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dweemeister · 3 years

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The Stalking Moon (1968)

By the late 1960s, the American Western’s zenith had passed, and the genre was reinventing itself. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) unleashed a wave of films in all genres depicting violence more openly and graphically; meanwhile, the rise of the Revisionist Western (1962’s Ride the High Country, 1966’s The Professionals) led to the deglamorization of the genre’s protagonists and their sense of morality. Released by National General Pictures (NGC), The Stalking Moon reunites producer Alan J. Pakula, director Robert Mulligan, and Gregory Peck – no longer a dashing young man – a six years after To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Though the team is a throwback, the mindset of The Stalking Moon fits squarely within a Revisionist Western. Mulligan’s dialogue-light film incorporates elements of atmospheric thrillers and, in its tensest moments, seems to resemble a proto-slasher. As a hybrid thriller-Western, The Stalking Moon – once the narrative pieces are in place – is a sharp-edged, gorgeously-shot affair.

On Sam Varner’s (Peck) last day before retiring from the U.S. Cavalry, his regiment surrounds and arrests dozens of Apache warriors. Among the group is a white woman, Sarah Carver (Eva Marie Saint), and her half-Indian son (Noland Clay; Clay’s ethnicity/race is unclear). That afternoon, Sarah pleads for an immediate escort from the Cavalry’s camp instead of waiting for five days for an official military escort. The boy’s father, Salvaje (Nathaniel Narcisco in redface; Narcisco’s ethnicity/race is unclear), is a ruthless assassin and, according to Sarah, almost certainly in pursuit of their son. The Cavalry commander rejects Sarah’s request, but Sam agrees to take them to a remote train station. At the station, disaster strikes, and Sam invites Sarah and her son to stay with him at his rugged, mountainous ranch in New Mexico. Sarah and her son find the personal adjustments to live on Sam’s ranch difficult, but they have help thanks to ranch hands Ned (Russell Thorson) and Nick Tana (Robert Foster, whose character is a half-Indian scout). But even in this ranch, protected on three sides by treacherous rock formations, Sarah and her son have not yet eluded the violence to come.

Mulligan also appears to make comments on how the United States treated the American Indians of the West, but ultimately never does so. The Stalking Moon never highlights indigenous perspectives, declining to even give Sarah’s son a name or expressive space. These perspectives only exist through implication – the wars of the American West are going poorly for the tribes, and white settlers are moving ceaselessly westward and are cementing themselves in these lands. Sarah and Salvaje’s child, being of mixed race and approximately eight or nine years old, would almost certainly be the target of sociopolitical discrimination and the suspicious gazes of many a stranger. Never discussed by any of the characters is the possibility of such behavior towards the child; if Mulligan and screenwriters Wendell Mayes (1959’s Anatomy of a Murder, 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure) and Alvin Sargent (1977’s Julia, 2004’s Spider-Man 2) attempted to insert subtext regarding the child’s treatment, they do so far too subtly.

Salvaje himself is a largely faceless antagonist who never exchanges any dialogue, let alone a grunt, a cry of pain, a primal exclamation. Like numerous American Western movies too numerous to name, this is a reinforcement of stereotypical depictions of American Indians in Hollywood – anonymous, without specific bearing to the lead characters. Is he pursuing his son to reclaim him or the murder him? The movie never says. To Salvaje’s credit, he is a physical menace that could easily overtake an aging Sam Varner. More often than not during the Western’s heyday, indigenous Americans – whether individually or as part of a collective – would be all too easily slaughtered in a hail of protagonists’ gunfire or explosives (in part because of their antagonistic anonymity). Such developments would serve The Stalking Moon, which is partly a thriller, poorly. Thus, Salvaje is an aversion of the too-easily-killed Indian trope, but his complete lack of non-violent interaction with any character and empty characterization beyond his capacity for violence and vengeance uphold the trope of the anonymous indigenous menace. His physicality and obvious threat to the protagonists serve thriller genre; his nature as a blank slate killer is a legacy from American Western narrative traditions (and now largely a relic to that tradition’s contemporary practitioners).

