Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: At the movies
Serenity and the Dungeons & Dragons guide to character development
We watched Serenity last night. As usual, Jake walked in well after the movie had started and wanted to know what was happening. I found myself falling back on Dungeons & Dragons alignment terminology to explain the characters and their actions:
“That’s the captain of the Serenity and his crew. They’re all unlawful neutrals. That guy there? He’s an assassin for the Empire, or whatever they’re called. He’s lawful evil. If this movie runs true to form, before the movie is over the unlawful neutrals will be forced by circumstances to become unlawful goods . . .”
Or that’s what I would have said, if it weren’t for Jake saying, “Huh? What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Which is a shame, really, because the Dungeons & Dragons alignment scheme provides a fast and accurate means of typing a character. Moreover, for writers, it’s a convenient way to get a quick understanding of a newly created character.
For those of you not wise in the ways of D&D, here’s how it works. Alignment involves two variables, each of which have three possible values. A character can be lawful (law-abiding), neutral (self-serving), or chaotic (or ‘unlawful,’ actively seeking to overturn the social order). A character can also be good, neutral, or evil. By combining these parameters, you have nine possible character types.
Quick quiz: Han Solo is . . . ?
Getting old and paunchy, yes, but he’s also unlawful neutral at the beginning of Star Wars. Just like the crew of the Serenity, Han is forced by circumstances and a freeze-drier to become unlawful good.
Luke Skywalker is . . . ?
Unlawful good, but he’s really weak on the “unlawful” part. In a marginally not-bad Empire, you just know the little priss would be lawful good. The only reason Luke is unlawful is the fact that the law — the Empire — is so damned eeevil.
Back to character creation. This website provides a 36-question quiz to help you determine your character’s alignment. I took it with one of my main characters in mind, and came up with “Neutral,” which is just about how I think of him. Tui cares more about an abstract (the Truth, capital T and all) than his own family. He’s not evil, but neither is he good.
I haven’t tried taking the quiz with my rogue, Boron, in mind, but he’d better turn out unlawful neutral, or I don’t know my Boron.
Why is this a worthwhile exercise? Because two of the things that make a novel fun are characters who change, and characters in conflict. If you want your characters to change, you need to make sure the change isn’t too drastic.
When I analyze my NiP, most of the changes are plausibly close. Like Han Solo, Boron must become unlawful good. Tui stays doggedly neutral, but it takes him a mammoth effort to do so.
Tui’s wife Sul is my biggest problem child. In the rough draft, she was lawful evil all the way. When I wrote the novel, though, I became more and more fond of her. My villain became a tragic heroine. I asked her to change from lawful evil to unlawful good.
Well, as Maureen and my wife will tell you (Jona has been more forgiving), this proved to be too great a leap. I had major motivation problems. Sul’s transformation feels artificial, forced.
I was asking too much of her.
Now that I’m editing, I’m toning the evil way down, mostly by making Sul’s initial alliance with evil seem far more innocent and plausible. The reader should think, “Yes, in those circumstances, I might make a deal with the devil, too,” particularly since the “devil” seems eminently reasonable (although scary, just the same). Sul is, after all, a powerful female willing to fight beak-and-talon for her family’s best interest. Sul wouldn’t go to a male authority figure with her problems; no, she’d go to the most politically powerful female in the land.
Thus, instead of “lawful evil becomes unlawful good,” Sul’s transformation will be “lawful good to unlawful good” — which is a much more believable change.
How about conflict? As Star Wars and Serenity demonstrate, Lawful Evil vs. Unlawful Good is an entertaining pair-off. I think audiences today like a little ambiguity in their heroes and villains, and that’s what LE vs. UG provides. If you want Unlawful Evil vs. Lawful Good, you’ll have to mine the videostore shelves for some old Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne movies. (And not all of Wayne’s characters were Lawful Good — not by a long shot.)
As for Serenity, I guessed right. The captain has a change of heart, becomes Unlawful Good, and defeats the Lawful Evil forces of the star system. There, I ruined it for you. The movie had one other surprise — Hello Kitty videos are evil — but you knew that already.
D.
Tagline: The hardest trick is making them stay
. . . in the theater.
Guess that movie.
Give up? Here’s a clue. Picture John Cusack looking tired, depressed, and constipated. Need help?
Kudos and Kvetches: The 40-Year Old Virgin
The premise: unbelievable?
Not at all. We encounter many 40-year-old virgins in medicine. Oddly enough, all of them are doctors. Never forget that medical school selects for social misfits, and that no sane person voluntarily becomes a doctor. Given that, is it any wonder that many doctors are 40-year-old (and older) virgins?
