Man of Steel | Movie Review

Sunday night I saw The Man of Steel with a buddy. It was awesome! While a lot of the fight scenes were a bit over the top with how much destruction to the city Superman creates, it sure was fun to watch on the big screen! It just seems like Superman would have tried to take the fight away from the city - but then that wouldn't have been as riveting to watch now would it?

Besides the amazing action in the movie, and it was so good, there was a lot of great storytelling going on too. This movie made use of flashbacks really well to fill in the back story. The way they would jump back in the timeline to show you how Clark grew up to be the man he is worked really well. You got to get to the exciting part of his adult life pretty quick, and still go back and see big important moments of his childhood that shaped him. I'm not sure why it worked so well, but the people making this movie knew what they were doing. This is easily the best Superman movie to date.

It was a long movie, but they used the time on the screen well. You get a lot of story in this film. It starts all the way back before Kal-El (Superman) is born and you really get to see his world on the brink of its destruction. The CG was amazing. I muttered "wow," and "dang" quite a few times as I was really taken aback by the stunning stuff I was gazing upon.

So even though at times the movie went a bit over the top, it was a blast and the story telling was really good. I can't wait to see this film again! Have you seen it? What did you think? Was I way out of line calling this the best Superman film to date? Is that blasphemy? Tell me about it! Leave a comment. Thanks for stopping by.

The Hobbit Production Diaries

I am really excited to see the movie The Hobbit. I've been rereading the book, as you know if you saw my last post. This is my third read through. The first time was in 8th grade, and not for a school assignment, just for pleasure. Then I read it again after college, and now just before seeing the movie. I'm really enjoying it and I can't wait to see the scenes on the big screen. The last time I read it I remember after finishing it that I wanted to just start from the beginning and read it all over again. I loved it. It's always been one of my favorite novels. I'm going to see it in theaters this Saturday evening.

So in the last post I shared about the companion of posts you can check out while rereading it, and a great podcast that dives into the books and news and speculation on the upcoming movies. Now let me share some cool videos with you. You may already know about these, but Peter Jackson has been producing Production Diaries. These videos are a fun behind the scenes look at the making of the film. There are a ton of them to watch and most are at least 15 minutes long, so we're talking about quite a bit of content here. I have really been enjoying them and I appreciate seeing all the immense work that is done to make these films. Peter Jackson brings you right in like he's inviting a friend onto the set. It will make you want to see the film that much more and you too will appreciate what went into making it. I can't wait to see The Hobbit!

Are You Rereading The Hobbit Too?

If you're rereading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit as I am, I wanted to point you towards something really cool. Kate Nepveu rereads a book and then gives you an awesome post with her thoughts for each chapter of the book. Over at Tor.com you can find some really cool posts about rereading different books. I first found out about them when I was looking for some good summaries of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series - because I've been in book 4 of that series for years and now I finally want to pick up that epic journey again an read to the end to see how Jordan and Brandon Sanderson finish it all off.

So you should definitely check out Tor's There and Back Again ... Again THE HOBBIT REREAD - especially if you don't want to reread the entire book but do want a fairly in depth look at it chapter by chapter to help you remember the book before you go to see the film in the theaters this month. I would say read the book and these awesome summaries.

Also check out the podcast Secrets of The Hobbit by the amazing podcaster Father Roderick. Yes, he is a Catholic Priest and apparently they make great podcasters!  He is so great and has a cool accent as he podcasts from the Netherlands. He also has a Secrets of Middle Earth podcast which is very good. Honestly this is one of the funnest podcasts I've listened to because he plays Lord of the Rings Online the game while recording the podcast, so he describes what he's looking at as he visits places like The Shire, and then goes into some of the history of the place and talks about characters and a lot of things from the books. It's incredible and I highly suggest you listen to that too. Here's the .mp3 of the first episode so you can hear what I'm talking about right now!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Finding Nemo Helped Me Find Act II

Last night I sat on the couch with my wife and kids watching Pixar's Finding Nemo. I've always loved this film for its bold storytelling move at the beginning of the film - it gets me every time - to the story of Nemo's father Marlin overcoming one obstacle after another to get to his son, to his son's coming of age story. Last night it struck me just how much was thrown at Marlin to stop him from getting to his son Nemo. One thing after another makes it very difficult for him to keep going. As I'm fleshing out that dreaded Act II, the middle of my current novel, I'm taking this storytelling approach to heart. I know how my novel will end and a bit of what needs to happen for the characters to get there, but not much in the way of details. Also, I have found that all of my novels so far have the problem of everything being too easy for my characters. I need more conflict. They overcome obstacles too fast and with too much ease. I now know how I'm going to move forward to get through Act II of my novel. I'm going to throw a whole bunch of stuff at my characters, making it as difficult for them to achieve their goals as I can. I've already come up with a few specific ideas that not only are going to do this - but I think they'll be a lot of fun too. I'm excited to plow into the second act of my story and get this ball rolling. I just need to find the time to write somehow.

Thanks for stopping by. Check back on Friday for another awesome Movie Memory guest blog post in text and audio!

Changeling III Act Structure Breakdown

Changeling
3 Act Structure Breakdown
Directed by Clint Eastwood

with Angelina Jolie, Gattlin Griffith, Michelle Gunn

Plot:
A mother's prayer for her kidnapped son to return home is answered, though it doesn't take long for her to suspect the boy who comes back is not hers. *source: www.imdb.com

Act I

• We meet Protagonist and Secondary Character (Mother & Child), a loving mother and her son, life is good.
• Mom's job calls her in, she can't keep promise to go to movies with son on Saturday, first conflict
• Secondary character is missing, the Protagonist must find her son. This is the great conflict of the film which pushes us into act II, the Protagonist is now in a world without her son. (Plot Point # 1)

Act II

• Protagonist tries to find boy with help of police by calling them, they don't help (1st false victory, falling action)
• Protagonist continues search unsuccessfully, conflict becomes more intense (rising action
• Police call mom, tell her they’ve found boy (false hope/culmination)
• Mom finds out the boy police found is not her son (2nd false victory, falling action, midpoint)
• She fights to find truth, policeman sends her to mental hospital
• She is freed, because the truth is found that it’s not her boy (1st victory, rising action, Plot Point # 2)

Act III

• Protagonist has new goal to get justice for what has happened to her and others put in mental hospital
• Ladies are freed from mental hospital (2nd victory, rising action)
• Policeman gets fired, court case won, murderer sentences to be hung (3rd victory)
• Murderer promises to tell Mom he killed boy, so she can move on, but he doesn’t (all is lost)
• Murderer is hung
• Truth found, boy wasn’t murdered but got away, protagonist has hope her boy is still alive (denouement)