Now in his 50s when he made The Stalking Moon, Gregory Peck – if only because of Hollywood’s obsession over age – was reaching a point in his career where opportunities for lead roles inevitably begin to decline (but not his influence, as Peck was currently serving as the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). The Stalking Moon will, on paper, appear to be typical material for Peck. His Sam Varner, when no one else will tend to Sarah and her son’s safety, will take the initiative even though this decision, at best, is an inconvenience or, at worst, might cost him his life. As it is so often with Peck, his screen presence – assuredness of posture, the timbre of his voice, and calming persona – engineers a great performance. Even with a screenplay that avoids providing dialogue-driven details about his character’s life, Peck makes Sam Varner another entry in his long filmography of upstanding heroes.

The screenplay also consigns Eva Marie Saint to playing her character as a trauma survivor whose apprehension is pervasive. If one is seeking a role where Saint is able to display the fullest breadth of her acting range, The Stalking Moon is certainly not that movie. But for how the screenplay portrays her character, this is a capable performance from Saint alongside child star Noland Clay as the boy (this film remains Clay’s only screen credit).

Cinematographer Charles Lang (1947’s The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, 1959’s Some Like It Hot) and editor Aaron Stell (1958’s Touch of Evil, To Kill a Mockingbird) pay lip service to the Western genre with luxurious takes of the mountains and rock formations that mark their landscape photography. With on-location filming in Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, the low-to-the-ground, slightly upward-angled camera shots suggest that Sarah and her son, while making Sam Varner’s ranch house their new home, have nowhere to escape to. Dry shrubs line this small, sloped canyon with somewhat steep angles that make even walking without ascending or descending hazardous. Yet Lang and Stell’s collaboration truly impresses during the action setpieces – most notably in a scene where Gregory Peck, in a darkened room, awaits the entrance of the man who has been hunting the people he has been protecting. Before the naming and identification of the slasher subgenre of horror film, The Stalking Moon – noting its selective cinematography and editing in its tensest moments – relies on numerous lighting and staging techniques that the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Friday the 13th (1980) would later adopt. Though shot and edited like a thriller, much of the film has scenes of people-watching: adults observing children, children observing adults, people noticing small behavioral details otherwise glossed over in a less patient movie. These moments of observation substitute for the dialogue and are as important as the most critical pieces of dialogue in the film.

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An unconventional score from composer Fred Karlin (1970’s The Baby Maker, 1973’s Westworld) is a restrained effort, making use of a full orchestra but rarely employing the aural grandiosity that an orchestra is capable of. Repeated often throughout The Stalking Moon is the opening motif whistled in the main titles, with the sparse melodies – usually performed by the whistler or a limited number of woodwinds and/or brass – suggesting the vastness and emptiness of the American West, even in the days of westward expansion. Karlin’s music has an unsettling quality that permeates into The Stalking Moon’s most joyous scenes. When Sarah and her son arrive and Sam’s residence for the first time, the cue “Sarah’s New Home” opens with solo triangle before the entrance of a lone flute. The occasional dissonance from the triangle conflicts with the flute – a subliminal, harmonic message (in addition to the various string harmonics used throughout) that Sarah’s dangers have not passed. So often in modern film composing, a director will relegate the music as background noise or the composer themselves will dispense almost entirely of melody. In the latter, numerous modern film score composers have reasoned that melody cannot serve action films or thrillers, so they will compose a wall of amelodic texture instead. But, as Karlin so ably demonstrates in his score to The Stalking Moon, the juxtaposition of memorable melodies and effective action scoring is more interesting dramatically and musically.

Today, The Stalking Moon’s influence has been limited in part due to NGC’s dissolution and sale to Warner Bros. in 1974. For anyone willing to dive into this relatively undiscovered piece of American Western, few of the film’s immediate contemporaries adapted its thriller-influenced cues for their own purposes. Its depiction of American Indians is not as egregious as other Westerns and it appears to make some sort of attempt at commentary, but many of the damaging preconceptions of indigenous Americans make their way into the film’s screenplay. Yet considering the undemonstrative approach that Robert Mulligan takes for his film, The Stalking Moon is a serviceable Western torn between the passing of eras for the genre.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#The Stalking Moon #Robert Mulligan #Gregory Peck #Eva Marie Saint #Robert Forster #Noland Clay #Russell Thorson #Nathaniel Narcisco #Wendell Mayes #Alvin Sargent #Charles Lang #Aaron Stell #Fred Karlin #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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cinema-tv-etc · 3 years

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‘The Crown’ Stokes an Uproar Over Fact vs. Entertainment

Dramatic liberties in the latest season of the Netflix series, covering the turbulent 1980s, are annoying Britons who wrote of that period, even among those who disparage the royals.

