Tag Archives: story

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They’re Laughing WITH You: A Lesson in Receiving Criticism

My creative writing class is about to begin their first round of workshops. For those of you unacquainted with a creative writing class workshop, this is where an entire class period is devoted to the constructively erudite discussion of a fellow classmates short story (or poem, play, etc.), wherein the writer sits quietly, listening and taking notes, as his or her fellow students analyze and explore the merits of the work and offer clear, insightful criticism on how to improve its overall quality.

Well … ideally, that’s the point.

As an exercise in encouraging the students to speak openly and honestly during our coming workshop days, I submitted one of my own stories, claiming that it was an unpublished story I just happened to be glancing over for a friend they did not know, so they would be welcome to read the story and say whatever they wanted to say about it – after all, what my friend didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Plus, when it came to end of the period and I had thoroughly encouraged them to let ‘er rip, I could then claim ownership of the story and they would see that I was still standing, in one piece, unvanquished by criticism. It seemed a brilliant scheme.

Now, there was a time when I was extraordinarily insecure about my writing. I can remember a few workshops in college in which I struggled to swallow back the lump in my throat and stifle the shameful heat in my face while my fellow students proceeded to tear me a new one. These days, I’m much more satisfied with my writing. When it comes to my stories, I no longer feel like a mother bear protecting her cub. I believe I have learned to take criticism well.

Suffice it to say that I’m glad I’m secure, because it seems the one thing my class did not need was a lesson in speaking openly and honestly. I severely underestimated how comfortable some of my students are with expressing their opinions. My sneaky little exercise was plotted more from the idea that I needed something unpublished and amateur that the students felt qualified to pick at, and that I would need to prod them along like nervous sheep.

I was still standing after the criticism, though some of my students drew much sharper blades than I was expecting. So, I suppose half of the modeling lesson achieved its objective. However, it was impossible for me to disregard the reminder that no person is ever done improving, that not a single soul on this side of life ever finishes the fine-tuning. Recognizing this hard fact is sometimes more beneficial than the criticism that, solicited or unsolicited, is continually and inevitably cast in your direction.


p.s. – Any thoughts on handling criticism? I’d love to hear them in the comment section.

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Friday Films: True Grit

Sometimes, the easiest way to catch sight of the wonder in life is to immerse yourself in a great story. Given a choice of how to be served one, I’d pick a good novel over anything else. But as much as I enjoy reading, I am also a fan of the cinema, and if a quality novel isn’t within reach, a movie will do just fine. Whether I’m planting myself in the center of the center row of a theater or settling down to a DVD on the laptop, a good film thrills me as much as a good book. I’m not one of those readers who spurns film – in my opinion, they’re family. The film is the scrappy nephew to Uncle Novel.

Thus, each Friday, Wonderstuff will celebrate a film. Unlike today, most of these will be movies you can snag for yourself on Netflix or the Redbox (my theater-going is limited in Germany). Nevertheless, I highly recommend each film. If you have yet to experience it, I’ll give you five good reasons why you should delay no longer.

Today’s Film:

Visiting the States for Christmas meant that I could catch a couple of Best Picture Academy Award contenders (’tis the season, you know). The first one I caught was the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit. The purists and traditionalists alike will cry foul on the Coens for tampering with the classic western that nabbed John Wayne his only Oscar, but Joel and Ethan compose the two-man genius machine behind such new classics as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and No Country For Old Men, not to mention the brilliant A Serious Man. I’m not a fan of this trend of remakes either, but I was willing to give the Coens the benefit of the doubt. I’m glad I did.

Five good reasons to go see True Grit:

#2 – A phenomenal supporting cast, including compelling turns by Matt Damon and Barry Pepper.

#3 – The music. Old-timey variations on “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” and other traditional hymns provides a gorgeous background to a rough-and-tumble story.

#4 – The old-timer in the bear fur. This is what makes westerns so fun.

#5 – A deftly drawn Old West narrative in the capable hands of the Coens – a oddysey that lightly and fearlessly explores issues of vengeance, purpose and belonging. This is what makes westerns so beautiful.

