahal), fills the attic with exotic foods and fabric for Becky and Sara.  Despite these over the top moments, the movie gives a very realistic look into boarding schools during the early 1900's.  The dialogue makes Titanic look like a Saturday morning cartoon, and it was a better, overall period piece.

April King of the Hill Movie Winner:  The Little Princess

And if you case you were wondering, the March King of the Hill Movie Winner is The Hunger Games

The Extended Break

I took a break from blogging.  For a while now, I felt that my blog posts were short, forced, and lacking useful content.  I not only want to be a published author, I want to make myself a resource for the writing world.  For this reason, it is important that I focus on making my blogs meaningful and thought provoking.

I hadn't forgotten about this blog.  I'm only two behind my King of the Hill movie challenge.  After catching Hunger Games, I basically stopped watching movies.  A friend was able to convince me to finally sit down and watch Titanic and I'll be doing an in depth discussion of that movie later.  I also recently watched A Little Princess.  But, beyond this, I needed time off.  It also doesn't help that my grandmother passed away and I got a promotion at work.

Breaks are important, even in writing.  One of the best times to take a break is after completing a novel.  My good friend, fellow SWAG member, and author of Uncross Your Heart, Taryn Elliott, had to remind me of this rule.  I finished writing the first draft of Extrication last week.  During the writing process, something happened with Scrivener and I lost an entire chapter.  While I promised not to go back immediately into the story, I felt like I hadn't completed the novel without that lost chapter.  I attempted to redo the chapter and got a harsh reminder why you need to step away.

Stories are a journey.  You have a character who starts at Point A and travels down the path of the story until they reach the end of the story at Point Z.  With writing, you get into the head of a character and put him through this journey.  If you are doing things right, the problem should be obvious.  After finishing a novel, you are in the head of a character at Point Z.  A Point Z character is not going to be the same person as the one a Point A or even a Point W.  Character growth leads you with a completely different person.

This was what happened when I tried to fill that missing chapter.  Peter Smith, in my head, is a Point Z character.  For me to go back and write this scene, I need to wait, let the character have some time off and go back to the story after that break.  When I return, I'll have to start from Point A and work my way through to the missing chapter.  Then, with the proper character in my mind, I can write the scene.

Just so that we are clear, I'm not talking about plot.  I know exactly what happens in the chapter that I lost.  After all, I wrote it once before.  The issue is that I need to be in the character's state of mind.  That's not that easy of a shift to make.  So, for now, I'm focusing on other things while I wait for another week to pass when I'll try this again.  After all, Tara Elliot said that the minimum time limit is two weeks. I'll trust her judgement; she writes good shit.

Go buy her book.

World Building: Cultures

This is another cross-post with mywife. We are both talking about the same subject from different angles. You can see her post over here.

Cultural would building is my favorite part of world building. It is also the most difficult part of world building. It is also a necessity to make a good story great. Without culture, a fictional society begins to crumble and look poorly constructed and unbelievable. On the other hand, like all world building, too much cultural development can detract from a story. The important thing to do with cultural development in your world is to build enough to make it look interesting and not go any further beyond that.

There are two factors that lead to developing culture. The geography and the history of the region that you are developing. It is important to reflect upon both when you get into developing the culture. I personally find that the geographic aspect of cultural building is easier to do where as historical impact on culture is harder. Geography generally doesn't change. History, on the other hand is fluid and subject to change and development over time, but also subject to rewrites by the author. If you build a piece of culture around a war and later remove the war from the history, the culture is going to change.

Geographic Cultural Development

To design culture based on geography, you have to take a close look at the geography in question. Look at the aspects of the geography that make it interesting and unique. Is it extremely cold? Is there some sort unique geological feature. Cultures tend to develop based around the unique geographical features. A village on a large river is going to be influenced by that river. Dry, arid regions will have cultures that cherish the rare summer rainstorms and may even develop a rain festival.

Historical Cultural Development

This is where the flexibility comes in. In order for you to develop this culture, you need to look at the significant historical events for the region. Has the region been plagued by repeated wars? This might develop a society of hardened, stern people. A society that had a deadly plague sweep through their land might develop a supernatural belief based on a precipitating event.

Putting the Two Together

The best cultures are going to use a mix of the two together. It's really easy. Just look at how a historical event was shaped by that primary geological feature. Suddenly, you have new cultures develop. The arid village might have had the plague start at the time of major storm, prompting the society to develop a connection between rain and death.

In my epic fantasy, I have a race of aquatic creatures. For them, the chief geographic feature is the fact that the cities are on the bottom of the ocean. This has a couple of immediate effects on the culture. I'm not going to explain all of them, only one of them. Being that the society exists underwater, the only weapons that would work effectively are jabbing weapons. Any other type would have too much resistance to movement in the water. This leaves spears and tridents as potential weapons. Historically, there is an event, I won't describe it in this post, that forced the people of this world to fight. Single spears didn't work. Only tridents were effective. Additionally, fighting alone or in pairs was not enough to deal with this threat. Success only came when there were three, or more involved. As a result of this event, the number three developed as being significant in this culture. Almost all aspects of the society develop around the number three. This covers everything from three-prong tipped tridents to guard formations in groups of three, to floors in the coral towers housing three families.