If everyone jumped off a bridge, no, I wouldn’t also do so. More than likely I’d end-up standing there watching and moaning about how I can’t afford to jump off a bridge, or about how my leg hurts and that’s stopping me, or probably there’s be some sort of ‘my arms are too short to grab the cross-bar to swing out on’ complaint. This may sound like I’m actually avoiding the jumping, but it’s actually a way of “getting one up” on the people who are doing the jumping and, thus, getting more attention for myself in the process. Which, mostly, is what we’re about to engage in, only using the year of 2011 as a basis of examination, rather than jumping off a bridge.

Cheered-up yet? Don’t worry, it’ll get dour soon enough.

After probably over two years of un-interrupted hair growth, a haircut.

Publishing & Frustration

If anything can be said to be “what 2011 has taught me”, it’s that one should either have tonnes of cash to force your plan to come to fruition in a small amount of time, or you shouldn’t have any delusions about being successful to any degree beyond a tiny amount. Publishing is under-going a massive re-structuring in how it gets stories to people, who controls what, and even how they make money at all. Thinking “yes, well, I’m small enough to bounce when necessary and adapt as fast as required, plus I’m already starting from the idea that eBooks are ‘good’ and they need to be priced as though they’re Mass Market Paperbacks”, I wasn’t too worried about breaking even eventually on things.

Sadly, I’m in the same situation as publishers at any size of operation are: doing badly financially.

The autumn saw two more books published by Atomic Fez Publishing, both by Canadian authors. They are Dirk Danger Loves Life by Chris Rothe, as well as Terribilis by Carol Weekes. Sales of both have been fairly solid, including a substantial order from Canada’s high-street bookshop, Chapters/Indigo/Cole’s (which is actually a mixed blessing, and click this link to learn why). So, good!

“Terribilis” and “Dirk Danger Loves Life” upon arrival

Once the books were delivered, there was still some time to get myself organised properly with them in time for them to be on sale at VCon Nº36, as well as adverts for them in the programmes of that event, plus the British Fantasy Society’s annual “FantasyCon” the same week-end, plus the UK editions of Terribilis in hard-cover were ready in time for that same event. Hooray!

During the BFS “FantasyCon”, Atomic Fez was in the running for two awards: “Best Small Press (2010)” and “Best Novella (2010)” for one of its books, Ponthe Oldenguine by Andrew Hook. There were also a few other categories and titles Atomic Fez showed-up in as part of the ‘long list’ of nominated books for people to vote for. To make it into the shortlist in the first year you qualify for consideration is pretty good (and Atomic Fez is the first non-UK publisher to be ‘shortlisted’ for “Best Small Press” as far as I can tell), and there was one other author being considered by a BFS Awards committee which is the sort of thing they don’t announce. So that’s good too! Unfortunately I couldn’t interest the media in talking to me about that at all, even in a slow news period, and even considering one of the other novellas in the running for that award was 1922 by Stephen King, and he didn’t win either.

Additionally, I contracted a PR person to help me with marketing, media relations, and other things that I hadn’t a clue about, and she did a bang-up job in the early months of 2011. The difference she made didn’t manifest itself until the last half of the year, but the effect she’s had shows-up in the fact that Chapters/Indigo/Cole’s didn’t give a sweet fuck about my books until she worked her magic. Additional things she beat me for until I did them was to get copies of some back-titles out to readers through a contest over on GoodReads.com, copies of the two new titles out through that same process as well as LibraryThing.com. 

At the same time, though, sales dropped tremendously, no matter what I did. Advertising didn’t seem to do much; at least not more than have people visit the site more. I’ve always considered advertising as a “long game”, with the notion of repetitive exposure being the key to eventual sales increase. Visit the site though people did, part with their money they did not. Even deep sales of 50% or more, as well as transatlantic distribution centres to reduce postage costs, didn’t seem enough to interest people in September. 

Bronze Fennel

So, with the end of this year, and a continual smash on our household finances causing us to hit the limits on all of our available credit and no further allowances for extending that any more, I’m now seeking a ‘day job’ to provide as much cash as possible in order to pour funds into the coffers of Atomic Fez. “Selling out” might be the best description, really.