Who is that lovely blonde, and what is the chance she might come visit your blog?
Glad you asked. That is the gorgeous and talented Elizabeth Banks, whom you may remember from Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Sea Biscuit. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, she plays cleanliness-obsessed secondary love interest Beth. As for whether she might visit my blog, I see this as slightly more likely than me winning the Super Lotto.
I buy tickets twice a week.
Do you know how I know you’re gay?
No. How?
One photo:
‘Nuff said. Anyway, what did you like about the movie?
Well, Paul Rudd (pictured above) (the good-looking one, not the doofus with his shirt off) rocked. I thought that whole “Do you know how I know you’re gay?” banter penetrated some of our darkest male fears, opening a dialog on the existential desperation of self-absorbed heterosexual angst.
Just kidding. That stuff was funny as hell, though.
You know what else I liked? The fact that this gal,
actress Catherine Keener, Steve Carell’s main love interest, was born in 1960. (Catherine, you’re welcome here any time, too.) Honestly, aren’t you at least a little squicked out when Jack Nicholson (born 4/22/37) nuzzles up to Helen Hunt (born 6/15/63)?
Back to Ms. Keener. I love the fact that Judd Apatow cast an age-appropriate woman in this role. He even made her character a grandma. This is not a screenplay which shies away from the fact that the protagonists are middle-aged. In other words, this is a movie for us forty-somethings. Yay!
Aside from that, I really, really liked Ms. Keener’s performance. I understood Andy’s instant attraction to her. I even understood why he would prefer Catherine Keener to Elizabeth Banks. And, by the way, there’s more chemistry between Keener and Carell than in any movie romance I’ve seen for a long time.
So what are you kvetching about?
One thing, and one thing only. Same thing I touched on in my last Smart Bitches Day column. If you feel genre-bound to include a boy-loses-girl plot twist, please make it believable, okay? In Grosse Point Blank, the monkey wrench flows naturally from the plot. There’s a tiny bit of coincidence involved (Debi shows up at just the wrong time), but that’s forgivable, in my opinion.
In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the argument which temporarily divides our protagonists seems forced. I felt like I was watching the writer jam a square peg into a round hole. If that wasn’t bad enough, Apatow felt compelled to put some weird-ass chase scene in there, with Andy chasing after Trish on his bicycle. Ugh!
Other than that, this movie gets an unqualified thumbs-up from both of my hands. I’ll have my eye out for other Apatow projects. (Just checked IMDB: Judd Apatow co-executive produced one of my all time favorite sit coms, The Larry Sanders Show. Show of hands: who remembers David Duchovny’s repeated appearances on that show? I do, I do!)
D.
P.S.: Michelle has blogged about The 40-Year-Old Virgin, too. Let’s have a 40-Year-Old Virgin party, everyone!
Cover your Aslan
Fun reading this morning in the New Yorker (December 12, 2005): film critic Anthony Lane dishes on “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”:
It was only a matter of time before a major studio got its talons into C.S. Lewis. The only thing delaying any attempt to film his Narnia novels was the lack of technology; until recently, for example, there was no computer-imaging program powerful enough to re-create a wholly convincing wardrobe.
. . .
And so to the conceit that, for decades, has stirred both the souls of the faithful and the loins of professional Freudians: first Lucy, then Edmund, then all four children feel their way uncertainly through the folds of a deep, furry passage and into another world.
I read all seven Narnia books as a kid, not because I liked them (I preferred science fiction, surprise surprise, although when it came to fantasy, Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series had my vote as best runner-up to Tolkien), but because I had pre-pubescent obsessive compulsive disorder and I had to finish any series I started. I remember enjoying only one of the books — The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Can’t remember a single thing about it, though.
I tried rereading Alexander’s books recently, and found them to be thin gruel compared to Tolkien. Anthony Lane comes to the same conclusion regarding C.S. Lewis:
When, as a grownup, I finally opened “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” it struck me as woefully thin soil, with none of the gnarled roots of lore and language on which Tolkien thrived.
Well, we can’t all be Tolkien, even if we’re C.S. Lewis (or Lloyd Alexander).
My favorite fantasies written in the last 20-or-so years, not counting Terry Pratchett’s work: David Gemmell’s Legend and Glen Cook’s The Black Company, both of which taught me a lot about writing. They would both make splendid movies, too.
Neither of those novels ripped off the Tolkien universe. I am soooo sick of elves and dwarves.
D.
Speaking of racism . . .