By Mark Landler Nov. 27, 2020 LONDON — On a Saturday night in July 1986, a band of bureaucrats in raincoats — one contingent from Buckingham Palace, the other from 10 Downing Street — converged on a newsstand in a train station to snap up The Sunday Times, fresh off the presses with a bombshell headline: “Queen dismayed by ‘uncaring’ Thatcher.”

It’s a dramatic flourish from the latest season of the “The Crown” — except, according to Andrew Neil, the paper’s editor at the time, it never happened. “Nonsense,” he said. “All first editions are delivered to both” the palace and the prime minister’s residence, making a late-night dash to buy the paper superfluous.

Mr. Neil, who published the famous scoop about tensions between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher, said the invented scene had allowed Peter Morgan, the creator of the hugely popular Netflix series about the British royal family, to depict 1980s London as a place of “squalor and vagabonds.”

Through four vivid seasons of “The Crown,” Mr. Morgan has never denied taking artistic license with the saga of the royals, playing out their private joys and sorrows against the pageant of 20th-century British history.

Yet “The Crown” is now colliding with the people who wrote the first draft of that history.

That has spun up a tempest in the British news media, even among those who ordinarily profess not to care much about the monarchy. Newspapers and television programs have been full of starchy commentary about how “The Crown” distorts history in its account of the turbulent decade in which Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer and Mrs. Thatcher wrought a free-market revolution in British society.

The objections range from the personal (the queen’s brittle, coldhearted treatment of her emotionally fragile daughter-in-law, which the critics claim is unfair) to the political (the show’s portrait of Thatcher-era Britain as a right-wing dystopia, in the grip of a zealous leader who dares to lecture her sovereign during their weekly audiences). Historians say that is utterly inconceivable.

“There has been such a reaction because Peter Morgan is now writing about events many of us lived through and some of us were at the center of,” said Mr. Neil, who edited The Sunday Times from 1983 to 1994.

Mr. Neil, who went on to be a broadcaster and publisher, is no reflexive defender of the royal family. Suspicious of Britain’s class system, he said he had sympathies for the republican movement in the 1980s. But he grew to admire how the queen modernized the monarchy after the upheaval of those years, and has been critical of renegade royals, like Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan.

The events involving Mr. Neil did happen: The queen became frustrated with Mrs. Thatcher when she refused to join the 48 other members of the British Commonwealth in backing sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. This highly unusual clash spilled into public when The Sunday Times published its front-page report, attributed to palace officials, which said the royal family viewed Mrs. Thatcher as “uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive.”

But Mr. Neil disputed several elements of “The Crown’s” retelling, not least that Buckingham Palace made the queen’s press secretary, Michael Shea, the scapegoat for the incident. The show depicts his being fired for having leaked the story, even though it suggests that he did so at the queen’s behest. There is no evidence of this, Mr. Neil said, but it fits Mr. Morgan’s “left-wing agenda.”

“He gets to depict Thatcher as pretty much an ally of apartheid while the queen is the sort of person who junks loyal flunkies when things go wrong, even when they are just doing her bidding,” Mr. Neil said.

The brickbats are not just from the right.

Simon Jenkins, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian, regards members of the royal family as artifacts of celebrity culture irrelevant to a country grappling with real-world challenges like Brexit. “They are practically defunct,” he said. “They are like anthropomorphized figures of a head of state.”

Yet he, too, is angered by how “The Crown” portrayed the events of the 1980s, when, as political editor of The Economist, he wrote about how Prince Charles had been drawn to the now-defunct Social Democratic Party. (He based the report on an off-the-record interview with the prince.) Mr. Jenkins said that because this season of “The Crown” deals with contemporary history and people who are still alive, its liberties with the facts are less a case of artistic license than an example of “fake news.”

