Who Am I Talking To?

Split.  The latest from M. Night Shyamalan.  Let’s have a quick refresher – I’m not a Shyamalan fan boy.  I believe The 6^th Sense was one of the best movies made, even if you know the twist.  I thought The Village was a masterful thriller.  The rest?  Not so much.  I freely admit I didn’t get Lady In the Water and honestly, did anyone anywhere like Devil?  Truly one of the worst films ever.  I’m glad to know it wasn’t a career killer but still, I almost didn’t bother with Split because of it.

However, #2 told me it was very good.  And my wife wanted to see it.  So off we went.

When I first started writing scripts, I read voraciously on the subject.  One of the recurring themes was that I would never watch movies the same way again.  Split proved that warning to be true for me.  Within 5 minutes I was analyzing everything from the inspiration to the introduction of characters.  I kept stopping myself from trying to figure out what was going to happen because I wanted to enjoy my large popcorn.

Depending on your definition, spoilers follow.

Really.

I’ll give you a minute in case you read faster than you process.  The characterization was pretty good.  I didn’t confuse any of the main cast and the dialog was extremely well done in the sense that I always knew which personality was talking, even without costume cues.  However, the dialogue was not extremely well done if you’re looking for lines that will become part of pop culture.  In fact, there were a few lines I found a bit cheesey.  But they never drew me out of the story far enough I couldn’t get back in.

Split was creepy the way The Village was creepy, a few gotcha moments and a setting that created tension.  It was not a horror movie and the gore was minimal.  My wife suggested that might be because I’m color blind, there were a few scenes where I didn’t know what happened because I didn’t see the blood.  Still, in this movie the violence was mostly suggested rather than witnessed.

It took a few twists and turns which played with stereotypes for the genre and were logically supported, but nothing earth shaking – there was no big twist like in the better films.  I’m also not sure it was entertaining.  It was dark in the way Prisoners was dark, but lacked the resolution.  I was disappointed by the ending.  There was the general sense of unease, discomfort even, and depression like his so-so The Happening.

I thought of Prisoners several times while watching.  And I had the sense that had an unknown written the film, it would only have been produced by a bit of luck.  I don’t say that to take away from the quality of the story, but to make the point that Split wasn’t any better than many of the unproduced scripts I’ve read and worse than several.

Perhaps the take-away is aimed squarely at struggling story tellers – the world is dark and bleak, but somewhere, somebody has the money to make your movie, whether it’s amazing or just pretty good.

What Happened to Space?

Do remember being a kid and wanting to be an astronaut?  I don’t hear that anymore.  None of my kids want to be astronauts.  None of their friends ever talk about it.  But I did, and so did all of my friends.  I have been wondering where the cut off was, when it stopped being the great adventure.

My first thought was it broke evenly along the generational line.  For my generation and our parents, space was exciting and still very new.  We knew the names of ships and their crews.  I suspect Topps even had collector cards for the various leagues.  Now it’s old hat, like sailing around the world in a small boat.  Not something many people do, but enough we don’t think anything about it when somebody does.

Then I wondered if the demise of the shuttle program and privatization of the industry led to decreased interest.  I was in second grade when the first shuttle lifted off and we stopped classes and gathered to watch the first two scrubbed launch attempts.  Everyone was disappointed the actual launch was in the middle of the night.  But we watched the landings and other launches.  And I watched the reentry and landing of the last shuttle flight on the TV in my office, felt the weight of history.  Thinking about it now still gives me chills.

My kids didn’t really care.  It meant nothing to them.  They never had toy space ships or a Boeing 747 with a spring launch system for the red plastic shuttle on its back.

I could blame video games but I’d rather blame Facebook.  Neither one is the likely culprit.  It isn’t a lackadaisical attitude by my kids either, they want to do big things.  They want adventure and meaning.  But my oldest wants to explore the dark depths of caves rather than space, my second to rescue people stranded on ships in the oceans rather than orbiting planets.

With the success of books and movies like The Martian I believe there is still a yearning for the great unknown beyond our atmosphere.  Just not in the next generation, not the way it was.  My daughter thought The Martian was great for the same reason she liked The Green Zone (Matt Damon).

Electricity.  That’s what it is.  If we turned off the power, looked up at a night sky unpolluted by city lights, someone in the next generation would say, “I wonder what’s there?”  And people would go.

Ore-Ida Then

I grew up with Ore-Ida French fries.  Now my kids are.  Still yummy, now in even more varieties.  Curly, tots, extra thin, waffle.  Maybe they were always there and I was kept in the dark?  Doesn’t matter.  The important thing, for this post, is that I didn’t make them back then – you know, when TV was black and white and Hi-Fi was a big deal.

Maybe I did make them but didn’t bother with the directions? I actually rarely read directions in my youth.  I always thought there wasn’t time.  Us “old folks” like to wax rhapsodic about the simple life of the good old days and maybe that simplicity is why I didn’t need to worry about such minor details as instructions.  More likely, as I’ve aged, I’ve become a bit more compulsive about things.  Things like reading directions.  Twice.  Every time.  Even when I’m making something I know by heart.  Like pancakes – ¾ c milk, 1 egg, 1/8 vegetable oil mixed; add 1 c flour, less than 1/3 c sugar, 1 Ts baking powder, few shakes from the salt shaker, healthy sprinkle of cinnamon.  Mix with wire whisk.  Place on hot grill until ready to flip.  Flip.  Cook until you remember there are pancakes on the griddle.

I digress.  This is about Ore-Ida.

If you have a bag these tasty treats in the freezer, I encourage you to get it out and read the directions.  Then come back and tell me if I’m crazy.

There are directions for cooking ½ bag.  There are directions for cooking ¾ of the bag.  That’s it.  There are no directions for cooking the entire bag.  No directions for cooking ¼ of the bag.  I’m a smart guy, I can figure out that I should double everything to cook the whole bag but what do I do with the ¼ left over after cooking 3/4?  (Did you react in horror?  I’m not actually crazy.  I know that I’m not supposed to double the ½ bag cooking time for the whole bag…)

But what am I supposed to do for the missing ¼?  Is that considered advanced?  The sort of thing only experienced Ore-Ida re-heaters would ever attempt?  Is it some sort of marketing scheme aimed at tricking engineers into buying 2 bags? (So when they cook ¾ of one, they have to cook ¾ of a second so there will be ½ left.)

Does anybody know?

Does anybody care?