Today's issue: the letter project continues, the new A-Team movie is on the way, and "oestromania" movies
Still going with the letter project. The task is starting to wear on me. Arranging them is a bind - when several things are going on at once, do I put them in strict chronological order, or do I match the replies to create several complete overlapping arcs? It's still fun when I find the response to a letter I'd read a few hours ago. The complete document is approaching 40 pages.
I've also turned up some information I wasn't meant to know. I read through a stack of letters last night, and woke up this morning with "WHO KILLED SCARLETT SKYE" scrawled across both my arms in ink. I can't exactly remember it putting it there either...Scarlett Skye was terribly special to Mortimer. At the time of her death, I was playing Anna - and the way Anna heard it was that she'd just been stabbed randomly one night. So Mortimer never really found out about it. I've been re-reading Friend 5's letter folder, and I discover most of what Anna heard wasn't true. Scarlett spent a long time dying, and several people knew about it to see her. It's like Mortimer's only just found about it - feeling very wronged, and so angry I couldn't sleep (yes, my characters have autonomy. Try not to judge). He really wants some vengeance, so I'm going to try and find out who did the deed, and see if they're expendable. A lot have things have happened since Scarlett's death, so maybe contemporary Mortimer couldn't take revenge without screwing up the future, or that whoever it was is already dead.
I've a sickening suspicion that it was Scarlett and Anna's then-husband, Oscar. Anna had found out he was already married and left, so Scarlett's death a week later was - well, convenient. And sudden. At the time I was assured it wasn't the case - I guessed Friends 1 and 4 had taken a metagame action in getting Scarlett out of the way. But looking through the old records, I find it wasn't sudden at all - and I've found Oscar's name implicated in some hints. It would be inconvenient were it Oscar, because I only just missed him - he's been dead for only a short while...if it were Cael, then I know Cael is still around and I owe him one for Oliver. The third theory I've formed is that it was a mercy-killing from Ivy, who borrowed a knife for an unspecified purpose at the time. I wouldn't kill her, ever, even if this were the case.
Only two, maybe three people know the truth. Friend 5 - Scarlett was her character - but she takes pride in her secrecy, and I'm sure I won't get anything without surrendering something in return. And I don't have anything surrendable. Friend 1, if Oscar was involved, but she won't tell. Well, not without me telling her something I'm (frankly) not able to. Mortimer would never speak to me again, and if it were only that I'd consider it. I'm more worried that several, real-life, non-fictional friends would never speak to me again! Some secrets are secret for a reason. And then there's Friend 6, whom I haven't spoken with for three years. Haven't seen in three years either. But she might be at Speech Day in a few weeks. I'm fairly sure she's sentimental enough that it's still on her mind. Last time we did meet, she asked me about the Flame straight away. One of the letters written from Friend 6 to Friend 5 suggests that is a reply to a letter containing the answer. I've just finished typing up Friend 3's folder. Friend 5 has given me total access to her letters (with instructions for information I'm not allowed to reveal...), Friend 4 has agreed to email me hers, and Friend 2 is sure hers don't exist any more. I have faith that Friend 6 still has them lying about - call it a hunch - and that she'd be happy to let me read them - call it a really lucky guess. It's important, because piecing together replies is the quickest way to get a picture of what's going on.
And I'm learning so much! Just the way everyone and all the events fit together, expressed in their own words. It is going to be the ultimate resource for, well, just for me really...
Sorry, I was the only person who understood any of that. The problem of multiple audiences - I'm writing for some 20 different friends, four different family members, some strangers, and finally for myself. And that was one purely for me, I'm afraid...