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The Films of ’09

The Best Film of 2009

I don’t read a lot of blogs, but there is one that I love to visit called “Three Hands in the Popcorn Bag,” created by a friend of mine and two of his friends, dedicated to reviewing movies of all shapes and sizes, beautiful and absurd. One week will provide captivating reflections on theologically/sociologically rich films like Babette’s Feast and City of God, while other weeks you can read the most insightful review ever attributed to Saw IV or Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus 3D. These guys maintain a great site, and I recommend it.

One of the things this blog provides, each year, is a Top Five list of films from each of the three contributors. Their latest ones, recently posted, reminded me that I used to do the same, though last year I did not provide a list mainly because I had moved out of the States before I was able to see several movies on which I had waited. Living in Germany makes it difficult to catch new releases, especially if you are on a missionary budget. I have to drive into Switzerland to catch movies in English, and there is no affordable English-dubbed Netflix or Redbox in Deutschland. It costs around $14 to see a movie in the theater, so I have only been to two since moving to Germany eighteen months ago. And as for independent films, like the kind my Waco friends and I used to drive up to Dallas to see on Saturdays, I have had to bid a sad farewell to almost all of them. The only blessing has been the occasional opportunity to download a new or recent release from some ethically-gray movie website. I promise, as soon as Germany installs a Blockbuster in the village of Kandern, or allows me an overseas Netflix membership, I’ll fork over the dough.

And yet, despite only being able to see a fraction of 2009 films this past year, I have nevertheless compiled my own list. In the past, this has been a Top Ten list, but I’m reducing it to a few different Top Five groupings because of a lack of material. So, without further adieu…

TOP FIVE FILMS OF 2009

1) The Hurt Locker

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie

I was lucky enough to find this one online last summer, but had I gotten the opportunity to travel to Switzerland, I would have considered the exorbitant cost worth it for. There are two kinds of war films – ones that focus on the overall glory/brutality of war, and ones that focus not on the war itself, but on the soldiers who struggle through it. Both can achieve greatness, but, by and large, I have always found the character-driven war films superior. The Hurt Locker is an extraordinary, character-driven war film. The Iraq War, with all its chaos and controversy, takes a back seat to three specific soldiers of the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), perhaps the most dangerous job in the war. It is as tense a thriller as they come, but also as moving and thought-provoking as any film I have seen in recent history. If you missed it in the theaters, add it to the Netflix queue or snag it from the Red Box. It should win the Best Picture Oscar, but even though it probably won’t, I don’t expect to see a better film come out of 2009.


2) The Road

Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Yes, it is depressing. Yes, it is bleak. Yes, the small strand of hope woven through the story is almost imperceptible at times. But just as this was perhaps the most moving novel of 2006, the film is a spot-on adaptation. The cinematography triumphs in an unrelenting display of a desolate, post-apocalyptic world. If the film could not properly capture this critical element, it simply would not work. But director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) succeeds with this and much more. I would go so far as to insist that the world he creates is more emotionally mesmerizing than James Cameron’s planet of Pandora. Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee are wonderful as the Man and the Boy, and brief appearances by Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Michael K. Williams and Guy Pearce are perfect in their tragic simplicity. The film only serves to remind me why I have fought to teach Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to my American Literature Honors class this year.

3) Zombieland

Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrellson

Those who know me and my affinity for moviegoing might be surprised that such a ridiculous film made it on my Top Five list. However, chalking its presence up to the fact that I haven’t seen that many films this year would not be correct. While there are several highly-regarded 2009 films that I still have yet to see, it is safe to assume that Zombieland would still fall ahead of many of them. The beauty of this horror-comedy is its intelligibility and its absence of adornment. It does not try to do or be too much. It is simply a road movie about four survivors of a zombie apocalypse seeking safety and togetherness. It contains a wonderful mix of pop-culture jokes, visual gags and chuckle-filled violence, not to mention the best star-cameo I’ve ever seen on film. And what other film would have its hero’s archetypical “Ultimate Boon” be as seemingly insignificant as a Twinkie? I have not wanted to see a sequel this much in a long, long time.

