1) There’s an early episode of MOONLIGHTING (mid-1980’s TV show starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis) where David Addison (Willis) remarks to Maddie Hayes (Shepherd), “This is the chase.” The character says it just as the two of them start chasing after that episode’s bad guy.
There are other instances during that show when the characters “wink at the camera,” i.e. they acknowledge they’re on a TV show, without completing breaking the 4th wall.
THE SIMPSONS does it. Episodes of 30 ROCK have done it. RICK & MORTY walks a very fine line at doing it.
I don’t have an issue with a character completely breaking the 4th wall. I like when Deadpool does it. Although…
Maybe he did it a little too much in the last movie. But that’s okay.
In my own work, KILL YOUR HEROES, I didn’t want the main character to break the 4th wall, but I did want to give a sly wink to the readers that, yes, I’m aware of comic book and superhero tropes (and tropes, in general).
I think I was pretty subtle about it. One reviewer referred to it as “meta commentary.” I like that.
Look, I just wanted to acknowledge that the main character is narrating his story (mostly) and he knows he’s talking to the reader. But I didn’t want to overdo it, either. I think I achieved that. Still…
One chapter is subtitled “Exposition” and is just the main character info-dumping some stuff. I thought it was a clever way of passing on some of the history of the world I’m writing about, and was also a funny way of doing it. I guess some readers “got it,” and maybe most readers shrugged their shoulders at it…
But there were a couple of readers who not only didn’t get it was a joke, but actually thought I was a bad writer for doing it. One reviewer legitimately thought the book was unfinished, and was published with outline notes.
“If it’s supposed to be a joke, then I guess I don’t get it…” is what they said, or something similar to that (I don’t feel like looking up the review).
I restrained myself from posting a response to them. I wanted to say, “Yes, it was a joke. And yes, you didn’t get it.”
I’ve also restrained myself from responding to another reviewer who didn’t like that I subtitled a chapter “Exposition,” and didn’t like the previous chapters either, so much so that she didn’t finish the book. Or BLAKE TWENTY-THREE, for that matter. She seems to be on a roll with reading my books and posting bad reviews that start with “DNF.”
Gee, you’d think if you didn’t finish one book by a particular author because you hated their writing style so much, you would stay away from other books written by the same person. I guess some people have to make mistakes more than once. Hopefully, she buys my other books and doesn’t finish them, as well.
I suppose my point is this:
If there’s a typo or a missing word, then that’s a mistake. I missed it during my many revisions of the manuscript. My editor missed it. My beta readers missed it, too. It happens.
Or we didn’t miss it because it wasn’t there originally. Sometimes – and I don’t know why this happens, but it absolutely does happen on occasion – a manuscript is near perfect as far as being clean of typos, but once it’s uploaded to Amazon, something changes. A line shifts. A word disappears. Something. It’s usually caught by a reader weeks, or even months, after publication.
But something like what these two reviewers said? No. It’s not a mistake. A chapter heading is not a mistake. Bullet points included in a story is not a mistake. It’s intentional. You may not like it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a mistake.
The same goes with humor. You may not find a particular joke funny…
Here’s an example:
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?”
Okay, you might not understand that joke. You might not find it funny. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad joke.
Personally, I think it’s perfect. Two sentences. Impossible to mess up on retelling it. It works on multiple levels… It’s a good joke.
You might not think so. It doesn’t mean you’re right and I’m wrong, though.
2) You want to know the biggest drawback to running on a treadmill compared to running outside?
If you’re running outside and that little voice in your head starts trying to talk you into quitting early, you can answer back, “What are you talking about? I’m a mile from the house. I may as well run back.”
But if you’re on a treadmill, you’re already at your starting point. You can’t use that same excuse to keep running. You have to just tell the voice to shut up.
3) Here’s a weird thing.
I’ve got a collection of pocket knives. Some have plastic handles. Some have wood handles. Some have bone handles. The ones with bone handles:
Whenever I handle one of them, I think of the business card scene in AMERICAN PSYCHO when Christian Bale says, describing the color of his new business card, “That’s bone.”
The way he says it. The tone. The facial expression.
Whenever I’m showing off one of the bone handle knives, or even looking at a bone handled knife online, I hear Bale saying, “That’s bone.”
Weird, right?
4) Movie line I think about sometimes:
“If I can build and install a pacemaker in this man’s chest, then I damn well can bounce a microwave off a satellite!” (USED CARS, An underrated 1980 Kurt Russell movie.)
5) What I’m watching:
MURDERBOT is still killing it.
Season 4 of RESIDENT ALIEN is off to a rocky start. Alan Tudyk is still brilliant in the show and I still like seeing some of the supporting characters, but the dead weight of the mayor and his wife always brings each episode to a screaming halt. Wish they had wrapped up their storyline last season and moved them off the show.
It looks like budget cuts to this season have removed a couple of other supporting characters, and influenced the current subplot of Harry’s inability to shapeshift out of his human form (if you watched the show, that last sentence would make sense).
I also checked out episodes of STICK on Apple TV. I was interested after hearing Marc Maron talk about it last year on his WTF podcast. Maron was cast as a supporting actor on the show, and he’s fine in it, although not nearly in it enough to get me to keep watching. The show is 90% Owen Wilson, and you have to really like him in order to enjoy the show.
I feel so-so about Wilson, so that’s how I feel about the show.
STICK is derivative of different things. While watching it, you’ll find yourself saying, “Oh, this reminds me of the movie TIN CUP.” Or, “This is like THE COLOR OF MONEY.” Or, “Little bit of COBRA KAI right there.” STICK doesn’t do itself any favors by making it’s own movie references, as well.
It’s not a bad show. It’s just not a particularly good one, either. It’s just…so-so.
At least I have the new season of THE BEAR to look forward to next week.
Oh, and there was also FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, one of those direct-to-streaming movies we see more and more of these days when several actors (and in this case, a director) take a by-the-numbers action project for the chance to travel to several exotic locales (and also, for the hefty paychecks, I’m sure), although there’s probably a bit more to it. I can almost hear the two leads (John Krasinski and Natalie Portman) meeting with director Guy Ritchie and saying:
“Okay, so it’s agreed. We’ll do this movie so we can each finance our own passion project. Now, let us never speak of this again.”
It’s one of those nonsensical plots that I’m sure was originally a pitch for a Nicholas Cage action flick (cut to: Andy Samberg as Nic Cage, shouting, “How am I not in that movie?”), or perhaps a pitch for a spinoff series based on the adventures of Indiana Jones’s grandchildren.
Be that as it may…
There’s a semblance of a plot, but barely, and the heroes never really feel like they’re in danger, so I suppose there was some thought that this film might be the start of a family-friendly action series. Krasinksi plays the protagonist as if he’s trying to channel Ryan Reynolds (willing to bet the screenwriter had him in mind for the lead), and Portman hits her marks and delivers her lines competently (best I can say for it).
Oh, and for some reason, Stanley Tucci shows up for one scene. It feels random and out-of-the-blue, kind of like when a celeb shows up in a SNL skit even though they’re not hosting that week.
Prediction: There will not be a sequel.
That’s your Dispatch for the week.
Slade Grayson is a writer who relies on the kindness of strangers. And readers. And sometimes strange readers. You can buy his books here, or buy him a coffee here.