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A Korean Dish

17 Aug 2012 by KRAG

I haven’t watched a lot of Korean movies. I think “The Host” was the last one, in fact, so when I pulled up “My Scary Girl” to watch during my workout, I didn’t have a lot on which to gauge my expectations.

What I found was a little gem of a movie—it’s not perfect, but it consistently surprised me which, these days, is frankly a little hard to do.

“My Scary Girl” starts out like a rom-com, but with a twist. The guy is the main character and he’s incredibly shy and even a little backward when it comes to social interaction. An English lecturer at a university, he’s out of is element when it comes to real, live people and as for women, well, it’s just painful to watch. But he realizes his life of loneliness is not a happy one, and when he spies a new girl in his building, he’s trapped between his shyness and his desire for love and happiness.

Thus, the setup.

What happens from there I won’t divulge, except to say that this is one of the blackest rom-coms I’ve ever seen. It is by turns laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and totally puzzling. The plot is far from the standard American rom-com model, and yet I’d have to put it in that category since it is essentially a comedic boy-meets-girl-boy-wants-girl-boy-can’t have-girl-boy-gets-girl story. There’s more before, during, and after that tried-and-true scaffolding, and “My Scary Girl” goes places I truly, truly didn’t expect it to. But with each twist and turn, I found myself nodding, having seen the clues, and chiding myself for not having seen it coming.

It’s also a venue for a very competent performance by Park Yong-woo as the near-terminally shy professor. His expressions of anxiety are exquisite, and the character’s wild swings of emotion, in exploration of first love and in reaction to unfolding events, are portrayed with seamless aplomb.

In all, the movie is, as I said, a gem, albeit with a few flaws (though these flaws may be solely due to my American expectations and perceptions). Despite these, it succeeds on every level, a thing that’s very hard for a rom-com to do.

k

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

And Now, Sports

16 Aug 2012 by KRAG

I was born with a birth defect. I was born without the “sports gene.”

Not that I don’t enjoy sports, and not that I wasn’t absolutely chained to the television during the past Olympiad in London, no. But when regular boys were out playing football or shooting hoops, I was practicing my Frisbee forehand flick. For years, I was passing; I would sit with my dad and brothers, watching the 49ers play through the autumn months. I cheered with them all during the Montana-Rice years. But in my mind, I was visualizing my bicycling jockey technique, so I wouldn’t have to take my feet out of the pedal clamps at stop lights.

But in recent years, as I’ve grown older, I’ve found an area of intersection, an area where despite my Sports-Gene Deficiency, mainstream sports and I meet: Baseball. I’m not a number-crunching, score-card ticking rankings hawk. I’m just a guy who enjoys the game, appreciates its subtler aspects, enjoys its open-ended pace and its long, storied tradition. And that’s why yesterday was a very special day.

Continue Reading »

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If I Can’t Laugh, I’ll Cry

15 Aug 2012 by KRAG

Obey the Kitty!Yesterday, a Facebook friend of mine chided me. Yes, me. Little-old-me.

There’s a picture going around, one of those “separated at birth” memes, of Romney/Ryan justaposed with Herman and Eddie Munster from the old 1960s TV show. To be fair, the resemblance is only evident in the pairing, but the picture does carry a subtle political commentary: Romney as this big, simple guy who just wants to be liked, and Ryan as his much younger, meaner-spirited sidekick. I found it humorous, and shared it.

My friend chided me, saying we needed to bring our discourse up out of the gutter because the “problems [we] are facing are way way too serious for this kind of stuff.” Continue Reading »

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Apropos of Apocalypse

14 Aug 2012 by KRAG

And speaking of the Apocalypse, what is it with zombies, anyway?

We all know that the Apocalypse begins with zombies, (You all did know that, didn’t you? I mean, Rev. 11:11 is pretty clear on the subject; if Revelation can be clear on anything, that is) so I understand why the faithful are always alert to the sudden appearance of the shambling undead. I mean, they’re sort of an End of Days Early Warning System (EDAWS). See a zombie? Better pack your spiritual bags. Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture, Movies, Television | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Apocalyse Later

14 Aug 2012 by KRAG

You do not know how close we came.

There’s a reason we all like that old joke:

What do Seattleites call the first sunny day after two days of rain? Monday. 

We like it because it’s true. If we’re going to have only two days of rain in a given week, they’re going to be on the weekend. Continue Reading »

Posted in Seattle | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

FC:V Progress Report

13 Aug 2012 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiAnother chapter down.

For the professionals out there, this may not seem like much, but for me, especially after the last two weeks I’ve had at the day-job, it’s very good progress.

More to the point, for my patient readers, I have completed a major group of “character” chapters (see post on Pacing), and those are always the hardest to write.

Now comes a group of “action” chapters, which tend to go much more quickly.

k

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Through the Paces

13 Aug 2012 by KRAG

A word about pacing.

In my books, chapters tend to fall into two categories: chapters that deal primarily with characters, and chapters that have a lot of action. When I outline my book (yes, way back at the beginning), I think about these two types. Do I have the mix of action/character chapters that I want? Are they interspersed the way I want them to be?

The answers to these questions dramatically change the result. The extremes explain it. Go all-action chapters and you get “The Bourne Ultimatum” where if you go with all-character chapters, you get “Little Women.” Of course, each of these (especially in novel form), you have some of the other type of chapter. You might not think of it as such, but a chapter with Jo and a meeting of the Pickwick Society is an action chapter; important things happen, and the characters do not resolve major internal conflicts. Character chapters in a “Bourne” novel are easier to spot, mostly because nothing blows up and speeding cars aren’t involved.

And, naturally, each chapter has a soupçon of its counterpart. Nothing in writing is Boolean.

Then, once I’ve determined the mix of chapters in my outline, I look at how they’re arranged and see the “rhythm” of the pacing. Consider these two examples:

  1. Character-Character-Character-Character-Action-Action-Action-Action
  2. Character-Character-Action-Character-Action-Character-Action-Action

Which of these seems like the more interesting? Which one looks like the pacing of the action “beats” will better drive the story? I vote for the second.

Of course, there’s no hard and fast rule, but most successful stories have a rising level of action as the plot unfolds. Tension rises, and partially relaxes, rises some more, and relaxes, rises more and more, to the climactic moments, and the story resolves. Action, in its various degrees, helps drive the tension. Action provides the pace of the conflict.

k

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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