4) The Hangover

Bradley Cooper, Zack Galafanakis

The greatness of this comedy lies in its non-stop outlandishness. One cannot help but respect the wide inventiveness of the writers’ imaginations. From a mystery baby, to Mike Tyson’s bengal tiger, to the naked Asian in the trunk, I felt as amnesic as the three buffoons running all over Las Vegas trying to retrace their drunken, meandering steps from the night before. Is the film crude at times? Yes. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Is it believable? Absolutely not. But this is exactly the point. Like Wedding Crashers before it, this film deserves the laughs it yanks out of you, even if you can’t help but cover your mouth with your hand from the shock of it. This film surpasses so many mediocre screwball comedies of recent years. It is nice to know Hollywood can still do funny right.

5) Inglourious Basterds

Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz

I’m still chewing on this one, to be honest. I only watched it a week ago. However, in the middle of my viewing, around the time Standartenführer Landa is sharing dessert with Shosanna, I was reminded of why this film should be considered great: it is a return to true Tarantino form – pitch-perfect dialogue. At one point, my wife asked, “Why is each scene so long?” I explained that Tarantino’s talent is finding a way to keep extended on-screen conversations riveting, and this is certainly true in Basterds. Kill Bill was good, but fell short of films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction because it traded away some of its dialogue for extensive scenes of gore and violence. But, with Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has returned to the balance that works best. Nevermind that the entire second half of the film is an absurd reimagining of the end of WWII. The tagline on the poster – “Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France” – reminds the viewer of the fantastical proposition of this story. The tightness of the storytelling, along with impressive acting all around, convinces me I will be hard-pressed to find a better film from 2009.


HONORABLE MENTIONS - Films Definitely Worth Seeing

500 Days of Summer – Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great, as is Zooey Deschanel. The freshness of the story, and its refusal to be a same-old, same-old romantic comedy, captivated me throughout.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – One of the two films I have seen in the theater in Switzerland (hey, I’m a Potter fan). This film was well done. I include it as an honorable mention even though, for some odd reason, the filmmakers played down the climactic final confrontation from the book, and instead included a whole new scene in the middle that finds the Weasley’s house on fire. Still, though, this is a vast improvement from Order of the Phoenix, and the presence of Jim Broadbent (as Professor Slughorn) was the best casting of a new character so far. Thankfully, the kids are continuing to hone their acting skills, even Ginny (Bonnie Wright), which is nice to see.

Avatar – Yes, the story is lacking in places (pretty much a Dances With Wolves rip-off just like The Last Samurai), but it is not nearly as painful to sit through as Titanic‘s preposterous love story. Visually, it is an amazing cinematic achievement. Even for Switzlerland’s 3D screen costs, it is worth the price just to see Pandora.

Fanboys – Okay, it was a silly movie about a bunch of twenty-something nerds road tripping to Lucas Ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode One. But, on the other hand, it was about a bunch of twenty-something nerds road tripping to Lucas Ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode One. Full of Star Wars/ Star Trek humor, improbably road trip gags, and Seth Rogan’s best comedic role to date, this is worth watching if you have any appreciation for the original Star Wars trilogy.

District 9 – The jury is still out, as I just watched this last night. However, I have to give credit to the originality of both the story and the filmmaking. While I had trouble watching half the scenes in documentary-style when no cameras were supposed to be around the characters, I was drawn in quickly by this odd, politically-charged science fiction film. I cannot say I regret seeing it, especially when movies are harder to come by where I live.

TOP FIVE WORST FILMS OF 2009

Speaking of regretting films, here are five that either royally disappointed me, or went so far as to cause me to lament that story-quality in Hollywood has been thrown out with the craft services trash from the Avatar set.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - To be honest, I don’t know why I watched it at all. Maybe because I have little to choose from here in Germany. But just like its 2007 predecessor, this film royally sucked. Who needs coherent story and logic in Hollywood when I gots me a bunch a guys who can generate a mess o’ loud noises and blow crap up for two and a half hours?

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – Watched it with the wife. Aside from the fact that the screenwriters basically pissed all over Dickens, it only served to remind me that Matthew McConaughey is the go-to guy to play chauvinistic pricks, and that is not a good thing. If it weren’t for Tropic Thunder, I don’t think I could look at the guy anymore.