The new A-Team movie is on the horizon. Am I excited? Well, sort of. Read what Empire has to say about it. I'm not going to instantly rule it out: it could be great, and it's not going to destroy the fact I have four seasons of the original left to enjoy. It makes sense to update it from Vietnam to one of the many Gulf Wars. I think Liam Neeson will make an awesome Hannibal. I'm more concerned about the tone - the joy, for me, in the original is the cartoon OTT violence, the disregard for physics and general lack of emotional depth. Or, as Empire puts it, "campy, formulaic, repetitive nonsense". Yes. Exactly. They are gonna be tempted to go darker - but I hope reason prevails, and it remains almost as breezy and daft as the original. Not happy about the rumours of a love interest either, but then I never am, and I suppose it was inevitable. I just wish Hollywood would ditch pat romantic subplots - they're such a waste of time. And I'm not happy about Bradley Cooper's casting, especially because a few days ago I heard he'd turned it down. He's been hauled in as Face - you know the charming, attractive one? I watched five seasons of Alias with Mr Cooper as Will. The man can act, and well - but I just don't buy him as a guy who could (and would) charm his own grandmother out of the last lifejacket on a sinking ship. I'm not saying Dirk Benedict actually managed that all of the time - I'm a sucker for floppy hair - but this is a step further away.
Today I watched episode 3 of season 1, Pros and Cons, and here are my findings:
Number of car chases: 1
Number of shots where the car leaps over the camera: 1
Number of car crashes: 1
Number of punchups: 2
Number of explosions: 0
Hannibal's disguises: 2 - John Smith's Agent, drunk driver, camp hairdresser
Face's disguises: 1 - Doctor Pepper
Other disguises: B.A. - mute, drunk-driver, Murdoch - another drunk driver
Total: 7
Murdoch flies: a chair powered by hot-air trash bags
BA builds: an ash tray...
Number of fatalities: 1
And finally, today I watched a new awesome movie from one of my favourite genres. I can't quite define it, but these are some of the films:
Picnic at Hanging Rock Company of Wolves Heavenly Creatures Black Narcissus The Virgin Suicides
and The Beguiled, which we watched this evening
e.t.c.
They work on the premise that if women get too much control, or spend time with other women THEY GO INSANE, especially when exposed to things they don't understand LIKE MEN or SEX. My pa suggested "oestrophobia", in tribute to the claustrophobic hothouse atmospheres
and general period drama repressed-ness. My mum amended it to "oestromania" - because they tend to turn violent, like all women do IF NOT CONTROLLED BY MEN. My contribution was, perhaps, "Lady of the Flies".
Yes, siree, they might not be very progressive, but I do still love them. Frequent tropes:
Reservoir Dogs is practically the male equivalent - what happens when rampant testosterone gets trapped in a stressful atmosphere, but as a genre it's not as famous.
The Beguiled was about a wounded Union soldier taken in by a Southern all-girls boarding school during the Civil War. I liked the title especially, because it wasn't clear who was doing the beguiling. They were all as bad as one another - he abused and took advantage of their hospitality, just as they abused and took advantage of his injury.
For AS level film studies, I actually shot a small segment of movie as my coursework. We just had to do a single sequence, so I didn't plot the whole thing. I just vaguely mumbled about ghosts and repression, and I'm sure people got the idea - but what I was trying to do was oestromania. It was set in a Victorian all-girls boarding school, after the bones of a girl from long ago had been discovered. It wasn't exactly a ghost story - because it never confirmed the existance of a ghost. Instead, it was about the way the idea there might be a ghost affected the girls, the spreading hysteria, and naturally in a repressed institutionalised atmosphere, it all got increasingly crazy. I never went further than sketching out the plot, but you bet it would have ended in longing lesbian looks and violent bloody death.
If I could have just said "look, it's a base under siege movie!", or a "romantic comedy", things would have been simple. Alas, I have yet to find a convenient name for it. So, anyone got any better ideas?
Still going with the letter project. The task is starting to wear on me. Arranging them is a bind - when several things are going on at once, do I put them in strict chronological order, or do I match the replies to create several complete overlapping arcs? It's still fun when I find the response to a letter I'd read a few hours ago. The complete document is approaching 40 pages.
I've also turned up some information I wasn't meant to know. I read through a stack of letters last night, and woke up this morning with "WHO KILLED SCARLETT SKYE" scrawled across both my arms in ink. I can't exactly remember it putting it there either...Scarlett Skye was terribly special to Mortimer. At the time of her death, I was playing Anna - and the way Anna heard it was that she'd just been stabbed randomly one night. So Mortimer never really found out about it. I've been re-reading Friend 5's letter folder, and I discover most of what Anna heard wasn't true. Scarlett spent a long time dying, and several people knew about it to see her. It's like Mortimer's only just found about it - feeling very wronged, and so angry I couldn't sleep (yes, my characters have autonomy. Try not to judge). He really wants some vengeance, so I'm going to try and find out who did the deed, and see if they're expendable. A lot have things have happened since Scarlett's death, so maybe contemporary Mortimer couldn't take revenge without screwing up the future, or that whoever it was is already dead.
