Tag: Hollywood

Review: ‘The French Dispatch’ Is Very Good & Very…French


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My introduction to French cinema and one of the strangest movies I’ve ever seen was “Betty Blue.” That was one fucked up movie. One half hour in that movie could have been turned into a full length American film. In short, a lot was going on.

I’ve slowly grown into a big Wes Anderson fan as he’s become more of an auteur. I’m probably showing myself to be a stereotype of some sort, but Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson are two of my favorite living filmmakers. Anyway, the reason why I bring this all up is how…French…The French Dispatch is.

Let’s start with the gratuitous amount of nudity in this movie. It’s not prurient or titillating, but there is a WHOLE LOT of Léa Seydoux in this movie. And, weirdly enough, there is a brief glimpse of full frontal nudity on the part of Tilda Swinton. (Who holds up really fucking well for 61!)

Whenever an art film has a lot of nudity in it, I wonder as to the reasoning. Is it a “gift” to art film nerds? Is it an effort to generate buzz? Ms. Seydoux — who was once was a part of a 23 minute lesbian sex scene in Blue Is The Warmest Color — may have been doing all that nudity not only as a flex but also to help her career.

Wes Anderson movies are Event Films for actors — given how many great ones tend to be in his films — and a lot of directors watch his movies, too. I find Ms. Seydoux to be a serious babe. She does look like a very glamorized version of my first serious girlfriend, too.

Anyway, the point is — I had to drive 35 miles to see this movie and it was worth it. I did check my watch and roll my eyes a few times. But, overall, it was well written, directed and acted. As always with Anderson, the cinematography was great, too.

Red October: Autocratic America & The Rise Of ‘Virtual Hollywood’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, it definitely looks as though Steve Bannon’s “spiritual shock troops” will successfully pull of the administrative coup he’s plotting in broad daylight and the United States will slip peacefully into autocracy.

This, of course, raises the question of what will happen to the Bluer portions of the United States, like NYC and LA. It’s reasonable to assume that at some point — probably when there’s a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention — that millions of center-Left people across the country will vote with their fleet and flee for other parts of the globe.

I could easily see millions of Americans from NYC, Chicago and Boston settling all across Europe. But the question of the moment for me is, what happens to Hollywood?

I think one of two things might happen. One, would be Hollywood would become totally virtual. Much of Hollywood production takes place well outside of LA proper and it could be that the entire industry becomes virtual as America becomes more and more autocratic and, as such, less and less friendly to creative types.

There won’t be a physically Hollywood anymore. It will be everywhere an no where.

There is the other option, which would be that somewhere like Perth might be where Hollywood re-located en masse.

But all of this speculation has to be put in context — there would come a point when our new autocrat panicked at the loss of economic output by all these Blues leaving the country and they would be the kibosh on anyone leaving the country for any reason. Form follows function, as they say.

So, lulz, I dunno.

The Naming Of Names


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m obsessed with picking just the right name for the characters in this four novel thriller series I’m working on. At the moment, I’m quite pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. I love some of the names I’ve come up with, I’m extremely paranoid that someone will steal a march on me and use similar names to what I have, forcing me to find new names.

This is a very real possibility, but at the same time, as I keep saying to myself, make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know.

Some of the better names I’ve seen in fiction include Don Draper, Shiv Roy and, of course, Lisbeth Salander.

The name “Don Draper” is so very, very good because it tells you exactly what to expect from the character. “Don” evokes Don Juan while “Draper” evokes “drape her.” What more can you ask for in a name?

I don’t know anything about her character or the show she’s featured on “Succession,” but I love, love, love the name “Shiv Roy.” That’s great name. It’s loaded in such a way that you can play with the audience’s expectations a great deal. Nearly anything the character does, or doesn’t do, will be loaded because of her name.

Meanwhile, “Lisbeth Salander” is so great because “Salander” is very similar to “salamander.” You get the sense that this is a small person who is nearly impossible to kill, just like the animal her name suggests.

Anyway. The thing about character names is while one can come to love them, they’re also fairly easily to replace with some thought. So, if the worst happens, I can always go back to the drawing board and think up new names for whichever characters I feel I’ve been forced to rename.

‘But Why 4 Novels?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, this four novel series began as one novel that was started because of my personal white hot rage against the Trump Era. This morphed into two books because the story was just too big to be told in one novel. And then something happened that I totally did not expect — Trump lost.

As such, there came a point when I realized I needed to recalibrate the project. I was on the couch, just about asleep, when I realized something: I had a huge backstory in my mind for the two novels I was working on. So big, in fact, that I could write two novel-length stories about how we got to the opening of the first book in the two-book story.

My creative past…and future?