Pandorum - I wanted to like this film. I like Ben Foster. I think that he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are the two best young male actors working today. And the problem with this film was not its look or even its pacing. Rather, it was the balance. I knew what was going on not because the film clearly communicated this to me, but because I worked my way through this movie based on thinking like the writer and director. Insert crazy psychological twist here, add improbable situation here, apply creepy character here. All in all, it was too concerned with keeping me guessing to keep me interested.

Knowing – Actually started with promise, even if it felt like the filmmakers were beating me over the head to communicate Nicolas Cage’s spiritual crisis. However, the ridiculous spiritual allusions within this film left me shaking my head in annoyance. And then there was the lame Deus Ex Machina ending so far out of left field that its in the parking lot of another town’s stadium. I like a disaster film as much as the next guy, but I rolled my eyes so much during this film that I went to bed with a pulsating headache.

Funny People – I was excited about this film. I am a fan of Judd Apatow – well, the films he writes, not the pieces of crap he produces. I was interested to see his new dramedy. When it comes to Adam Sandler in a serious role, I’m on board. I think he’s got some chops. However, this film was a mess. A complete mess. It wanted to be too many things, a drama, a buddy-comedy, a romance, a coming-of-age tale… In the end, all I could think about was how many things I would change about the story. Too bad.

TOP TEN 2009 MOVIES I STILL WANT TO SEE

1 - A Serious Man – I heart the Cohen brothers.

2 – Invictus – I also heart Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood.

3 – Up in the Air – I actually downloaded this but haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. I liked director Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking and Juno, but only somewhat. However, from what I’ve heard about this one, I’m more eager to see it than I ever was the other two.

4 – The Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson could direct a pro-Hitler movie and I’d watch it.

5 – Star Trek – I am still very eager to see this remake. I never saw the highly-praised reboot of James Bond (Casino Royale) either, and it’s ticking me off.

6 – The White Ribbon – I’ve heard this film is extraordinary, and living in Germany, I truly hope I can see it soon.

7 – The Men Who Stare at Goats – Still hoping I can locate a copy of this online. Looks like a great cast and an interesting story. One of our friends, Kristen, recently reminded me that I like Ewen McGregor.

8 – The Lovely Bones – Peter Jackson is a great director, plain and simple. I haven’t read this book, but I am definitely up for the film adaptation.

9 – Where the Wild Things Are – I’m wary of children’s books being turned into films, but this one looked intriguing.

10 – The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – Not only because it was Heath Ledger’s last film, and I think he was really starting to find his acting chops since Brokeback Mountain, I am also a fan of Terry Gilliam. I don’t know if it will be any good, but I definitely think it is worth checking out.

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And that’s all there is, friends. Please let me know if you have seen any of the above listed films, and your thoughts on them.

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Why Story Matters

This must be stated at the outset: if it weren’t for archetypes, James Cameron would only be directing music videos at record-breaking cost, not major motion pictures.

However, it should also be stated at the outset that this is not a negative review.

I have loathed James Cameron ever since Titanic crashed into cinemas ten years ago and proceeded to sell out four screens-worth of showings for four months thanks to teenage and twenty-something girls seeking to be ravished by tragic, star-crossed love. (This was half a generation before Twilight could do the same.) I hated the film because it was a sub-par, predictable love story masquerading as an epic masterpiece, but no one seemed to care because they “liked the part when the boat busted in half and that dude hit the propellor thing.” Since then, it went without saying that I avoided James Cameron films, which I saw as nothing more than Michael Bay forbears – cool effects, but with holes in the story so large you could drive Optimus Prime through them.

But the guy is starting to grow on me.

I was told Avatar was something special. I was told this by people who, though they seemed the equivalent of those teenage girls (the ones who plastered posters of King-of-the-World Leo all over their dorm rooms), still spoke with the utmost sincerity. I was also aware that Avatar was best when viewed in 3D, and given my knowledge of James Cameron’s lame stories, I figured that if I was going to watch this movie, it would be solely for the visual effects. In the end, my better judgement lost a battle against my curiosity, and the wife and I scrounged up some cash, drove into Basel, Switzerland (the closest theater that shows films in English), and sat ourselves down in the theater, silly 3D glasses and all.

