I'm in a good mood today. Possibly because I'm off my skateboard on coffee, and also because my hair is bright pink again. This is after a few months of trying to be a bit more 'normal'. Didn't work. Maybe because dark purple was as 'normal' as I could be persuaded to go... Sometimes I manage to disguise my inner loon - I'm like a stick of Blackpool rock, with 'LOON' running all the way through the middle. However, I admit that I'm happiest when the word 'LOON' is also written all over the outside as well.
ANYWAY, I was saying that I'm in a good mood. So I'm going to write some random, attention-deficit drivel about movies that has popped into my head :-D
WHY CAN'T THERE BE A FEMALE MICHAEL CERA?
You know, cute & quirky, but not exactly pinup material. A girl you can cast in indie (or at least indie-style) flicks aimed at audiences in their teens to early thirties. The reason is that there are not enough PROPERLY FUNNY women that aren't totally butt-faced, the formula isn't tried-and-tested for profitability, and there are too many middle-aged male executives who think they know exactly how today's 'geek chic' set of young men think. 'Cheerleader types appeal to EVERYONE!' they cry. I ask them to note the number of men my age who secretly fell for Jessica Hynes (Stevenson at the time) when she was in Spaced.
Of course, there are some actresses who get cast in these roles, and play them well. Kat Dennings in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, for example. But I want more of them, and I'll bet the nerd-boys do too! The nerd-boy set loves watching movies, the possibility of a convincing (ie - not an obvious cheerleader-in-glasses type) nerd-girl who gets them, and hates feeling patronised. Difficult chemistry to engineer, but Spaced got it right... if only more movies could do the same...
CAN EXPOSITIONAL DIALOGUE PLEASE BE MADE ILLEGAL? LIKE, PRISON-SENTENCE ILLEGAL?
It makes me want to run up to the projection booth at the back of the cinema and barf on the actual film itself. You know the type of dialogue: "Why can't you TALK to me?? I'm your WIFE!" or "Things haven't been the same since Mum died..." or even worse, "I AM your SISTER, you know!" Seriously, do you know anyone with such a specific type of brain damage that they feel the need to announce their relationship to those around them whenever they speak? If so, my heart goes out to them, because NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT. It's the kind of dialogue that is lazily put in to explain to the audience what is going on by having the characters literally explain it out loud. It's unnatural and completely breaks the flow of the movie by causing us to cease to believe in and relate to the characters. It's like drawing aside the curtain to reveal that these people onscreen, with whom we've empathised and invested our emotions, are nothing more than mechanical automatons created for the purpose of pushing the plot forward. Which, of course, they ARE. But there's no reason to make that so obvious that it's offputting! If a filmmaker can't make plot advancements and inter-character relationships evident visually, or in the WAY they speak to each other rather than what is said, they have committed a fairly epic fail, and need to look at doing a bit of rewriting. I say 'filmmaker' rather than 'writer', as there are plenty of people sticking their oar in when it comes to a script in development. So stuff like this might end up in there at the behest of a well-meaning (but completely mental) executive, rather than as a result of an inept writer. If I wanted to wade through a retarded bog of clichés and poorly-handled storytelling, I'd... well, I can't finish that sentence, because I can't even IMAGINE a scenario where I'd want to do that. So I'd like it if there wasn't any of it anymore, please :-)
Okay, that's all I've got brainspace for right now, am off to read a screenplay. Hope there's no expositional dialogue, or I might eat it! :-D