“I find it offensive when people dump standards of veracity in relating contemporary history,” Mr. Jenkins said. “If I did that as a journalist, I’d be hauled up before the press council while these people get prizes.”

Like others, Mr. Jenkins pointed to an episode-by-episode analysis by Hugo Vickers, a royal historian, which found whoppers large and small in the series and has become Exhibit A for its prevarications.

Not everybody faults Mr. Morgan for filling in the missing pieces with conjured scenes, even if he jumbles the facts in the process. (Mrs. Thatcher’s son, Mark, was not lost in the desert during the Paris-Dakar auto rally just as his mother was preparing to go to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands; hostilities broke out a few months after he was found.)

Charles Moore, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph who wrote a three-volume biography of Mrs. Thatcher, praised Gillian Anderson’s performance as the prime minister, putting it on a par with Meryl Streep’s Oscar-winning turn in the 2011 film “The Iron Lady.” Even a much-criticized episode in which a snobbish queen plays host to a fish-out-of-water prime minister and her husband, Denis, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, struck him as having “the ring of truth,” despite some embellishments.

“The Crown,” Mr. Moore said, is trying to have it both ways, selling itself to audiences as a true story while clearing out the extraneous debris of facts that would gum up its dramatic narrative. “There is this thing called the tyranny of fact,” he said. “But as we get to modern times, it gets harder to avoid.”

Mr. Morgan declined to respond to the criticisms, though he told The New York Times this month that he was mindful that this season would be held to closer scrutiny. The producers mined the copious news reports of the period, as well as biographies of Charles and Diana, which contained firsthand accounts of their misbegotten union.

What is depicted in the family’s private moments, however, is “an act of creative imagination,” Mr. Morgan has said.

Behind the frustration with “The Crown” is a recognition that, right or wrong, its version of the royal family is likely to serve as the go-to narrative for a generation of viewers, particularly young ones, who do not remember the 1980s, let alone the more distant events covered in earlier seasons.

“They’ll watch it and think this is the way it was,” said Dickie Arbiter, who served as a press secretary to the queen from 1988 to 2000. He took issue with parts of the plot, including a scene in which aides to Charles question Diana about whether she is mentally stable enough to travel alone to New York City.

“I was actually at that meeting,” Mr. Arbiter said. “No courtier would ever say that in a million years.”

The biggest problem, said Penny Junor, who has written biographies of Charles, Diana and Mrs. Thatcher, is that “The Crown” is a prodigiously effective piece of entertainment. That, she says, poses a particular threat to Charles, who arguably comes off worst in the series and who is likely to ascend the throne before memories of his grim, hunched portrayal have completely faded.

“It is wonderful television,” Ms. Junor said. “It is beautifully acted — the mannerisms are perfect. But it is fiction, and it is very destructive.”

Royal Skulduggery and Palace Intrigue

‘The Crown’ Has Had Its Scandals, but There’s Nothing Like DianaNov. 12, 2020

Companies Abandon Prince Andrew After Calamitous Epstein InterviewNov. 19, 2019

Prince Andrew’s Friendship With Epstein Joins a List of Royal ScandalsNov. 21, 2019

Harry and Meghan’s Hard ExitJan. 19, 2020

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Shares Her Miscarriage GriefNov. 25, 2020

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief. In 27 years at The Times, he has been bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, European economic correspondent, and a business reporter in New York. @MarkLandler

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 27, 2020, Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Nonsense’: Witnesses to the Actual Events of ‘The Crown’ Have Some Criticisms.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/world/europe/Crown-Royals-Fact-Fiction.html

#The Crown #Dramatic liberties #Netflix

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obsessivedilettante · 4 years

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20 in 10: A Drama Retrospective

Since I’ve been all quiet on the drama front this year because of life reasons, I thought it would be fun to go back and pick out 20 of the most memorable dramas of the last decade. Maybe not necessarily the best dramas or even my favorites (although some are!), but two dramas each year that were somehow notable moments in my drama-watching timeline.

