The Dynamics of Villainy: An Analytical Look

So I was thinking - as usual....... and I started thinking about all the villains in my favourite stories. Now I've known for a long time now that one of the most appealing things in a story is a strong VILLAIN. For me, the villain should be just as strong if not stronger than the hero. And usually when talking about a story I go on and on about how much I loved the villain of the piece. And I was thinking, well, why do I like the villains?

And I came to the conclusion that there are only two main types of villains that people can really get into and like.

1) Classically, the villain you're allowed to just simply HATE. I mean, they have to be EVIL, nothing nice about them. You WANT them to be brought down.You ever hear of when you love to hate something? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

2) The villain you're allowed to love. That's been a sort of trend happening with the villains of the pieces being "good on the inside" or whatever. That's a harder thing, because a sob story will often just seem sappy. These villains don't need to necessarily endear themselves to you, but they need to delight you. The kind of thing where everytime they appear on screen or in the book you go "YES!"

A good example of the latter is Spike, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He's a villain. But he's a softhearted villain who simply refuses to admit it. He would kill Buffy and Co. right as soon as he could, but he can't. So you know that whenever he appears he's going to bring laughs. You don't necessarily think you'd hang out with him real life - it's not that kind of love for a character I'm talking about.

The main difference between these two kinds of villains is that the ones you're love to hate, you just HATE. You just want them to be brought DOWN. But the ones you love are relatable, in a way that no one would openly admit, but they are. Like when Spike gets so frustrated with his situation. The thing with Spike is he actually brings a sort of humanity to what would traditionally be a cold and heartless villain, a classic good guy/bad guy scenario (nothing against the classic good guy/bad guy scenario.... that was basically my entire childhood.) And THAT'S the point, is when the villains start becoming HUMAN, that's when you start to be allowed to love them. That's what makes Spike awesome, that's what makes Hannibal Lectar awesome, that's what makes Artemis Fowl awesome. Spike, ironically unhuman, has such utter humanity about him - frustration and emotion and all this. He was even in love with Drusilla. Though Angel might be the one with a soul, Spike is the one with the most humanity. In this case, it makes him great because Joss Whedon takes it lightheartedly. Finding the humour in this is what makes Spike so damn lovable.

What makes Hannibal Lectar so epic is that he has such understanding for the human condition, for how fragile it can be, for the wonder of the human mind. He may not be as emotional as Spike, but where classically cold villains may take the human condition for granted, Hannibal Lectar simply doesn't. You know that not everything he thinks about is just killing and eating people. You know, for instance, that he used to visit a lovely little beach that he used to draw, before he was locked up. He's RELATABLE and HUMAN. That's also what makes him so frightening. Where Spike is great because it's taken lightheartedly, Hannibal Lectar shines because he's taken so seriously. We like the idea that everyone who's ever done something despicable is coldhearted and inhuman, that no one with a heart could relate to them, and what makes Hannibal Lectar so frightening is that he proves that that is just so untrue. What makes it so frightening is he's relatable..... and shows us that we all have a level of insanity in us. And he succeeds in this fear because he's just so damn reasonable sounding when he talks to Starling. Not to mention that we can be so delighted when he comes onscreen because in spite of our fear of him, he's undoubtedly a GENIUS. And even though no one would be best friends with him, we're allowed, and in fact encouraged to appreciate the fact that this is one incredibly intelligent and formidable individual.

And now we come to Artemis Fowl. I've spent far too much time thinking about this series of books (aimed at twelve year olds) but it's only because the characters in it are so freaking great, the plot is so freaking imaginative, the dialogue is so freaking hilarious and the series in general is just so freaking AWESOME. But the thing about it is that one of the main characters, Artemis Fowl, is, especially in the first book, undeniably the villain of the thing. And this is one of those rare villains where one of those "he's good on the inside" things is portrayed by a sad backstory, without making it sound like a sappy sob story. And Eoin Colfer (pronounced "Owen") succeeds in this because Artemis doesn't look for sympathy. He doesn't want it. In fact, he pushes that story away, because it distracts him from his current project (kidnapping a fairy and taking its gold for ransom). He's running the household and trying to regain financial footing that all went downhill after his father reportedly died in the Arctic Circle (attacked by the Russian mafia) and his mother went insane from grief and occasionally doesn't even recognize him anymore. Did I mention Artemis is twelve years old? That's important. Also, like Hannibal Lectar, Artemis is a genius. There are many references to this in the book that are both creative and humourous, (like how he checkmated the world chess champion in six moves) but he outsmarts fairies, basically, who in this series are extremely tough and ready to roll, and about fifty years ahead of humans in the field of technological advancement. He also both learns to speak their language fluently without ever being taught, and also learns to read it (they speak the language of Gnommish and their alphabet is the ancestor of heiroglyphics). And even though Artemis does some extremely despicable things in this series, we're allowed to and probably supposed to appreciate his intelligence and forgive him for the things he does and as a result, we sort of love him. The thing with Artemis is that he's very flawed, that's what makes him relatable as a character. He's essentially a boy looking to find his identity without any sort of guide, besides Butler, who is his bodyguard and also guess what, his butler. I strongly suggest everyone read this series by the way. It's frackin' amazing.