I’m sick and bloody tired of trying to be my own man, frankly. Over the past quarter-century I’ve often been entrepreneurial out of sheer necessity, but mostly due to me not being drawn to the life of a veal-kennel-living worker-drone. Thus, I’ve been a professional photographer, a retail store owner, an actor and arts-journalist, and now editor and publisher. I’ve probably made far more “working for The Man” in retail, and when with the BC civil service as a file clerk, than all of those others combined. Most of one’s life is supposed to be spent being self-supporting and ensuring that society’s less-well-off are provided for properly; whether through tax payments or charitable donations. So far I’ve spent the vast majority of my working life with so poorly an income that I’ve not paid a cent in taxes (although with no “deductions at source”, so there’s been no refund cheques either), and – being in my late-40s now – I’m sick and bloody tired of it. If spending the daytime hours making someone else rich through my effort means I get enough money every fortnight I can do what I bloody want the rest of the time – and not have to make do with either not having something or having crap instead – then it’ll mean I’ll be free to actually see a film occasionally, have a suit that’s newer than my current 15-year-old one (and it was bought at a consignment store, so who knows how old it was already), and maybe even not rely on the generosity of others for ability to do just about anything.

Still, given the amount of effort that’s gone into the earlier endeavours of my own, it’s damned frustrating that none of them actually paid off, and the declaration by Kevin O’Leary that “if a business hasn’t turned a profit by two years, take that dog out behind the shed and shoot it” is something that either makes me weep or wish to punch the guy in the face for saying. Still, it haunts my mind daily, especially as it could very well be the right approach to take for all I know.

Movies Galore

During the rest of the year, I watched movies galore in order to teach myself something about story and structure of it therein. As having never taken an English degree (or a degree of any kind at all, actually), the ability to examine a story and not only know if something doesn’t work, but know why it doesn’t work, has been done based on a combination of reading experience, text examination as an actor, and pure gut-instinct. Being sure I was making adjustments to a story without merely making it match my eclectic and esoteric tastes was something I’ve lacked. Thus, I jammed as many well-regarded movies and TV series into my eye-balls as I could. There’s a lot of films I’ve missed through lack of opportunity or due to considering them “beneath me” for various reasons, but their influential natures are coming to surface in too many things I’m working with as an editor that I could no longer ignore them, in my view. The end result of this effort is recorded in the reviews here on this site, which number over one hundred in quantity (and there’s a bunch I’ve not reviewed during the past year). I’ll probably continue to do it into next year, as it’s a good way to focus one’s views of the film and re-enforce the lessons in structure the stories might teach.

My conclusion early-on in this effort was that, to be successful, a story requires only three things: a solid plot, some developed characters, little bit of action (minimal, even, but at least a bit), and you can mix in with them any story-form, genre, or influence you want. Miss out one of those three, or get the balance wrong, and you’re screwed.

Case in point: the three-part series under The Matrix banner, which got an entirely wrong balance in the final two films, which contain a complete shortage of plot and character but oodles of action, and I found the them to be so generally pointless that their simple existence was insufficiently justified. The first one ion the series was not only the best re-telling of the New Testament I’ve ever seen, and was so perfectly structured in its story and character arc that stopping right there would have been far better than anything else. But the film made too much money, and Hollywood can’t leave “well enough” alone, and need to rape it for all the opportunities it might offer.

An interesting thing to note about the “Matrix Trilogy” is that the gross box office receipts for the first film were $171,479,930 (as of 26 September 1999), with an estimated production budget of $63 million; the second film’s gross was $281,492,479 (as of 26 October 2003), on an estimated budget of $150 million; and the gross for the third was $139,259,759 (as of February 2004) for a film with an estimated budget of $110 million [all figures are $US]. Thus, we have three films made for $323 million making a gross income of $592,232,168, thus supposedly netting $269,232,168, and that’s just the films at the box office during their initial wide-release; there’s still the DVD releases of each film – and don’t forget the box-set, anniversary, and BLU-RAY editions – plus distribution of the film itself after those initial cinema receipts. Now for the bizarre part: none of the films have ever formally posted a profit. Ever. This is a prime example of Hollywood Accounting, which sufficiently screws with the financial records so that they never have to pay someone a part of the profits; just look at Art Buchwald’s experience for further proof.