2009: Gateway Drugs

Boys over Flowers (KBS)

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good drama. It is not one I think I can ever really rewatch (although I will happily revisit the 2005 Japanese version, and I had a hellava fun time watching the latest Chinese version). But! It was the first kdrama I remember watching, and the first step on the slippery slope of eventually becoming a Drama Addict. I mostly remember it being crazy popular on places like mysoju (RIP), and so I checked it out due to curiosity, and the rest, as they say, is history. Or, should I say, almost paaaaradise!

You’re Beautiful (SBS)

This one I also watched because it became crazy-popular online, and curiosity got the better of me. I really didn’t know much about k-pop prior to dramas, so I had no idea until after this drama that k-pop was more about pretty people in crazy fashion, dancing in syncopation in bizarrely lit rooms, rather than playing instruments. Because it was thanks to this drama that I got my crash-course on k-pop as a phenomenon -- both the fandom side, and the crazy things that artists have to go through to claw their way into the public’s view (nevar 4get the glorious ramen dance). Since Angel was a group that played instruments, and Hongki and Yonghwa were also from groups that played instruments, I assumed that all kpop were groups that played instruments. Oh, sweet summer child...

But it did get me started on my k-pop journey, first falling in love with FT Island and CNBLUE, before falling into the rabbit hole of the other prominent groups of the day. (SNSD! The Wonder Girls! Super Junior! DBSK! SS501! Kara! 2PM! 2AM! Shinee! BEG! Epik High! U-KISS! All the debut groups, like 2NE1, MBLAQ, B2ST, 4Minute, f(x), T-ara, After School... basically 2009 was a magical year in k-pop.)

If I had just watched Boys Over Flowers, I don’t know that I would have become a Drama Addict. But You’re Beautiful pushed me closer to the edge, with the zany humor of the Hong Sisters (and the desire for a pig-bunny of my own!). It would really be Coffee Prince that would push me over the edge, but that aired in 2007 so it doesn’t count for this list. But I had to mention it anyway, because, well, it’s Coffee Prince and where my love for Handsome Oppa began.

2010: More Than Candy

The Woman Who Wants To Marry (MBC)

A lot of the dramas I watched at first had that typical “Candy” character, the poor-but-scrappy girl who would somehow be saved by the guy and become the Cinderella she never knew she wanted to be. So it was a delight when I encountered women who were not only older than high-school-age or early twenties, but in their thirties, with rich full lives! Plus, this was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of the “noona romance” (a concept that I’ve since heartily embraced, of course). I started it primarily because Kim Bum was my favorite of the Flower Boys, but I stuck with it because I fell in love with the women (and I still have a girl-crush on Bu-ki).

Harvest Villa (tvn)

This show is insane. But in the good way, the way that the writer intended, and not in the “are a bunch of monkeys typing this script?” train-wreck way. There was basically no buzz about this show, and I feel like I somehow accidentally stumbled over it, but it was love at first sight. I’ve never forgotten the late hours binging it, being so sucked into the story that I absolutely had to finish it as soon as I could, disappointed that there wasn’t more of it to enjoy when I finally finished, bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, but satisfied.

I then later gobbled down this writer’s next drama, and her next drama, and the next, until everyone else finally realized thanks to Signal that Kim Eun-hee was as amazing a writer as I kept insisting to anyone who would listen (aka no one).

2011: To Binge or Not To Binge?

White Christmas (KBS)

I did not watch White Christmas in 2011. I actually watched it in 2013. I was always a steadfast binger, preferring to wait until the buzz about a show would sway me into spending my precious free-time watching something that would be worth my while (not that my drama choices were always good, but at least I tried to avoid the duds). I still prefer to binge, since waiting weeks for new episodes is vaguely frustrating when I want to know what happens next, right now! Plus, I’m very good at forgetting that I’m watching a show in the week-long wait for new episodes, and then just... never picking it back up again.

Despite watching White Christmas a couple years after it aired, it remains one of my favorites, and one I love to rewatch, even though I’ve already experienced whodunnit cliff-hangers and psychological rollercoasters. It became a tradition of sorts here on tumblr for a bunch of us to rewatch it over the holiday season -- alas, I haven’t joined in that tradition for the past couple of years, but I hope that somewhere in this blue hell hole that there are a loyal few keeping the tradition alive.