And as much as I adore these characters, and I get why I love them and they're great villains, my favourite thing has always been the villain that you're allowed to just HATE.

The first one that comes to mind is Capricorn, of Inkheart. He's not relatable, he's barely even human. More than once the author describes him as being made of stone. But that's what makes him so intriguing, is that he's just so cold and emotionless. He only does things if they benefit him. He doesn't mind killing people, it's just that he's not particularly motivated to.... unless he becomes motivated to. If you cross Capricorn, or if you have something he wants, then he will do whatever it takes to get vengeance or get what he wants. But it's not what he does for fun, if that makes sense. But he has no empathy, he has no thoughts for others and he doesn't care about others, but uses them when he so needs to. But he's not stupid. He's not a genius, like Hannibal or Artemis, but he's certainly not stupid. But what makes him so intriguing as a villain is his utter disregard for anything that doesn't serve him. You're allowed to just hate him, but you reread the book over again because he's a great villain.

And there it is. There's the answer to this type of villain. Where the other type was based on humanity and relatability, this type is the complete opposite. These villains are supposed to intrigue you. They're supposed to be foreign and strange and jarring to your mind. Because people are intrigued by things outside their realm of consciousness, and so to have something so utterly without feeling, without empathy, without a drop of care in their body for anyone besides themselves, one could even describe them as a little bit sadistic depending on the character.... it's just so alien to us, and that's why we love to read about them and to watch them in movies.

I'd just like to mention that in this same book we have Basta, who is just as evil and clever as Capricorn with none of the restraint. Capricorn would only kill someone if they crossed him. Basta would set the world on fire just to watch it burn. (Basta was always my favourite by the way. I liked how cold and heartless Capricorn was, but I was always simply enthralled by Basta's unabashed glee at seeing others terrified and/or in pain.) They're two very different kinds of villains, Capricorn and Basta, but they both inspire eager hatred from the audience and they're both incredibly intriguing. They're probably one of the main reasons I've read Inkheart so many times. That's another book series I strongly recommend, by the way. The movie was awful, but the books were fantastic so you should all check it out.

Another villain is Mr. Curtain, from the Mysterious Benedict Society. Undoubtedly intelligent, his main goal was to take over the world, his one weakness his narcolepsy that gets worked up when he's angry. Also his love for the adorably and hilariously stupid S.Q Pedalian. I wouldn't mention this one, except to point out the extent of how intriguing I find downright evil characters. He has kidnapped four children and locked them in a rundown prison where he repairs his invention. Mr. Curtain has invented these gloves. When he wears them he feels nothing, but if he touches a person they are electrocuted. He has threatened the use of these gloves on them if they try any "funny business". Kate, the most physically capable of the four children, attempts an escape by climbing out the window and finding the exit, but is captured by the "Ten Men" (the henchmen Mr. Curtain hires). Mr. Curtain enters the room, pulling on his gloves. Kate says "Fine! I did it, I'll deal with it! Just do it already!" Curtain says something like "With pleasure" and then electrocutes Reynie (one of the other three kids). You have no idea how many times I've read that scene over and over and over again, just wondering, why Reynie? Kate was the one that escaped. Just - the utter....... evil conveyed in that scene just gets me everytime, and no matter how many times I read that scene (and I do flip through the book months later just to find it) I always get a chill up my spine. The Mysterious Benedict Society is another great series by the way. Everyone should read it.