Visually, Avatar is stunning. It captivated me in a way few movies did when they first hit theaters. Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and Flight of the Navigator come to mind, the last one being released when I was six-years old, so cut me some slack if you know of it. Cameron is clearly a fan of bio-luminescence. The world he creates, Pandora, is something like what you would get if you fused Halo terrain, Lothlorien from The Lord of the Rings, and the Great Barrier Reef into one three-dimensional ecosystem inhabited by spiritually supersensitive blue aliens with tails and sparkly skin. As it stands, if what you are after in a movie-going experience is visual stimulation, then there probably has not been a more impressive display on-screen since George Lucas introduced Star Wars to the public in 1977.

But what about story?

One of the first units I teach in my high school English class is a series of lessons on literary archetypes. Simply put, literary archetypes are derived from the psychologist Carl Jung’s “archetype,” an aspect of the psyche that finds worldwide parallels across cultures, traditions and languages. In other words, an American, a Korean and a German can all have daddy issues that cause them similar psychological stress. Literary archetypes are, therefore, patterns, characters, situations or symbols that seem to surface in stories told across the globe. They are narrative elements that captivate people on an instinctual level. We all can recognize the Damsel in Distress, the Scapegoat or the Outcast. We all understand that Excaliber, Sting, the Elder Wand, and a silver bullet all represent the Magic Weapon. We accept that for a Hero to prove himself, he must first undergo some sort of test, initiation, or series of trials – this is in keeping with the Hero Cycle (also known as the Monomyth). It is the presence of literary archetypes that help audiences identify with characters so vastly different from ourselves, as well as with those who could very well be us. Samwise Gamgee, Donkey, Sir Galahad, and Timon and Pumbah are the Loyal Retainers. Morpheus, Gandalf, Rafiki and Doc Brown are the Wise Old Man. Harry Potter’s scar, Achilles’ heel and St. Paul’s thorn are the Unhealable Wound. The list goes on…

The reason Avatar works as a film is not due completely to the special effects, which are no doubt impressive. The reason the film works and entertains so many is the same reason Star Wars keeps people riveted, or The Matrix, or Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Godfather, or every Disney or Pixar film ever made. These stories, no matter how epic in scope, are comprised of similar archetypes – specific characters, situations and symbols that serve as the building blocks of story.

When I explain to my students that almost every story – tall-tale, book or film – contain archetypes, they sometimes accuse me of insinuating that every story is just a copy of something else. But this is not the case. While it is true that many stories follow similar patterns – this is sometimes called the “type story” –  it does not necessarily mean the writer had no better ideas and simply stole outright from something else. Archetypes are as important to storytellers as they are to story readers.

So, is this why James Cameron’s Avatar is essentially Dances With Wolves in space? Yes and no. Yes, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a Kevin Costner military outsider who finds himself living among a tribal people, just as Tom Cruise was in The Last Samurai. However, if you were to scour the history of narratives, you would probably find a similar story that predates all three of these tales. Why? Because the sentiment that goes with this story arc should not be, “I’ve seen this all before,” but rather, “This story type is compelling.”

Now, this does not mean that I am letting Cameron’s storytelling off the hook. It is one thing to utilize a type story. Cameron has done this with every one of his films, from the Terminator films, to Aliens, to Titanic. A type story may or may not have depth in its simplicity. Of course, we are drawn to both, but those of us who truly cherish the power of story will be more impressed with those tellers who took care to express their version of the type story in a unique way, full of detail and well-rounded characters. In contrast, Cameron’s Titanic was a clichéd mess, a parade of shallow characters floating across the deep blue sea. Avatar, though, is an improvement. The narrative is not as powerful as Dances With Wolves or other films that have won awards for their stories. However, in a film where it is obvious that the visual effects are meant to be center stage, mindful moviegoers can accept the thinness of story to an extent.

I recommend Avatar, which is not something I thought I would be writing before I sat down in the theater with those ridiculous glasses on my head. I will even go so far as to state that Avatar is groundbreaking filmmaking. Perhaps, in ten more years, James Cameron will have learned even more about the writing process, and will trump himself. In the meantime, even the simplicity of Avatar‘s story only goes to show that there are things that move us all. There are elements in the stories we read, the stories we watch, and even, if we are intentional about it, the stories we live that remind us that life is extraordinary.