Something the Lord Made was one of those sneaker movies — if you weren’t paying attention to HBO last year, it snuck right by you. It’s the story of one of the pioneers of open heart surgery, Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman), and his skilled assistant, Vivien Thomas (Mos Def). In the 1940s, the idea of open heart surgery violated deeply held prejudices in the medical community. “Don’t touch the heart” was right up there with “First, do no harm.” Blalock and Thomas bucked tradition to develop an operation to cure the congenital defect causing blue baby syndrome.
Thomas is portrayed as equal to Blalock in medical insight, superior to Blalock in technical skill. Since he’s poor, black, and not an MD, Thomas slips way behind Blalock when the accolades roll in.
This is not your typical Hollywood movie. First, they get the medicine right. (Trust me, this is rare.) Second, they resist the urge to promote Blalock to sainthood. Rickman’s Blalock is arrogant, a hot-head in the OR, but also kind and charitable. And yet . . . Push comes to shove, he slights Thomas when it comes time to give out credit. It’s not blatant racism; it’s the subtle variety that creeps into relationships, affecting peoples’ assumptions regarding one another.
The scene in which Thomas confronts Blalock is stirring. It’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for Blalock who, confronted with his prejudice, protests, I’ve always fought in your corner. It’s true, too. But Blalock failed Thomas when it mattered most, and Thomas has called him on it.
Thomas’s subsequent efforts to stay in medicine in some capacity, in any capacity, are heartbreaking. The scenes depicting his rapprochement with Blalock, and Blalock’s eventual roundabout apology, choke me up every time.
Something the Lord Made is a fine piece of medical history, but it’s an even finer portrait of a relationship between two great men — one of them, deeply flawed.
D.
Harry Potter spoilers.
I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night* and I’m sad to say, yes, religious fundamentalists have a legitimate gripe on this one. The scene in which Harry and Ron kidnap newborn twin girls from Brighton, take them to Stonehenge, and sacrifice them to “the Dark Lord” went a wee bit over the top. Add to that the scene in which Professor Snape tells the Archbishop of Canterbury, “Your God is dead, you silly, silly man,” and I think we’re seeing some definite antireligious bias.
Of course, the ire of the religious right might have more to do with the now famous date rape scene in which Harry waves his wand over Hermione, incanting the magic words, “Damnitall Rohypnol!” But I choose to interpret that scene somewhat differently than most viewers. Did you notice that Hermione winked at the camera when Harry cast his spell? In this viewer’s opinion, this lent the scene a delicious ambiguity. The fact that Witchcraft played in the background also suggests Hermione’s complicity — and we all know who the most ‘talented’ witch at Hogwarts is, don’t we?
The love scene itself was the epitome of tameness, but do you expect more than tongues in a PG-13 movie? I think not. In any case, the story has been building up to this point, and I’m happy to see Harry get a little satisfaction, especially considering the fact he dies at the end of the movie.
Oh — I almost forgot:
Warning! Spoilers!
Technorati tag: harry potter, religious fundamentalism
D.
*Not strictly accurate. Actually, I saw that “Harry Potter” had top billing on the Technorati hit parade, and realized wistfully how long it had been since my last spell of Technorati whoredom.
What to watch on All Hallow’s Eve
I doubt you’ll be surprised to learn that Halloween is our favorite holiday. When Jacob (now ten years old) announced he didn’t want to go candy-raiding this year, it saddened me. I didn’t ask him why, mostly because I dreaded the “I’m too old for that now” response. It might have more to do with his lack of a costume, but that pushes the issue back one step. Why didn’t he pester me about the costume months in advance, as he’s done for the last seven years?
He hasn’t even asked to carve a pumpkin. Damn it, I’m going to get choked up if I keep thinking about this.
On the other hand, I’m also relieved. Thanks to the move, I’m sore as hell, and there are a lot of other things I should be doing besides crafting a cool costume, buying a pumpkin, or blogging. Nevertheless, I’d like to do something special.
I think we should rent a movie.
Here’s my short list of films to watch for Halloween. I dislike slasher flicks, so you won’t find any of the usual recommendations here.
3. Reanimator (1985) Even stuffy Pauline Kael, a critic who never liked a single Kubrick film, loved Reanimator. Based loosely on H. P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West, Reanimator, this film sets the bar for all humor-horror films. Jeffrey Combs gives his best over-the-top performance as West, David Gale (who’s a dead ringer for Senator John Kerry — watch it and tell me I’m wrong) as the evil Dr. Hill, and Barbara Crampton as the Dean’s daughter and winner of my Best Movie Breasts Ever award. Reanimator gives new meaning to the phrase giving head. Who says you need a penis to satisfy a woman?