Another villain of this kind is Howard Payne. Name sound familiar? No? I doubted it. He was the bomber in the movie Speed. Remember that movie, with Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock? That movie was awesome. Anyways, the thing with him in that movie, the thing that makes him so easy to hate, is that he just has no motivation (this is the bomber, by the way, not Keanu Reaves). He literally only does it for the money, and he's put so much time and effort into this when he could have, I dunno, gotten a job, maybe? And when he kidnaps Sandra Bullock at the end? I mean, sure, some of it is just flimsy plot structure probably - critically analyzed that movie is as flimsy as a rubber pylon holding up St Mark's Basilica - but the thing is, he had the money (or what he thought was the money) but strapped a bomb to Sandra Bullock anyways, and why? Well, maybe to make Jack suffer for getting the people off the bus, but mostly he's just plain crazy (my favourite quote from that movie, by the way, is "No no no! Poor people are crazy. I'm eccentric.") But, again, he's also a genius. He was one step ahead of Jack the entire time and only started to falter when he got cocky. He was a strategic genius. Which brings me to my next point.

We want our villains to be strong. We want them to have at least one strong trait that make them hard to beat. Essentially, we want our villains to be impossible to defeat. That's what makes the story fun, is to see how the hero of the tale can go up against such a formidable foe and come out of it victorious. We want to be thinking "He's impossible to defeat" because what comes from that is "So how are they going to do it?" That's what makes the story interesting.

And going from that, that's what makes the heroes...... heroes. Basically, we want them to accomplish something that we don't think we could ever accomplish. If we think "Well I would just do that, that's easy......." then we don't end up liking the story as much, do we?

Reverting back to my point about the two kinds of villains (I'm sorry my rant is very disorganized) there are a few examples of villains where the writer of the book/movie didn't just choose one, or tried to have both. And that doesn't work. You need to choose one, because otherwise it just makes the villain wishy-washy and therefore less strong and less difficult to defeat. Like the Dark Knight movie. The Joker was just.... I didn't feel anything about him. Sure, he's a bad guy, I get that. But I wasn't delighted when he came onscreen - he simply wasn't humanized and interesting enough, but I wasn't looking forward to his defeat either because he didn't give Batman a particularly difficult challenge in the first place. Also, "Ooh, someone knifed my face now I'm going to murder a bunch of people". Yeah, well, so? Clearly you don't have a conscience (a trait of the hated villain) and yet why would you tell us that story if you didn't want us to sympathize with you (a trait of the loved villain). It was as if the writers wanted to have it both ways, and that simply doesn't work with villains.

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about for the past little while.

I should teach a class.

Another Earth: Review

Saw a movie on Netflix last night with my father, as we do every Friday night. Tonight it was Another Earth.

Short review: it sucked.

Here's my telling of it.

Summary: A girl, called Roda or something? She finds out she got a scholarship to a University. She celebrates, goes to a party. Gets drunk. Drives drunk. Hits a family - a mother, father, son. The mother and son die, the father goes into a coma. She goes to jail for four years. When she comes out, it turns out that they've discovered a second earth in our solar system - they're creatively calling it "Earth 2". You can write an essay and win a trip to Earth 2. Roda, who's always had a fascination with outer space, writes in and tries. Meanwhile, she finds out about the guy she hit those four years ago. He lives alone. She tries to ring his bell to apologize, chickens out, and tells him that she's from some sort of cleaning service. The guy buys it and actually gets her to clean his house. They bond, and eventually they have sex, even though that's kind of disgusting. NASA or whatever, they make contact with Earth 2. There are people living on it, and not only that - they're exact replicas of the people living on Earth 1. With the same names, birthdates, memories and occupations. Roda wins the trip to Earth 2. She tells the guy. They celebrate for her, then he stops pretending and begs her not to go. She tells him that she was the one that killed his entire family. He tells her to get out. She comes back, he tries to strangle her, she says stuff, and somehow or other she ends up giving her free trip to Earth 2 to him. Then as she's walking home, she sees a replica of herself - the her from Earth 2 came to Earth 1.

Now, as my father keeps saying, it told a decent story. And sure, I agree. But the telling of the story was really bad, and I'll tell you why.

First of all, we are not made to care about what happens to these characters. All we know about the girl is she's into space, and she got drunk once. All we know about the guy is his family tragedy. There is never any attempt to make us like these characters, or care what happens to them. Maybe if we saw any of the characters show emotion besides sadness, that maybe would have helped. Roda is a Bella (as in from Twilight. That bad). She's a shell. She shows no emotion besides vague sadness, and doesn't bother to interact with anyone. We didn't care. And as for the guy.... he was alright. He was alright because he actually showed a metamorphosis through the movie, as protagonists generally do. He started out very sad and directionless, then when he likes her he starts to be happy with himself again. Then, when he finds out her true identity (since "the one who killed your family" is really the only identity given her) he starts out sad, goes angry, and goes devastated. He doesn't want to hurt her. And then happy again as he goes to Earth 2. The point is, he changes through the story. And that's what a good story wants, quite often.

