Raindrops on Roses (Part One) -- Phantom Thread

(trailer)

Nobody else I know likes this movie. I’m not saying I know a statistically significant number of people, or that I’m intrinsically better than everybody else, but it is something of note. When I bring up how good I think Phantom Thread (2017) is, the first thing I hear is, “Why?” So here’s why:

The movie just looks gorgeous. The movie is about a dressmaker in 1950’s London, so of course all the dresses are great (I’ve seen enough seasons of Project Runway to know what I’m talking about). But it also finds its aesthetic in other ways. The camera tends to hold it’s shots throughout an entire monolog, following its focal point around or, when that point is stationary, slowly zooming in. This is especially impactful about halfway through, where not only does the camera’s zoom slowly center on the scene’s focus, it slowly cuts out another element.

It sounds great. I have nothing against The Shape of Water (or Dunkirk, for that matter), but I don’t remember any particular song or moment when the soundtrack stood out to me. This is opposed to the week or so I spent only listening to Phantom Thread’s. Every song is very good, but here’s House of Woodcock to give an example of what to expect on the sound front.

Being nominated for The Academy’s Best Actor award of some kind is kind of expected at this point for Daniel Day-Lewis (should that be “was expected?”), but special mention goes to Lesley Manville and Vicky Krieps who are perhaps the most counter to Day-Lewis’ character and therefore must keep up with him for the entirety of the movie’s 130 minute runtime. They do their jobs admirably.

Last, but certainly not least, is the story. Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s other work with Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood, it’s more interested in its three leads and how they interact with each other. It’s the story of a battle for dominance, but they’re all related to each other so everybody has to keep up the niceties around other people. And when things finally come to a head…

Well, I don’t want to spoil the movie, now do I?

So yes, do watch it. It’s very very good.

-F

Next time on Raindrops on Roses: A game that could be a film (but shouldn’t?)

Raindrops on Roses (Part Zero) -- A Change of Pace

I think I’ve been complaining too much. That is to say, I think I’ve gotten into this writing loop where, when trying to think of something to write about for this blog, my mind immediately goes to picking something apart, to reflecting negatively on some subject that crosses my mind at some point during the week prior. Even now I’ve entered into some sort of meta-complaining, where I’m reflecting on the direction this blog has taken.

The problem even there is that I haven’t been complaining in the actual content of these posts. This means the “I’ve been complaining too much” thought doesn’t hold up. Just the mentality behind it. So even if these posts have been well-reasoned analyses of problems that totally exist outside of my own head, it’s hindered by how I go about writing them.

I feel like I’ve been associating negativity with the style that I write in. I tend to write in long, meandering sentences that lose the point halfway through, only barely coming back to the original point if they do at all. And I’m not sure how to change this style -- even if I want to! -- without forcing myself to do so. The same goes for the mood of these pieces; if I want to get out of this negative headspace I’m going to have to force myself to.

Like the Terraforming (Part One) post from late January, this is more of an introduction to a writing idea I’ve been developing for a week or two. I want to get away from this headspace that this blog can put me in, so every once in a while I’m going to try to talk about some things I really like. Some of them might be a little alien to my readers -- just because some nerdy things are accepted doesn’t mean they’re not still pretty obscure -- so part of the series is to introduce these things to you. And in the end, I hope you find something you enjoy in these posts as well.

-F

The Way People Don't Talk

One of the more enjoyable parts of writing, for me, is writing down a conversation. It can be difficult for me to find a character’s narrative voice -- that is to say, how the narrator talks about a character or how they think about themselves -- but once they open their mouths their entire personality comes pouring out. Sometimes it can be as simple as adding a nervous tic, or having them use the word “like” as, like, a comma, but it can add a lot of personality to even the simplest of statements.

Which is why I was a little annoyed when I got a comment on a workshopped story that simply said, “Nobody talks like that.”

So I understand the point of criticism. I understand that it is the author’s job to accommodate to the reader and not the other way around. If the comment were a little bit less absolute (for example, “It doesn’t seem like this character would say that.”), I would understand that. And maybe I should have a thicker skin for this sort of thing, especially if I’m going to continue writing. Admittedly, the particular line in question (“I, uhm, what?”) wasn’t the pinnacle of wit (unless you take Polonius at face value).

I also don’t mean to question this particular critic’s experience. I don’t know him personally, but he is definitely more experienced than I in a multitude of fields. If he says he’s never heard someone in real life say that, then I believe him. With over 7.6 billion people in the world, though, there have to be people he hasn’t heard.

In the end, though, I did end up changing the line.

-F

The Questions, Not The Mints

I don’t know exactly how to phrase this in a way that makes any sort of sense, but I don’t hate icebreaker questions and I don’t not hate them. I find the ritual that goes around them tedious (i.e., “Let’s go around the room and say our names and what you would do if you found yourself arm wrestling a bear.”), but questions themselves not as much (though the arm-wrestling a bear one would probably get an eye roll from me and not much else). I sympathize with people who hate them; they can often turn into inside joke factories that do nothing but alienate people not in the loop. But observing how people deal with unexpected queries has to have some amount of merit.