2. Dead Alive (AKA Braindead, 1992) Ever wonder what Peter Jackson was up to before he got all cozy with hobbits and elves and such? Rent Dead Alive, the funniest zombie flick ever filmed. Engaging young Timothy Balme plays a young man with amorous intentions towards the beautiful Paquita (Diana Penalver). But will his domineering mother (Elizabeth Moody) let him out from under her thumb? Featuring the dreaded Sumatran rat monkey (one bite and you’ll be feasting on brains), interesting new uses for your lawnmower, and the largest vagina dentata ever committed to film. If Karen were writing today’s blog, this would be number one. Come to think of it, it should be number one, but I’m too lazy to change things now.
1. Parents (1989) In what might be described as the dark side of Leave it to Beaver, Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt star as the eponymous mom and dad of darling moppet Bryan Madorsky. Madorsky plays Michael Laemle, a child who develops increasingly paranoid fantasies about his folks. Are his parents extraterrestrials? What are those leftovers made of?
The film was billed as an SF comedy, but horror seems a more apt genre for this nugget. By the way, Karen does not endorse this recommendation. She warns that it’s depressing and disturbing.
Happy Halloween!
D.
Technorati tag: Halloween
Chicken Run, with rabbits
I had hopes of going to Medford this weekend. That’s the big city in this neck of the woods. My jejunum had other plans, so instead of Medford we went to see Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
For those of you not familiar with Aardman’s lovable characters, Wallace is a cheese-loving inventor and Gromit is his dog. Gromit doesn’t talk (I mean, what could be more ridiculous than a talking dog!) but he likes to knit, drives a mean getaway car, and generally keeps Wallace out of trouble.
Wallace and Gromit are in business. Their company, Anti-Pesto, captures the pesky rabbits plaguing local vegetable gardeners. They trap the bunnies humanely, then keep them in their basement, cozy, dry, and well fed. This appeals to the villagers — we all know how wonky the British get when it comes to small furry things.
Wallace comes up with an invention which will brainwash rabbits into no longer liking vegetables. Things Happen, and before long a giant were-rabbit terrorizes the countryside.
I’d tell you more, except I dozed through most of the movie. I think it was good. Jake laughed a lot, and Karen says it was better than Chicken Run. Me dozing had more to do with being under the weather & the cat waking me up at 6 AM than anything else.
Karen and I love anything Aardman produces. The first thing we ever saw from them was a short entitled Creature Comforts. Apparently, they made a TV series based on Creature Comforts, which leads me to ask: why the hell isn’t it on MY television? I want my Creature Comforts!
Feeling this crappy (hah! Get it? Crappy!) you’d think I wouldn’t get anything done on the manuscript, but you’d be wrong. Editing requires only that I sit in a chair, read, and type. I can do that. I’m also hoping to finish Lilith’s novel The Society tonight so that I can have an appropriate post for Smart Bitches Day. Lilith, please don’t be mad that I mentioned your book in the same paragraph as the word ‘crappy’.
D.
Guess that character
Who Am I?Thanks to my powerful daddy, I found me a cushy spot in the American National Guard. Before long, I held a position of considerable rank and authority. Many fine young soldiers depended upon me for their lives. They died, but that wasn’t my fault. Nothing is ever my fault.
Hard liquor and me, we go way back. Some folks think you can’t find courage in a bottle, but I say, courage is as courage does. One man’s cowardice is another man’s good judgment. Besides, a stiff drink never hurt no one. Thing is, you can’t get yourself excited, and you can’t go losing your head while others about you are losing theirs.
All I ever wanted was to make Daddy proud. Make him see what a man I was. In the end, I’ll show him. One way or another, I’ll show him.
Give up?
Props to The News Blog for mentioning the movie Attack! a few days ago. Karen and I were sufficiently intrigued by the premise that we bought the DVD from Barnes & Noble.
Here’s the scoop. Eddie Albert plays the villain, Captain Erskine Cooney. Towards the end of WWII, Cooney is given command of a National Guard Infantry Company. He receives this command because he’s good at sucking up to positions in authority — networking in as sleazy a manner as possible — and his father is a judge. Lieutenant Costa (Jack Palance) sees Cooney for what he is, a coward unfit for command.
Through his cowardice, Cooney gets a squad killed. Costa vows revenge if Cooney ever screws up like that again. I think you can guess the rest.
Attack! (1956) has a modern sensibility. The film openly condones the idea of killing a commanding officer who is a danger to the soldiers under his command. The ending has a touch of the moralistic, but there’s also a strong (and cynical) hint of politics-as-usual.