Second of all, the story moved SO. SLOWLY. Dad fell asleep through half of it and missed nothing significant at all. If you cut out all the stuff that doesn't move the plot at all, you'd have four minutes of movie left (okay I'm exaggerating.... but you see my point).

But here's my biggest issue; the movie focused so much on being weird, artistic and shocking that it really did sacrifice all those elements that a movie NEEDS in order to be good. The cutting in weird places and weirdly angled close-ups were quite artistic, sure, and all the rest of it. But it was focused so much on being memorably weird that it paid no attention whatsoever to more important things - things like characterization, plot development, theme. Movies should begin with a story. Stories should begin with an idea. Ideas should begin with an emotion. That's the chain as it should be. And maybe the story did have an idea, or a feeling in it. But that got completely lost when they decided that this movie should always keep you completely offbalance, and lets always have the camera cutting as if it's some kind of documentary, and let's do this over here and do that over here. It didn't need that, and frankly crumbled whatever hope I had for the movie.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with artistic movies. I find them fascinating. But not every movie can pull it off. Not every movie can do the whole artsy-fartsy bit and still be enjoyable. That's the problem.

But, on the other hand, there were some okay bits in this movie. Some parts of this movie were actually legitimately good. For instance, when the guy is playing the saw with a violin bow. It sounds ridiculous, but that's what happened. It was weird, but strangely drawing, and strangely pretty. And to see the Earth 2 hanging in the sky next to the moon, that was quite good. Some shots were quite striking - when Roda finds out she won, and on the dock. I very much liked that. And the story she tells the guy about the Russian astronaut and the ticking sound was something to bring shivers down your spine. But if not for these things, the movie would be nothing.

So, in general, sometimes the movie succeeded in the poetry it was obviously trying to convey - but most of the time, it was just boring and annoying. Wholly unsatisfying. Attempting to be thought provoking and really not succeeding at all.

0.5/5 stars.

Pretty In Pink: Movie Review

Cause I review movies from thirty years ago. Don't judge me.

Honestly, I was expecting to be blown away by that John Hughes movie magic. Well, I wasn't. It was kind of mediocre.

I guess at that time, John Hughes was kind of the "magic director", where everything he made was pure gold (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, etc.). But I really had trouble with this one.

First of all, a short John Hughes general analysis (not just for this movie, but in general). John Hughes seems to enjoy experimenting with breaking the rules of screenplay writing. For instance, a fairly well known rule is that you NEVER address the audience/camera. Because that breaks the reality of the movie. Well, not only was Ferris Bueller all ABOUT addressing the audience and talking to the audience, he also did the same thing in Sixteen Candles (right before the King of Nerds starts making out with the popular party girl, he looks at the camera and says "THIS is getting interesting") AND there's even a short little nod to the audience in Pretty In Pink (when the girl at the prom is inviting Duckie over to her, Duckie looks at the camera incredulously, then looks back at the girl).

Another fairly well known rule is not to stereotype characters - characters should be three dimensional, not one-sided. But the John Hughes SCHTICK is to stereotype characters. In the Breakfast Club, you had the jock, the princess, the rebel, the nerd, and the weird emo girl. They of course fill out and dimensions are added by the end of the movie - that's kind of the whole point of that particular movie - but in other movies, not so much. In Sixteen Candles, you have the stuck up rich kids, the awkward nerds, the weird asian kid...... and a lot of them never fill out.

A lot of John Hughes movies seem to like putting "normal characters" (usually played by Molly Ringwald) in a sea of stereotypes. I think it's supposed to be because to that character, they ARE stereotypes - it's not reality reality, it's the main character's reality, and I THINK that's what is trying to get across. John Hughes uses that device to hit the audience over the head with the moral of the story.

But Pretty In Pink kind of bugged me.