I've a sickening suspicion that it was Scarlett and Anna's then-husband, Oscar. Anna had found out he was already married and left, so Scarlett's death a week later was - well, convenient. And sudden. At the time I was assured it wasn't the case - I guessed Friends 1 and 4 had taken a metagame action in getting Scarlett out of the way. But looking through the old records, I find it wasn't sudden at all - and I've found Oscar's name implicated in some hints. It would be inconvenient were it Oscar, because I only just missed him - he's been dead for only a short while...if it were Cael, then I know Cael is still around and I owe him one for Oliver. The third theory I've formed is that it was a mercy-killing from Ivy, who borrowed a knife for an unspecified purpose at the time. I wouldn't kill her, ever, even if this were the case.
Only two, maybe three people know the truth. Friend 5 - Scarlett was her character - but she takes pride in her secrecy, and I'm sure I won't get anything without surrendering something in return. And I don't have anything surrendable. Friend 1, if Oscar was involved, but she won't tell. Well, not without me telling her something I'm (frankly) not able to. Mortimer would never speak to me again, and if it were only that I'd consider it. I'm more worried that several, real-life, non-fictional friends would never speak to me again! Some secrets are secret for a reason. And then there's Friend 6, whom I haven't spoken with for three years. Haven't seen in three years either. But she might be at Speech Day in a few weeks. I'm fairly sure she's sentimental enough that it's still on her mind. Last time we did meet, she asked me about the Flame straight away. One of the letters written from Friend 6 to Friend 5 suggests that is a reply to a letter containing the answer. I've just finished typing up Friend 3's folder. Friend 5 has given me total access to her letters (with instructions for information I'm not allowed to reveal...), Friend 4 has agreed to email me hers, and Friend 2 is sure hers don't exist any more. I have faith that Friend 6 still has them lying about - call it a hunch - and that she'd be happy to let me read them - call it a really lucky guess. It's important, because piecing together replies is the quickest way to get a picture of what's going on.
And I'm learning so much! Just the way everyone and all the events fit together, expressed in their own words. It is going to be the ultimate resource for, well, just for me really...
Sorry, I was the only person who understood any of that. The problem of multiple audiences - I'm writing for some 20 different friends, four different family members, some strangers, and finally for myself. And that was one purely for me, I'm afraid...
The new A-Team movie is on the horizon. Am I excited? Well, sort of. Read what Empire has to say about it. I'm not going to instantly rule it out: it could be great, and it's not going to destroy the fact I have four seasons of the original left to enjoy. It makes sense to update it from Vietnam to one of the many Gulf Wars. I think Liam Neeson will make an awesome Hannibal. I'm more concerned about the tone - the joy, for me, in the original is the cartoon OTT violence, the disregard for physics and general lack of emotional depth. Or, as Empire puts it, "campy, formulaic, repetitive nonsense". Yes. Exactly. They are gonna be tempted to go darker - but I hope reason prevails, and it remains almost as breezy and daft as the original. Not happy about the rumours of a love interest either, but then I never am, and I suppose it was inevitable. I just wish Hollywood would ditch pat romantic subplots - they're such a waste of time. And I'm not happy about Bradley Cooper's casting, especially because a few days ago I heard he'd turned it down. He's been hauled in as Face - you know the charming, attractive one? I watched five seasons of Alias with Mr Cooper as Will. The man can act, and well - but I just don't buy him as a guy who could (and would) charm his own grandmother out of the last lifejacket on a sinking ship. I'm not saying Dirk Benedict actually managed that all of the time - I'm a sucker for floppy hair - but this is a step further away.Today I watched episode 3 of season 1, Pros and Cons, and here are my findings:
Number of car chases: 1
Number of shots where the car leaps over the camera: 1
Number of car crashes: 1
Number of punchups: 2
Number of explosions: 0
Hannibal's disguises: 2 - John Smith's Agent, drunk driver, camp hairdresser
Face's disguises: 1 - Doctor Pepper
Other disguises: B.A. - mute, drunk-driver, Murdoch - another drunk driver
Total: 7
Murdoch flies: a chair powered by hot-air trash bags
BA builds: an ash tray...