That’s when I realized that a great way to “fix” the problem of Trump losing was to go backwards in time and tell those two “prequel” stories, then come back refreshed and with new eyes on the two modern-era books I was working on.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Much to my delight, this plan has worked out quite well. I do have a lot of insecurity every once in a while about such a thing project, but the two additional prequel stories I’m working on are really strong and really compelling and so there you go.

The whole thing won’t make any sense until the whole project is finished and you can read the four novels all the way through and see my entire vision as a whole. But that comes with the territory of having a vision, I suppose. You have to have “paper” that people can read before most people are willing to accept that you know what you’re talking about.

It definitely would have helped if I had had a “muse” in my life to help guide me through this process. But, I guess, there’s just as much a chance that any woman in my life would have discouraged me from starting this whole thing to begin with. It has helped a lot, in some ways, that I have not had anyone to tell me “no.”

My Hot Take On ‘Vice Signaling’ & The Alec Baldwin Accidental Shooting Of Halyna Hutchins


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was watching Chris Hayes’ show tonight when he said something that I had thought about, but had yet to articulate — the rise of “vide signaling” within the Republican ranks.

The idea that Republicans have decided to willfully become cocksuckers for attention is something I have thought a lot about. This has come to the fore with the tragic, accidental shooting of Halyna Hutchins by Hollywood star Alec Baldwin.

Both of these tweets are prime examples of what Hayes and I have noticed. I think some of this comes from the more self-aware members of the MAGA New Right knowing that there is, at this point, literally nothing they can say on social media that won’t be attacked.

So, they decide to fuck with people and say intentionally dumb, crass, asshole things, knowing that Twitter liberals will quote-share their content, amplifying their message.

The whole situation is fucked up and there is not ready answer as to how to fix it. “Vice signaling” is yet another sign of the bolts popping of American civil society. We’re careening towards a very dark future with no obvious endgame. At the moment, I think our best scenario is we have some sort of temporary military junta lead by someone like James Mattis who helps us figure out how to fix some deep seated structural problems in our Republic without either us turning into a long-term autocracy or having us have some sort of civil war.

All one can do, on a personal level, is to figure out what one believes in and what you’re willing to risk your life and sacred honor for in the real world. Getting mad on Twitter or Facebook is easy and low risk. Get back to me when you know what you’re willing to believe when you have a gun stuck in your face in the real world.

Whatever you still believe in at that point, is what you need to start to prepare to defend now, while you have time to plan. I’m trying to do that — I got a passport — but I know myself well enough to know that I’ll endup going towards, rather than away, from danger should the occasion arise.

Dune: A Good, But Boring, Movie


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I liked the newest attempt to film the Dune novel, but I found it boring as hell. I kept waiting for something to happen. It did finally happen, but for some reason, it didn’t feel like a big enough pay off for all the time I spent rolling my eyes and checking the clock on my phone.

Dune / From the Internet

It definitely was gorgeous to look at. And there were moments when it was engaging and it felt like just another big budget scifi movie. But then there was all the other time when nothing happened. There was a lot of exposition and build up….and you just felt restless.

But, for some reason, over all it was a good movie. I just wish they had played with the source material more. I wish they had juiced the story up so it had a lot more action and lot more there there.

And, yet, having said all that, I’m looking forward to a sequel. Hopefully, it will be more interesting. There is some sense from how Dune ended that any sequel would have a lot more going on.

And Dune universe is so huge — and so much actual action goes on within in — that I look forward to a Dune cinematic universe.

Scenes Written, Not Word Count, Are My Metric When It Comes To This Thriller Series


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m just about to get past the sixth chapter in this first novel in the four novel series I’m working on. Once that happens, I think — think — things should move a lot quicker at least until I hit the midpoint.

In the past, I’ve had a lot of problems with the story falling apart at the midpoint. But I’ve mapped out this novel so tightly this go around that I think I’m pretty safe.

I hope.

I’m hoping to wrap up these four novels and try to sell them to a publishing house no later than maybe 18 months from now.

But what gets me is how some other writers get so worked up about how many words they’ve written when that’s not the metric I use. I use scenes written. Since each scene is supposed to be somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 words, I find myself writing a lot more than if I was strictly obsessed with word count.

Everyone’s different, but I like using scene count as opposed to word count because it’s a whole lot easier to keep track of using my system of development and there’s a far greater sense of accomplishment.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with how things are going at the moment. I’m really beginning to get the sense that, at last, I’m going to actually finish a novel. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.

The Hollywood Dog That Isn’t Barking — Where’s Our Second Civil War Disaster Movie, Roland Emmerich?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Movies are meant to be a representation of the collective unconscious. At least, that’s the theory. As such, it seems pretty obvious that if you produced a big budget Hollywood movie about a Second American Civil War that it would be really popular.