At least we have this drama to thank for bringing us all the model-actors that were new and clueless in White Christmas, but would later go on to be leading men in their own right. Of course, some of them haven’t exactly made the best drama choices (*cough*SungJoon*cough*), but then there are others (*cough*SooHyuk*cough*) that I’m impatiently waiting for to pick up a new drama so I can see those post-army abs.

Tree With Deep Roots (SBS)

This is the first drama that I recall live-watching. I vaguely remember regretting it at the time, since it was agony waiting for new episodes, but it was also fun to have a week to speculate and ponder the show. And what a beautiful show to ponder! This was also one of the few sageuks I actually watched, being generally intimidated by anything longer than 16-20 episodes, and my historical knowledge was a little shaky (before embracing my inner nerd and diving into mundane historical stuff just so I could better understand whatever drama I was watching at the time).

I don’t think I intended to continue live-watching shows, preferring the ease of binging at my own pace and schedule. But that was when I was still a casual, innocent addict, and not someone who would eventually make dramas a huge part of her life.

2012: The Joy of Overthinking

Gaksital (KBS)

Having had a taste of live-watching, I started to live-watch enough dramas to the point where I began to make notes about the premiere weeks. It was only a couple at a time, and binging was still my preferred way to watch, but now I was delighting in being part of the fandom, sharing in speculation each week, posting my thoughts on dramas and analyzing them to my heart’s content -- even though I knew no one except me would read my ridiculous essays.

But I started to feel more comfortable sharing my opinion with the world, interacting with fandom and not merely content to be a consumer, but gradually becoming a producer as well.

Reply 1997 (tvN)

This is it. This is when I went full-on Drama Addict. This is the tipping point from casual fan who quietly kept to herself, to becoming someone who stood on the mountain top yelling about ALL THE DRAMAS ALL THE TIME. I began to interact with other fans! To swap theories and share squee-worthy moments! I even watched episodes RAW just because of how desperate I was to know what happened, and even though the Busan accent stumped me more than once, it made me realize that my casual study of Korean was something to take seriously since I understood more than I gave myself credit for.

It was also the first time any post I made got more than a handful of notes, since I’d mostly hovered in the “less than 10 notes per post” category at the time. I was so proud of myself back then!

(This drama also notably marks the start of my Hoya obsession, which continues to this day.)

2013: Tumblr Friends (and Foes)

Flower Boy Next Door (tvN)

Having made myself comfortable on tumblr as a Drama Addict, I then discovered some other dedicated fans -- many of which I still follow to this day and who are now just a permanent part of my dash, no matter what their current interests may be -- in the FBND squad.

But I also discovered Kim Seul-gi as the Webtoon Editor (who I still love and adore and continue to use as my avatar), and her adorable romance with Dong-hoon remains one of my forever OTPs. As much as I enjoyed the drama romances, I’d never fallen so deeply for one to be so obsessed by it as I was Webtoon Editor and Dong-hoon. And tbh I still am. They’re just so adorable and pragmatic and she buys him a bag. Ugh. I love her so much, you guys.

Heirs (SBS)

Ah, yes. This hot mess.

I don’t know what possessed me to live-blog each episode. But I did. With snarky commentary and terrible screencaps. And suddenly I went from maybe 200 followers to over a 1000. That was a total shock! I met a lot of people because of that (and made some friends, as well as a few enemies who didn’t appreciate my opinion of certain characters), and ensconced myself as part of the drama-blogging crew.

It was from this that someone suggested I apply to be a minion at Dramabeans. Back then, I had a lot more free time than I do now, and I was watching a lot of dramas that Dramabeans didn’t cover, and wished they did so I could read more opinions about those shows. So I thought, “Eh, why not? It can’t hurt to submit something because the worst that would happen is I’d waste their time making them read my take on episode 10 of Let’s Eat.”

I fully expected them to turn me down. No one was more surprised than I was when I found myself agreeing to dive into the world of recapping.

