Something Good

I got my baby back.

I just realized I never posted here about what happened with my doggie. It was hard for me to talk about... He started mutilating the paw that needed to be amputated, and it became infected - and I didn't have the money to do it. (A minimum of $1200)... The vet said the limb had to be amputated right away, or he had to be put down. This was about two months ago.

I contacted every rescue organization in the area, and found one that could take him and give him the operation - but I had to give him up.


Today, my sister and a friend went and adopted the dog I had to give up - to give him back to me. He's adjusted just fine to being a tripod, and is happy to be home.

I'll have new pics of him soon!
In Mystery Man's blog, he recently reviewed the script for Hitman - a screenplay based on a popular video game.

I don't know the video game, and have always been more into role playing games (yes, I play WOW) than shooters - but I have some words of advice for the author of Hitman as he works on rewrites (hopefully, he still is): go see Shoot 'em Up.

Shoot 'em Up is just what the title says it is. It is shooting. Lots of it. Sometimes funny. Sometimes outrageous. The lead character is never well defined, his story is never explained. He has a handful of characteristics which remain consistent and are enough to drive him. The female lead is introduced when the protag (and I use that term a bit loosely) needs her.

He stumbles into the plot, but is thrown deep into it when he makes a choice - a very simple and clear choice. She is at first unwilling to go along, but is forced to when the bad guys catch up.

There's a convoluted story that doesn't matter much, and it's a pretty outrageous one - but it doesn't matter.

It moves non-stop. It has genre gags. It has a completely absurd and wonderful sex scene. But mostly, it's non-stop action. More fun than Crank was, which is similar. The protag is more over-the-top in his skills. The story bigger, and more absurd.

It felt like a shooter game.

And MOST of the movie would not have looked like much on the page, because it was a lot of choreography. But man, there were some great moments with the fight choreography.

It doesn't try to be important, or impressive. It doesn't try to explore the implications of anything. Plot and character really only exist enough to serve the action. But what is there, is great stuff.

And the fact that the antag speculates about the protag's life story, as the audience must - but not one word of his speculation is ever confirmed - is great because anything that is confirmed would just seem cheesy and wrong. We don't really care why or how he became a super-shooter. We just want to see him shoot.

And we want him to win.

And did I mention it's fun? He shoots people while delivering a baby. He kills people with carrots.

But then, one of my favorite films of all time is Buckaroo Banzai, so I appreciate absurdity.

Exposition

I watched "The Sting" last night, and was interested in how well they integrated information into the story. They had a lot to communicate, a whole world and it's rules to set up (the world of the "big con") and they did it without any noticeable exposition dumps.

I'm reading the screenplay now, and will give some specific examples soon.

Now that's over with

Well, now that I have one less complication in my life, and am highly unlikely to be pursuing a relationship again anytime soon - I can dispense with the mental distraction and get my head back on track with my writing.

Look forward to some posts this week.