Crocus sativus (“The Safron Crocus”)

Key films for various reasons: Star Wars Episodes I-III; Kurosawa’s Ran and The Seven Samurai, as well as Yojimbo; the “Man With No Name” trilogy from Sergio Leone; the Brothers Coen, for demonstrating they do nearly all noir films, but in a minimalist fashion, Spartacus, for the commentary track with the scene-by-scene detailed memo from the writer about why bits were required to shore-up character and plot points; the Bond series to appreciate how well made the early ones were, as well as how each of the films add to a continuous influence of tales reflecting the politics of the times; the series of “Planet of the Apes” and “Alien” films for demonstrating how action and SF can co-exist with intelligence, as well as the latter for introducing me to the brilliance of David Fincher; 2001: A Space Odyssey and Doctor Stranglelove (or “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb) for demonstrating the range of Stanley Kubrick’s talent, back-to-back (the comedy was released in 1964 and the SF-film was his next film, in 1968).

Summary

So… there we are: 2011. The only things that I seemed to do well returned no income, and that’s been the pattern for me since leaving high school. Stunning. 

So I look to 2012 to provide me with an income derived through the anonymity of working for other people as a tiny cog in a massive machine which probably contributes to the continual division of the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’ becoming more and more cavernous every day. Pardon me whilst I leave you to search for a corporate teat from which to suckle.

Bitter? Me? Hell no! That’s not a strong enough word, for one thing…

The ‘Spy Thriller’ is a tricky thing. You can get it wrong a billion different ways, or you can duplicate a ‘Bond’ film (and be accused of plagiarizing), you can fill a movie with car-chases and shooting but ultimately bore people, or you can actually get it right. There’s little in-between the reaction “YES!!!” and an urging to take your smelly two hours of programming on a 75-foot long tour of the nearest 50-foot pier. Cold? Callous? Un-caring? Oh yeah; t’is the way of the secretive operative of a foreign government.

Gorky Park (1983)

Gorky Park could actually be called a ‘murder mystery’ really, but I’m going to call it a spy thriller because it involves the KGB, plus US citizens, plus a bunch of other things. Also, basically I’m going to call it a ‘Spy Thriller’ for reasons that involve revealing too much of the plot. Besides, I just plain feel like it! So there!

It’s odd in its casting: William Hurt plays a copy who’s equally able to run around and punch people, as he is to contemplate various contradictory and seemingly un-connected evidence. At this point he wasn’t known for anything other than a couple of things on Kojak of all things, as well some work in The Big Chill which only came out two months earlier in the cinemas. Meanwhile, Brian Dennehy plays a more sensitive and analytically-inclined guy than he had up to this point, mostly playing punching / shooting / cussin’ / whoring / neanderthals (or partial ones at the very least). Meanwhile, Alexei Sayle shows-up for the first time, and clearly impressed everyone, including me, because he’s always awesome (but what a waste it was with him in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade… however more on that one in a later post).

I’d really like to examine the plot and its twists and turns in all their surprising detail… but I can’t. Because of spoilers. Which is a shame.

Look, just watch the film. Even if you have seen it before, if it’s been longer than a decade since then, and especially if you saw it in all its dis-jointed glory as a television broadcast, I’m willing to guarantee you’ve forgotten at least one major detail near the end. No, don’t think about it right now, just watch the film and let it wash all over you.

The characters are fully realized, with all of them being complex in a way we’re un-used to typically in a spy thriller. Especially intriguing is the number of sides to the… oh, damn, here we go again. Crap.

It’s really good. Trust me.