But there are also some pretty obvious problems with that idea.

One is, given that you would have to make an editorial decision as to who the good guys were, it probably is doomed to failure. You can’t make it the Blue States because the movie probably would appeal to Red States more and you can’t make it Red States because the liberal media would put the movie in the “Left Behind” genre of content.

The only way to solve such a problem is to make the point of the movie that there would be no winners in a Second Civil War. You would have to “both sides” the conflict to such an extent that there would be no good guys and no bad guys.

This would leave us with a movie that lacked any creative vision and was nothing more than yet another excuse to see notable American landmarks be blown up in a rather dramatic fashion.

[Spoilers] The Third Act of ‘No Time To Die’ & The Potential Influence Of Phoebe Waller-Bridge On The Screenplay


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really liked No Time To Die. I only rolled my eyes a few times and checked my watch a few more. And I only once felt the need to think about leaving the theatre in mid-film. For me, a person who walks out of movies constantly, that’s a big deal.

But it’s the third act of the movie I want to talk about.

It’s in the third act that the stakes are raised and a child’s life — Bond’s daughter — is put in harm’s way.

It’s in the third act when something about how unfocused the movie is becomes clear. Somewhere in the movie’s nearly three-hour run time was an even better movie, waiting to come out. The emotional highs and lows of the movie were blunted by how muddled it all was.

I think it was so muddled because that is the point of a Bond movie. You go to a Bond movie to have a good time, not to really get your emotions played with. But had they wanted to make not just a Bond movie but a Bond “film” they could have focused a lot more on the implications of Bond having a family for once in his life and what he was willing to do to save them.

As it is, we’re introduced to his daughter as a plot point, she’s put in danger and then…she escapes because she bit the finger of the villain? What the what? It was a huge letdown.

You have something unique in the Bond franchise — he has a family to protect — and in the end the whole thing is dismissed in a rather ham-handed manner. There was not nearly the emotional pay off that it could have had.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Maybe I’m seeing the influence of Phoebe Waller-Bridge? But because she was just punching the screenplay up and wasn’t the main screenwriter, we just saw glimpses of the far more powerful movie that could have been? I dunno. But it definitely is weird that something so potentially powerful — Bond with family — was introduced and then not a lot was done with it.

As I mentioned, I think some of what I’m noticing is just something that is basic to the Bond movies on an existential basis. We don’t really expect them to be No Country For Old Men or There Will Be Blood. There’s just a fun way to entertain yourself for a few hours.

Of Stieg Larsson, Mare Of Easttown & The Thriller Series I’m Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The original reason why I started working on a novel of any sort was my pure, white hot rage against the Trump Administration. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had a lot of energy and decided to work on a scifi novel that would talk about the major themes of the era.

It soon became clear that my ambitions were simply too huge and I would never have the resources to finish what I had come up with. Flash forward three years and I’m in a very different situation. While I’ve again come up with a massive creative project, this time I’ve got a handle on what it all means. And, much to my own shock, it’s not a massive sci-fi series that I’m working on, but rather a thriller series.

The fictional baby in question as a fictional adult.

This happened in large part because there was always one book that I was able to read over and over again and that was Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire. At first, the book I was writing was very much Stieg Larsson fanfiction.

And the, gradually, everything changed. The story was fused with an array of other themes, ideas, inspirations and it was not fanfiction, but it’s own unique story. What was one book was split into two with a cliff hanger connecting the two books.

Then the one thing I totally never expected to happen, happened: Trump was not able to steal the 2020 election.

That’s when I did an assessment of where I was and realized that with Trump out of office, I needed to do something radical. So, looking around, I realized there was a obvious fix — go backwards and time and develop two novels from the massive backstory that I had come up with for the two novels I was working on.

At first, I thought this was going to be a breeze. I had two solid plots in my mind and things were going really fast. Then, however, it soon enough became clear that I have a huge ego and am very demanding of myself. This is when I saw Mare of Easttown and was both shocked and inspired by what I saw. It was so good, that I realized I needed to up my game.

Mare of Easttown

And, so, here were are.

This first book now is being written with my impression of Mare of Easttown in the forefront of my mind. So, this first book is very different than one might think from someone who has studied one of Stieg Larsson’s books and used it as something of an informal novel writing text book.

But I’m feeling pretty good. I have shifted the focus of the novel from the abstract of owning a newspaper to the very concrete crisis of possession of a baby. The issue is I have a lot of thinking to do. I have to flesh out an element of this story that I didn’t even realize needed to understood better.

Yet, thankfully, at least I know which direction to go at last.