Number of fatalities: 1
And finally, today I watched a new awesome movie from one of my favourite genres. I can't quite define it, but these are some of the films:
Picnic at Hanging Rock Company of Wolves Heavenly Creatures Black Narcissus The Virgin Suicides
and The Beguiled, which we watched this evening
e.t.c.
They work on the premise that if women get too much control, or spend time with other women THEY GO INSANE, especially when exposed to things they don't understand LIKE MEN or SEX. My pa suggested "oestrophobia", in tribute to the claustrophobic hothouse atmospheres
and general period drama repressed-ness. My mum amended it to "oestromania" - because they tend to turn violent, like all women do IF NOT CONTROLLED BY MEN. My contribution was, perhaps, "Lady of the Flies".
Yes, siree, they might not be very progressive, but I do still love them. Frequent tropes:
- virginal white dresses
- "the hottest day of the summer"
- teenage girls on the cusp of adulthood, who somehow have this prenatural knowledge of the veil of time and turn of the universe (also, see poltergeist movies)
- hinting at the idea of "female mysteries", because all women are spiritual creatures men cannot possibly understand. As such, lots of dream sequences.
- sex, sex, sex, sex, sex - not actual sex, you understand, but the idea seethes across screen and packs into the corners of the room.
- claustrophobic, or on a single location.
- Typically period, all corsets and repression. More dream sequences.
Reservoir Dogs is practically the male equivalent - what happens when rampant testosterone gets trapped in a stressful atmosphere, but as a genre it's not as famous.
The Beguiled was about a wounded Union soldier taken in by a Southern all-girls boarding school during the Civil War. I liked the title especially, because it wasn't clear who was doing the beguiling. They were all as bad as one another - he abused and took advantage of their hospitality, just as they abused and took advantage of his injury.
For AS level film studies, I actually shot a small segment of movie as my coursework. We just had to do a single sequence, so I didn't plot the whole thing. I just vaguely mumbled about ghosts and repression, and I'm sure people got the idea - but what I was trying to do was oestromania. It was set in a Victorian all-girls boarding school, after the bones of a girl from long ago had been discovered. It wasn't exactly a ghost story - because it never confirmed the existance of a ghost. Instead, it was about the way the idea there might be a ghost affected the girls, the spreading hysteria, and naturally in a repressed institutionalised atmosphere, it all got increasingly crazy. I never went further than sketching out the plot, but you bet it would have ended in longing lesbian looks and violent bloody death.
If I could have just said "look, it's a base under siege movie!", or a "romantic comedy", things would have been simple. Alas, I have yet to find a convenient name for it. So, anyone got any better ideas?
Comments (4)
Try 'The Turn of the Screw', by Henry James. I studied it at school. Not the best written piece ever, but it's a great story, it's only short, and its about a lonely, oversexed Governess under immense pressure, either seeing ghosts or hallucinating.
(The Others is loosely based on it, but it's not as good).
woke up this morning with "WHO KILLED SCARLETT SKYE" scrawled across both my arms in ink. I can't exactly remember it putting it there either
Hey, at least you didn't wake up to find it carved in!
"But she might be at Speech Day in a few weeks. I'm fairly sure she's sentimental enough that it's still on her mind."
I doubt she was sent an invite, you do have to actually attended the school in the previous few years.
Ajax - aaaaah, I read half of that a few years ago and gave up because it was getting too creepy. Oscar Wilde described it as "a most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale", which is great. I must try it again. During the day.
I enjoyed the Others a lot, once I came out from behind the cushion.
Clash - you are right, and she didn't take A-levels here. Curses, this means I'll have to phone her, or facebook her, and hunt her down...
There is an early John Ford movie called "Men without women" set in a trapped submarine. The mirror would seem to be "Women Without Men" (of course there are men in the films you are talking about but they are of a more peripheral nature than common im movies)