[heavy sigh]

Sneakers (1992)

In order to avoid getting a “G-rating”, which was considered to be the surest way to be over-looked by ‘grown-ups’, oddly Sneakers ended up adding some swearing to an other-wide brilliant script. The result is seeing Sidney Poitier call someone a “mother fucker” and David Strathairn mention oral sex. Not their proudest moment, but you do what you have to in order to make things work in the marketing department.

This is much more of a ‘Thriller’ in the ‘Tech’ category, as we’re dealing with a computerized universal decoding / decryption MacGuffin that – unsurprisingly – everyone wants, but telling who actually is who is never something that’s easy. Asking for some ID is never reliable, even if people are co-operative. Those ‘secret guys’ seem to have this aversion to revealing stuff. Funny that.

The characters are less complex here than in the earlier film but, given the complexity of the action involved, it would be pretty difficult to cram that in there as well. They’re still more complicated than you’d expect in a thriller, though, and a fair number of their motivations and decisions are surprising when revealed. Hooray!

I wish Dan Ackroyd got more roles like this, though: “Mother” is a kinda nerdy conspiracy theorist who knows his way around wiring and complicated hardware the same way most people can handle a corkscrew*. “Mother” is ‘thinky’, and funny, and intriguing. He’s a really good actor, and an extremely good writer, and I like his work. 

Mildly disturbing to some may be the fact that all of the technology in the film was available to the common man for reasonably low prices before the film came out. Viewed today it looks really tame. Having already read David Gurr’s An American Spy Story, satellite and electronic monitoring potentials were well-known to me when originally seeing this in the cinema, and that was back in the days before these here interweb-tubes.

Sneakers is more light-hearted than Gorky Park, but is just as satisfying over-all, owing to the calibre of the actors and the quality of the writing.

…and I can’t really say much more than that without giving something away again. Blast.

So… watch that one as well.

Gorky Park (1983)
Eagle Associates

Director:
Michael Apted

Writers:
novel by Martin Cruz Smith
screenplay by Dennis Potter

Sneakers (1992)
Universal Pictures 

Directed by
Phil Alden Robinson

Writing credits
written by Phil Alden Robinson and
Lawrence Lasker & Walter F. Parkes

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

* No, I haven’t any idea what that means either. [ RETURN ]

Only ten years apart and yet yet both seem to be brilliant, it’s difficult to understand how these two men keep creating such incredible work so consistently. Somehow, they’re able to write, direct, and edit a film nearly every year and make all of them – well, nearly all of them – worth running across the street through heavy on-coming traffic. Plus, during the shooting period, there are no re-writes. None. Zero. Those script pages stay white. 

The Big Lebowski (1998)

While this has become a cult classic, I still don’t think it’s that incredible. Yes, it’s fabulous, but I wouldn’t declare it “87 out of ten stars!!!!” as some have. I’m not sure what I would change, but it’s so anarchic that it’s tough to identify anything as either “not sufficiently developed” or “extraneous”. The one section which I wouldn’t remove is the dream sequence, oddly, as it’s such a fabulous reflection of Hollywood’s musical montages, as well as the idyllic nature of The Dude’s notion of life. 

I might take out the character Jesus Quintana, as it really has nothing to do with anything in the story, but he acts in the same way as the gravedigger in Hamlet or the Night Porter in “the Scottish Play”. Besides, the basis for taking out that character would then have to equally apply to the character only identified as “The Stranger”, played by Sam Elliott, and he is possibly the only consistently normal person in the entire tale, so we need him. Hmmm… tricky…

Like Fargo, the movie the brother released two years earlier, The Big Lebowski is what may be best described as “minimalist noir™”. Basically, ‘how much can you do with a noir mystery or thriller to follow its rules, yet make it about as non-depressing and cynical as possible?’ Everyone in both of those films, plus Burn After Reading, is entirely out for the betterment of no one but themselves, and are willing to do anything in order to get it. The one individual who is an exception to this is the police officer Marge in the earlier film, but that’s getting a bit away from the two films we’re really examining here.

With The Big Lebowski, the questions are “why is this loser getting confused with someone else?” plus “where’s this ‘Bunny’ Lebowski, and what does Jackie Treehorn have to do with it?” An obvious additional couple of questions are “where’s The Dude going to get a decent run that really pulls the room together?” as well as “how are they going to fare in the league standings after all of this shakes down?” but those are more by the way sorts of things.