First of all, a short synopsis of the film:

Andie is kind of a poor girl, living on the wrong side of the tracks. She makes her own clothes because they can't afford to buy her clothes. She has a deadbeat dad who doesn't have a job and her mom left them when she was quite young, but her dad still loves her mom even though he hasn't seen her since she left. Andie's best friend is Duckie, who she's known since they were children. Duckie is in love with her, but doesn't know how to tell her. Andie's other friend is the girl who works at the record store she works at, and she's gotta be I guess around thirty or forty in that movie, but they're still friends. Andie goes to a high school where the poor kids and the rich kids are all separated in different social groups. She likes a rich guy called Blaine who actually likes her back. They go out, but are shunned by both their friends because the rich kids hate the poor kids and vice versa. Feeling pressure from his rich friends, Blaine blows her off after he asks her to go to prom with him. Then Andie goes to prom anyway, escorted by Duckie, then somehow makes up with Blaine and Duckie finds another girl at the prom and somehow they all live happily ever after.

It was better put together than I made it sound.

The thing is, Blaine was supposed to be the love interest, but he's actually a really blah character. He's a really boring person. The only interesting thing he did was somehow send her a picture over a computer chat - which back in the eighties was not easily done. Besides that..... I mean, one minute he's saying "You know what, this could work. This will work. We can do this," and the next day he's avoiding her in the hallways and not returning her calls, and then he's all sad because she got mad at him. Uh, HELLO? YOU blew HER off, not vice versa!!!! Gosh de gosh, as my french teacher would say. And there's this part at the end where he delivers this one-liner to his friend that's supposed to be like sticking it to the man or something, but it's actually really lame.

It was actually kind of awkward for me, because Duckie was the best character in the entire movie, and I realize that it would have completely screwed up the moral of the story, but the whole movie I was rooting for Andie to end up with Duckie (even though the moral of the story would have changed from "Social class doesn't matter" or something like that, it would have changed to "stick with your social class because relationships that cross that line don't work out") but Duckie was actually such a better character than Blaine! Not just because he was funny, but because he was just all around the better man.

For instance, Andie and Duckie had a fight about Blaine because of the whole social class issue, but Duckie forgives her and escorts her to the prom anyways. Then when Blaine comes up and apologizes to Andie, and Andie's looking back at him, she looks pleadingly at Duckie. And rather than Duckie getting mad at her again, he says "You came to this prom alone." And he lets her go to him.

Duckie was also hilarious, and Andie was almost constantly mad at him, but he's awesome. For instance, he's trying to figure out how to tell Andie he loves her, and he starts like singing a song really loudly and dancing around Andie's room. And when Duckie got thrown into the girl's washroom by the guys he pissed off that were bigger than him, at first he's about to run out of the room, then he stops and looks around. "So, this is what it's like in here? What the heck?! Look at all this stuff! We don't have this stuff! Doors on the stalls! A candy machine! (pointing at the tampon dispenser) I'm not leaving until I see the principal in here right now! This is ridiculous!"

And Duckie was the character in the movie that was the most developed. You see him goofy, you see him angry, you see him in despair. He's a character that you can actually understand as a human being. You'd think Andie would be the most developed character, but it was Duckie. And he doesn't get the girl. Come one.

But the thing is, I am prepared to believe that Blaine actually had some character development, but that all the scenes that DID develop him just ended up on the cutting room floor (even though they kept in Duckie's random irrelevant musical interlude that has nothing to do with anything). It seems to me that John Hughes focused a lot more on Duckie than Blaine. Which would be fine, if Duckie were one of the main protagonists. But he's not, in fact he kind of plays the part of an antagonist through a bit of the movie. Blaine should be one of the main protagonists, but he's boring and not very likeable. So it's a very unbalanced movie that way.

What me and my mother decided was that Blaine was actually probably supposed to be kind of an intellectual rich kid - he did the cool thing on the computer chat, and he was an heir to a large electronics corporation. He's also rather awkward, like he doesn't quite fit in with the cool kids, but was thrown in with them because of his social status. All these threads were there, but they didn't serve any purpose to his character. They were just..... there. And as a result, his character simply didn't make a lot of sense, and was generally unlikeable (though he does have one or two charming moments).

Another thing that didn't make a lot of sense in that movie was the catty rich girls. Sure, Andie's clothes were handmade and weird and such, but it's kind of implausible that the main rich girl would go out of her way to insult her - it would make more sense if she just didn't care, if they sort of ignored each other. But the rich girl actually went out of her way to insult Andie, whispering insults to her in Calculus even though she didn't even know Andie's name, and then acting insulting to her while she and Blaine are there, and being insulting in gym..... she just seemed to go out of her way to be catty and nasty to her, which seemed weird because it would just make more sense if they just sort of didn't care about each other.