Despite a strong cast (featuring not just Albert and Palance, but Lee Marvin, Richard Jaeckel, and Buddy Ebsen), it was a low budget film and lacked the usual Hollywood sensibilities as regards rah-rah WWII war movies. According to IMDB, the US military wanted nothing to do with the film and did nothing to lend support. Congressman Melvin Price criticized the military, labeling their disinterest “a shameful attempt at censorship.” The filmmakers capitalized on this, plastering their movie posters with, “Is this the most controversial picture of the year?” They grossed $2 million — not a bad haul.
You won’t find this one at Blockbuster, and I doubt you’ll ever see it on TV. Netflix has it. Rent it. You’ll be treated with top notch performances from Eddie Albert, Jack Palance, and Lee Marvin. And the sleeper hero of this pic is one William Smithers. No, not Mr. Burns’ sycophantic employee. (Remember Captain Merick on the old Star Trek? The episode about ancient Rome? Kirk and Spock as gladiators? Am I the only science fiction geek left on this blog?)
D.
Passing notes
Before I get rolling, Karen has written about the Gretna, Louisiana atrocity-in-progress over at her blog. Now, on with our regularly scheduled blathering.
We had a saying in residency: “You’re either in this hospital working, or you’re in here as a patient. Either way, you’re here.” Point being, no time off for illness.
In five years of training, I only missed one day, and that only because I had food poisoning and couldn’t bring a barf bag with me on rounds. Well, I suppose I could have, but the other residents frowned upon that degree of obsessive dedication. In any case, at L.A. County Hospital we functioned in a perennial state of “swamped”. If you stayed home, someone else had to do your work, someone who already had too much work of his own.
Now that I’m out of that zoo, I have no excuse for not taking better care of myself. Office patients can be rescheduled, ya know? But, no. I had to go into work, because . . . ah, who knows.
I still eat fast, too, which made sense during residency (you never knew when the ER might call) but makes absolutely no adaptive sense nowadays.
Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts & best wishes. I’m a little better today, but not much.
I tend to get political on the weekend, which means I get depressed, too. For you non-Americans in my crowd: we’re indoctrinated from kindergarten with a slew of nationalistic ideas. America is the greatest nation, and we’re great because of the freedoms we enjoy, the freedoms our country symbolizes, the freedoms our military defends. You have to find out about the atrocities on your own: the genocide of Native Americans; My Lai; Andersonville (a Confederate POW camp); the LONG history of black oppression, from Day 1 to the present; the firebombing of Dresden. Robber barons of every generation raping the underclass. Iraq. New Orleans.
There’s so much evil out there now, I don’t know where to start. If I were Christian, I could only conclude that Dubya is the Antichrist. Tell me I’m wrong.*
But, hey. This is a humor blog (sometimes). So, for your pleasure, consider the following:
I have it on good authority that this image is a fake, a clever bit of photoshopping. However, there’s a good deal of confusion as to what Dubya really wrote in that note. Thanks to close questioning of eyewitnesses, I have narrowed down the list of possibilities to the following.
1. I’m bored. Can I go home now? Wah!
2. Condi: there’s the Colombian ambassador. Think you can score me some blow?
3. I never been in a room with so many nigras. Nothing personal, Condi.
4. How many of these here ambassadors are Republicans, anyway?
5. The Iranian ambassador keeps staring at me. He is so dead.
So . . . have you folks heard of any other possibilities?
We’re watching one of my all time favorite movies right now: Men in Black. Awesome script, great special effects, and every actor was on his/her game. Nothing sucks in this movie, not a single damned thing.
Watching Vincent D’Onofrio’s alien bug reminds me of something Karen showed me on Arachnopets yesterday: a series of photos and messages from a guy who lets centipedes crawl on his hands. Now, I know a lot of you are terrified of spiders, but I’m here to tell you that spiders ain’t got nothing on centipedes. Centipedes are far more aggressive than most spiders, and their venom is WAY more painful.
If you don’t like creepy-crawlies, do not, repeat DO NOT view this link. I’m telling you, we’re talking Major League Formication, got it? But those of you with creepy-crawly loving kids, you’ll score points for coolness if you let them look at these photos.
Have a great weekend, y’all, and thanks again for your kind thoughts.
D.
*Yeah, when I get published, I am definitely going to have to get me an apolitical blog.
Addendum: I’m not the only one who thinks Bush is Eeeevil. This guy has written the book on the subject. For example: by several separate numerological systems, Bush’s name adds up to 666. So there!