Burn After Reading (2008)

In Burn After Reading, however, the questions are more straight-forward: “who’s going to pay the most for these secret files?”, as well as “how did they get those secret files?” Again, everyone is out for their own betterment, whether they’re the author of a memoire, wanting – no, needing, dammit – cosmetic surgery, or simply looking for a bit of sex to warm them up for another run. The number of selfless people in this story are about as many as you would expect to find in Washington, DC: zilch.

The number of excellent performances from people you hadn’t expected to do real solid comedy yet are pretty damned good thank you very much, however, is “all”. There’s a moment when Brad Pitt’s character needs to be ‘sneaky’, and only ends-up looking completely self-conscious instead. And yet, if you really deconstruct what Pitt does, it’s such an incredibly subtle yet entirely clear bit of body language adjustment, but the guy makes it look effortless. 

Somehow, the Coen boys get the best performances of their careers out of everyone in their films. In some cases, the actors go on to continue their careers with increased skills in every genre of film, but they never quite match their achievement without a script written by them.

Typically, each of their scripts are filled with excellent dialogue which demonstrates a love of and un-matched facility with language. They also have a love of the movie-making business, as their ability to turn stereotypes and predictable scenarios on their proverbial heads is a high-water mark in cinema.

Damn, they’re awesome!

The Big Lebowski (1998)
Polygram Filmed Entertainment
Working Title Films

Directed by
Joel Coen & an uncredited Ethan Coen

Written by
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Burn After Reading (2008)
Focus Features presents
in association with Studio Canal
in association with Relativity Media
in association with Working Title Films
Mike Zoss Productions

Directed by
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Written by:
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

Admittedly, this isn’t something that needs analysis, except for that fact it’s so damned easy to get a mystery very wrong if you’re not careful. Especially tricky is the “locked room” variety of mystery. This is pretty much the ‘go to’ destination for anyone needing an example of how to make this work.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Somehow everything in this has either been carefully finessed or is responsible for creating the impression of “this is how things were”. The music, the speaking styles, and the decorum of people in general all appear to be so evocative of the age and body of the time that one gets suspicious of its veracity. From the outset, the whole film is so evocative of the era, it’s entirely possible that everything it does has come to represent that period specifically because of it being done so well here, and not that it is faithful to the reality itself. Given the number of things spotted which I know to be spot-on, it’s probably safe to say the rest of it is too; especially given Sidney Lumet’s reputation for getting things correct in every detail.

The characters are a bit one-dimensional, but given there’s so damned many of them, and their equality of time-involvement in the plot, plus the length of the film being finite, it’s tough for this not to be the case. The detective Hercule Poirot (played by Albert Finney), does have a variety of sides to him, but there lacks a transitory experience in the performance, no matter how excellent the work is. 

The story itself has all of the possible twists, plus a few more one doesn’t expect. As a mystery, all should be there for one to see and analyse, and, frustratingly, you see at the end that it all is. There are a few gigantic leaps of faith that Poirot’s logic takes – I swear his explanation and analysis of the crime takes longer to navigate than the crime itself took to execute, which is never a good sign – but as it holds up to scrutiny, it’s tough to fault it.

The film’s beginning in the story proper, following a sequence explaining a background event which took place five years earlier, is a wonderful introduction of the characters and a mirror of the tale to come. Each personality is equally presented to us in importance, and we get to see the hero’s boredom with ‘normality’: intellectual stimulation is what he craves, problems to solve are his principle interest. The other individuals are merely passing through the scene with little interest in engaging with it, or even each other. Granted, the others also have destinations in mind, whereas Poirot enjoys the journey; the solution isn’t as enjoyable as the actual doing of the solving.

Watch this, do not blink, and you’ll have both an entertaining and fascinating two hours or so.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Nat Cohen presents for EMI FIlm Distributors Ltd.
G.W. Films

Directed by
Sidney Lumet

Writing credits
screenplay by Paul Dehn
based on the novel by Agatha Christie (who isn’t credited for that specifically)

PLEASE NOTE: the above is not in any way the official trailer for the movie. It is, however, pretty fun.