I think sometimes people don’t like icebreaker questions because the answers are all the same. There’s a moment in the movie Adaptation. written by Charlie and Donald Kaufman where Nicolas Cage’s character exclaims, “People who say Jesus or Einstein are liars.” That particular question was “Which person, living or dead, would you most want to have dinner with?” which of course is a boring question. It’s a stereotypical icebreaker at this point. People already know their answers. Even if they are Jesus and Einstein.

So what I suggest are some off-the-wall icebreaker questions. I’ve prepared five below:

What is the least interesting thing about you? Why did you think that answer will still “break the ice?”

The apocalypse has finally arrived! Assuming you survive the initial wave of casualties, how long do you think you would last? What regrets would you have?

People always wonder what animals would say if they could speak, but they don’t take into account all the microorganisms inside their own mouth. If you had to rely on these microscopic cells to speak for you for twenty four hours, what do you think the consequences would be the week after?

What scientific breakthrough do you wish would happen, even if it would be totally pointless?

What is your favorite icebreaker question and why didn’t you ask it first?

-F

Ruminations on Oscar Gold

One of the first lessons I learned about writing nonfiction is to almost always give yourself time between what you’re writing about and when you start writing, just to get your feelings in order. It’s this reason that I waited until we finally got a new oven mitt at work before complaining about it on the internet, and it’s the reason I’m posting this two weeks after The 90th Academy Awards instead of the Tuesday after.

I sometimes joke that The Oscars are awards that everyone likes to say they don’t care about, but secretly they do. It’s certainly how I feel about them. “It’s just a popularity contest,” people like to say. “Good Time and Wind River weren’t even nominated.” And that’s certainly true, especially in certain categories. But there’s still something to be gained by knowing what’s popular and what’s not, especially in a cultural touchstone like American cinema.

What’s popular, for example, is giving awards meant for individual achievements to people with good careers despite a lackluster single performance. Sometimes this turns out positively, such as Roger Deakins winning Best Cinematography for Blade Runner: 2049, but it can also lead to snubs like Allison Janey (I, Tonya) or Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) winning over stronger competition like Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird) or Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).

To be honest, though, that’s just me complaining. On a more positive note, I do enjoy seeing the buzz surrounding the nomination announcements. I like those controversies much more (The Lego Movie was snubbed!), maybe because cutting the field from hundreds to five is much more exciting than cutting from five to one. It also is much better at making potential watchlists. When I found out I had seen seven of the nine best picture nominees before the nominations were even announced, I became much more interested in seeing those remaining two.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I like watching movies, and I am always looking for new, good movies to see -- I generally rely on the quality filters of people around me for the older ones (“You’ve never seen Gone With the Wind?”). The Oscars, for better or for worse, are another way to find those newer movies. So even if I disagree with the eventual winners in some subjective way, at least it’s good for that.

-F

Ars Somni

(The Art of Sleep)

For lack of a better way to phrase this, despite it sounding either punny or cliche or both, I dream of dreaming.

That isn’t to say I don’t not dream. There are times when I wake up and distinctly remember the feeling of dreaming, or at least feel similar to how dreaming has been described to me. And sometimes I can remember the smallest glimmer of what my subconscious had been fantasizing about. But it’s never enough to motivate me to keep a dream journal, so even those glimmers fade away over time.

I’ve found people are generally fascinated by things they don’t have. This is true in both the politics of consumerism to media (a pivotal sequence in The Shape of Water is the mute Eliza wishing she could say “I love you” to her fish monster boyfriend). The same applies to me as well. When I write fiction, I’ve found that dreams work their way into the work. Heck, any project I take manages to  get some reference to dreams in there. This blog, of course, now joins that list.

Of course, I don’t really know what dreams are like anymore. These days, all I know are the dreams that my characters have, and who knows if that’s accurate to a dream I might have. I’ve never fallen forever, or suddenly become naked in the middle of a class presentation. But if Naviim’s Daniel can participate in a prophetic vision that dictates his entire life, I am all about that.

-F

Necessity

I had this good idea for a post. Like, a really, really good idea. But I didn’t, because I needed to talk about this instead. This feels more necessary.

This isn’t a bragging moment, or even a “humble-bragging” moment, but in my line of work, I tend to work near really hot things. The only exact measurement I know is the oven, which frequently reaches temperatures of five hundred degrees fahrenheit or more. But I’ve been burned before on the other pieces of hardware. One of our previous cooks burned his arm so badly that he had to be hospitalized.

Of course, there are various protections against this. The most useful, in my experience, has been the dark blue industrial-grade oven mitt we keep in one of the building’s many corners. I used it for everything, from cleaning to transporting hot items to the back to cool down. Really, any time I could come in contact with something dangerously hot, I looked for the oven mitt. So, as you would expect, eventually it became a bit more worn. The thumb was especially frayed, though it still protected just fine in my experience.

Two weeks ago that oven mitt was thrown out. So for two weeks, we operated without an oven mitt. And there were workarounds, sure. “Just use a wet rag,” was a sentence I heard often over the course of these two weeks. Another one was, “We can’t just buy a new mitt because you want one, F. It’s not necessary.”

I never got burned, but I came close a few times.

Recently, our restaurant had its quarterly inspection. I wasn’t personally there for it, but the results were a very good ninety-two percent. I noticed this written on a whiteboard somewhere, and asked if some of the points off were because we didn’t have a necessary piece of equipment. The answer was no.

Two days later, we had a new oven mitt, and I feel like I’m the only one that noticed.

-F