2014: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Trot Lovers (KBS)

Recapping. It seems so easy when you’re reading the recaps. But actually creating them is a bitch. Hours out of my life were spent on this disaster of a trope-laden show with no plot. This was the third show I worked on for Dramabeans, and I hated it to the point where I seriously considered handing in my notice. (Immediately following up this show with the mediocre My Secret Hotel certainly didn’t help matters!)

However, it turns out that what I actually hated was being forced to watch a terrible rom-com and pretend to come up with insightful-or-at-least-neutral thoughts about it (since we were still new and couldn’t go full-on snark yet).

Misaeng (tvN)

This is what saved me. Being given the chance to immerse myself in such a unique, ponderous, thoughtful show restored my faith in dramas and the drama community. I loved spending hours on this show, soaking up all the little details, and then sharing that love with the world.

Misaeng made dramas magical again.

2015: Fight Me

Valid Love (tvN)

Realizing that I only seemed to enjoy rom-coms at arm-length, I discovered that my tastes often ran counter to the general drama-viewing public. Not all the drama-viewing public -- I’m not a “not like other fans” kind of fan -- but enough that I began to realize the whether a drama was popular or had good buzz was not necessarily the primary reason to watch it.

I began to have more faith in my own taste, based on past experiences with various writers and directors. Even if the premise (or first couple of episodes) seemed kind of weird and out-there, I at least wanted to give these artists the benefit of the doubt that I would enjoy their work, like I had previously.

So many people seemed to hate Valid Love, but I adored it. Still do (and still desperately wish Kim Do-woo would come out with a new drama -- it has been too long, writer-nim!). There were a lot of opinions about this show, even among people who seemed to enjoy it, but I vividly recall having to repeatedly insist that it wasn’t about the romance and argue that the knee-jerk infidelity-is-BAD opinions should make space for something more nuanced.

Ho-gu’s Love (tvN)

DramaFever was a pretty great site. It brought together so many drama fans and gave them a place where they could legally (and without fear of downloading random viruses) watch dramas to their heart’s content. Yes, there may have been some lingering resentment that they were the primary reason that so many amazing other sites were shut down (RIP mysoju and daebaeksubs), but dramas were more accessible than ever!

Eventually, DramaFever started to sub shows themselves and upload them weekly (instead of just using fansubs and uploading older dramas), and while they weren’t the best translations, they were at least better than machine translations from the Chinese subs. As I became more and more familiar with Korean, I found myself more likely to migrate to Viki since I liked the extra detailed translations. I could get the gist of a show without any help -- I wanted to instead delve into the nitty-gritty of the language.

But I never really hated DramaFever or felt they were particularly awful. Until they mistranslated something so terribly that it changed the entire meaning of a scene and ruined people’s perception of a drama, forcing me to continually defend the true translation.

That was the molehill I died on that day, and never again did I touch DramaFever. I feel bad that it eventually got unceremoniously shuttered. But I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for the “condom” incident.

2016: Free Solo

Dear My Friends (tvN)

For two years I’d been happily working on one episode a week, sharing a show with someone else, until I was asked if I’d like to tackle a show by myself. I wasn’t sure how I could handle it, but I had the time in my schedule so I said, “Sure, why not?”

I was originally going to recap Another Oh Hae-young, but there was a last-minute switcheroo, and I’m so incredibly glad because this is perhaps my favorite recapping experience of all time, even more so than Misaeng. There was something so special about the luxury of having an entire show to myself, especially one with such a fantastic cast of characters and thoughtful themes. I didn’t have to try and figure out if I agreed with another person’s take -- it could all be my opinion.

Is that arrogant? Perhaps. But it was also therapeutic, as it reminded me once again how incredible and amazing dramas could be, and the privilege I had to share such an exquisite and thought-provoking drama with the rest of the world.

The Good Wife (tvN)

Surprisingly, this was what I had really wanted to recap that year, and the true reason I got Dear My Friends, since it aired just prior in the same time-slot as The Good Wife. I was desperate to have this show, willing to do anything to get it because I needed to see Jeon Do-yeon back on the small screen, to see Yoo Ji-tae smolder, to know how Korea would adapt such an ambitious show.