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

While it may seem odd to deal with both of these at the same time, when I realized they both came out within months of each other, as well as both dealing with Alien Space Invasions, well, it’s tough to resist doing a “compare and contrast” examination of Independence Day and Mars Attacks!, especially as there’s an incredible number of similarities in the way they approach that plot which is common betwixt them. Credits and trailers appear at the end of this post for both of them.

Independence Day (1996)

Directed by Roland Emmerich, purportedly because he wanted to blow-up the White House, Independence Day is the story of how America comes together to defend itself and the world from the attack and liebensraum-like occupation of an Alien Force. On the other hand, Tim Burton-directed Mars Attacks! (based on a series of Topps Trading Cards I actually recall from my youth) is the story of how the attack and liebensraum-like occupation of an Alien Force causes America to join comes together to defend itself and the world. See how different they are from each other? No?

Okay, they’re not. 

Looking at the two trailers below, you would get the sense that Independence Day is a doom-and-gloom-filed, dark, terrifying, thrill-ride of suspense and fear. However, when watching it, you realize it’s not at all, and is far closer to the tone of Mars Attacks! than depicted in the promotional material. They’re both light-hearted stylistically, but the latter one really works toward a comedy, while the other merely lets the comedy come from the reality of the characters with an even handed approach. Yes, there’s some really funny-looking stuff in Mars Attacks!, and there’s some really exciting explosions in Independence Day, and those are about the only things that distinguish the one movie from the other. No, really. It might be easier to argue that they’re re-makes of each other than to specify their distinctness-es.

Admittedly, there is some double-casting in Mars Attacks! which almost perfectly echoes Doctor Strangelove…, but this would rely on Peter Sellers having not broken a bone which prevented him getting into the bomber for his scenes, thus resulting in Slim Pickins taking the role of the pilot.

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Both films are filled with movie stars, and it may be due to the coming-of-age of the two film-makers, owing to all of the ‘movies of the week’ of the late-’70s being choc-a-bloc with Star Power in every scene; frequently it was the only reason to bother watching. In the case of these films, each actor seems to fit a template of the earlier films, as they provide a “standard character type” and check-off another in the list of “things to get in the film”: black hero, smart but funny guy, romantic interest, noble US President (plus wife), marginally corrupt government official, out-of-control military leader(s), long-shot fighting hero, kids in need of a strong example, and so on. It all works, however, and both of the films present them all with a wink, letting us know that they know we know they’re kidding about it all.

It’s not overtly done, but both are also satires of late-’50s and early-’60s SF films, and seeing clips of The Day the Earth Stood Still and The War of the Worlds show-up on the TV screens of characters or in the background of scenes is an obvious tip-off about it. That said, though, it seems far more of an homage to the earlier works than a mocking finger-pointing critique. The stakes don’t get much bigger than “if you / he / I get this done, the whole world will be saved!” do they? 

Honestly, these two ought to be watched together, and in this order, forever. There’s some common ground in their up-beat nature, but they satisfy distinct bits of your soul in the process of their storytelling. they even tell distinctly different jokes; with only one specific one being repeated, but the reasons for the joke being made is different in each of them. 

In the process of locating a trailer for Mars Attacks! a clip was located for one of my favourite moments in any film, and I wasn’t even trying to find the thing. It’s a study in how to 

WARNING: the link about to be presented to you counts as a massive spoiler of one of the best gags in the movie, to the point that over fifteen years later I recalled the punch-line but got most of the lead-up wrong. The President’s speech is available here for those who have already seen the film.

Independence Day (1996)
Centropolis Entertainment
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Director
Roland Emmerich

Written by
Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich

Mars Attacks! (1996)
Tim Burton Productions
Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by
Tim Burton

Writing credits
screen story and screenplay both by Jonathan Gems
based on the trading card series by Len Brown & Woody Gelman & Wally Wood & Bob Powell & Norman Saunders

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.