There were just a few pieces in that movie that were kind of lazy and strange. Kind of a mediocre movie, all in all. I give it 3/5 stars.

There, my longwinded review.

Thank you for your time.

Book Trailers....... Hmmm......

There's a writer's website, called Wattpad. I've joined it, posted some stories, found some good stories, it's all good. Now, there's a little thing on it called Book Trailers.

Book trailers are pretty much movie trailers - just for books. A little taste of what the book's about, in trailer fashion. Sounds cool, right? It is. And, being fascinated with film as I am, I tried to make one for my friend Jacey's book Forever Desires. I'd say I succeeded pretty well. To make it I had to tear a lot of footage off of Youtube that technically doesn't belong to me, but it's not like I'm the only one. I don't mean to sound cocky, but I think that trailer is one of the better ones out there.

And I was looking on the discussions in the "Clubs" on Wattpad - basically forums - and I was looking at the book trailer one, looking at all these people advertising their book trailers. Saying things like "I'll make you a book trailer if you fan me" and things like that. And I looked at some of their examples on Youtube and some of them, compared to mine, weren't so great. Like, they were basically a slideshow of pictures with words on them. I could make that on Animoto. Do you know how long it took to make mine? A WHILE.

So I've been wondering if I should maybe open my own thread and start making trailers for people on Wattpad...... I think I could.

And because I know you all long for me to show you:

Here's the trailer I made for Jacey.

Enjoy.

1001 Movies You Have to See Before You Die

Did a quick check on the list.

I've seen 40 of them.

Only 961 to go.

Long Time No Post

Hey guys! I know it's been a while since I last posted, so shall I fill you in on what's been going on?

The horror movie me and Jacey were making is in fact a go. It's called Nightmare, and we've begun filming it. Don't look like we're going to stop till we're done. Which is just the way, uh huh uh huh, I likes it. Want a sneak peek? Check it out here.

Secondly, the book I finished. Started editing it, finished three times already. But I've got to edit it until I find nothing left that needs editing - that's what Raold Dahl says. Paraphrased, but to that effect. I'm also working on a couple other projects. Wanna read? Check my stories out here.

Besides that, life has been uneventful. Well, not really, but the events I have mentioned will have to be in another post. It'll take too long to say it all here. But one major thing has happened; I have recently become obsessed with a stroke of genius of Joss Whedon, and that little stroke of genius is called Firefly. Too bad it was cancelled. That damn Alliance at Fox wouldn't know a good show if it jumped off a caravan and told them "I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you." Sigh. Curse their sudden but inevitable betrayal. If only they knew I can kill them with my brain.

Peace out, Homers.

Just call me Jade.

Horror Movie YES!

So, I don't think I've told you, but I'm a total horror movie buff. I LOVE horror movies. And I'll be honest, a lot of the time I can't handle it. But I just love being freaked out of my mind. (I now think that Gage (Pet Sematary) either lives under my bed or has possessed my favourite doll, so you see what I'm saying).

As you know, I also love to make movies. So, now my friend Jacey and I are making a horror movie! Well, we haven't really started filming yet, but we're bouncing ideas offa each other so we're getting along fine.

I'll try not to give away too much, but I'll only tell you this: Jacey is one creepy gal. So this is gonna be one creepy movie!

One more thing. I really want to make a full sized hour long movie, so that's my other goal. I think we could pull that off, though, with just the right balance of horror and confusion. We've got a lot of creepy sets, so I can't wait to get started!

Jacey keeps telling me not to get my hopes up because we keep on saying we'll make a movie and then we go ahead and don't. But I'm going to keep my hopes up because we're getting serious about this, real freaking serious, and I just plain won't let Jacey get away without making this movie. I'm itching to use my new version of iMovie and this seems like the perfect experiment.

Any horror fans out there? Fear not! I'll put the finished product of our movie in parts onto the blog so you won't be missing out. Don't worry! I'm always willing to show off.

Peace out, Homers.

Megan

A Plea for Help

Please enjoy my pathetic desperation.

Makin' A Movie

And not no ten minute one either. I'm talkin' a real movie, probably around an hour long. It's based on Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society. I'm director, of course. I have about eight people willing to act in it. I need five more and a bunch of extras. Like I said, this is a serious operation and should be treated like so. More info once things get moving.