And I wasn’t disappointed! This is, perhaps, my favorite adaption of another work of art that I’ve seen in dramaland. It remained true to Korean sensibilities, but it also properly felt like The Good Wife. The cast was phenomenal. The costumes were exquisite. I wished I could spend more time in that world.

But I was also thankful, because without The Good Wife, I would have never have had Dear My Friends.

2017: Serial-Killers Are Cool

Voice (OCN)

I can’t remember how I got assigned to this. Maybe it was a scheduling thing. I do know that I really, really wanted it, since it would be Handsome Oppa’s first drama appearance in three years.

But it started me down a road of recapping a lot of serious and serial-killer-centric shows. Except for the times when I’d beg for a break and tackle something lighter, I was generally assigned the darker mystery shows with meaty plots, since apparently I had a knack for condensing complicated shows into something that made sense. (Also literally darker, and I eventually learned to automatically brighten every screencap I posted. You’re welcome.)

Not only did I love working on something with Handsome Oppa, I also had fun recapping the start of what would eventually become OCN’s stock-in-trade -- creepy serial killers. At the time, Voice shattered OCN’s viewer ratings (which would then be shattered again and again as more people would tune in to OCN shows). But Voice really helped put OCN on the viewership map -- as well as catapult Handsome Oppa into the public eye and lead him to a path of getting to choose whatever script he wanted to work on.

(Okay, maybe I made that last bit up, but he did begin to garner a larger following and remind everyone that just because he was gone from dramaland for so long, he hadn’t lost his acting chops -- or charisma -- or cheekbones.)

Black (OCN)

Oh, this show. It was basically my whole life while it was airing (well, the non-day-job part of my life). Each episode was over an hour long and jam-packed full of details that were pertinent to the story, and I had to somehow condense that all into 3000 words or less (I was not always, ah, successful...). It felt like I was back in recapping bootcamp, but the dial had been turned up to 11.

I’m weirdly proud of what I produced (although you’ll never get me to reread my old work). It was one of the most challenging shows to work on, but in the good way, not the Trot Lovers way.

Until the ending, that is. Sigh. That ending will live in infamy. I still, to this day, will get a few comments on the finale from people who watched it on Netflix, went searching online for an explanation of the end, and then discovered that they were not alone in being confused by the utter wtf-ery of the last twenty minutes.

2018: Fighting For My Love

Misty (JTBC)

So, Dramabeans kind of disappeared for a few months. Well, the site was still live. There were a handful of recaps. But... it basically just... stopped.

Those of us on the other side know about as you do as to why that happened. Minions are kept in the dark just as much as anybody, it seems. All we knew is that we weren’t being assigned anything and we seriously wondered if the site was going under, since adsense has become worthless these days.

But Mary and I kept talking about how much we adored Misty and were sad that we couldn’t talk about it with the world (and convince them to watch it with us), so we pleaded and begged and got the go-ahead to do a kind of chatty “open thread” which has apparently been a spring-board format for other shows. We didn’t get paid for this, and we were totally fine with that. We just wanted to provide some kind of content (while swooning over Kim Nam-joo’s pantsuits!).

Let’s Eat 3 (tvN)

This was my first real assignment after the dead period, and I once again got to do full recaps (with pay!). I started watching, thinking I’d merely tolerate the show (since I loved the first season vastly more than the second season), but it turned out to be my favorite of the three. Plus it felt fortuitous that the series I had submitted my application would be a series I’d work on four years later.

Sometimes it’s nice to spend time with a character you met years ago, to see them grow, to see how they became what they became. Drama trends (and love interests) will come and go, but Goo Dae-young’s love of food (and love of explaining the proper way to eat food) will never change. It was a really comforting drama for me to spend my summer on, and I’ll remember it fondly, even if I’m forever sad that it had to suddenly wrap-up two episodes early.

2019: Ten Years Later

Item (MBC)

This was the Trot Lovers of 2019. It was a nonsensical disaster.

I also had the added chaos of my real-life job -- one very different from the one I had when I was working on Trot Lovers -- as it began to increase exponentially in responsibilities and in stress. I reached a breaking point where I began to hate opening my computer where I’d have to spend hours attempting to explain a show that I wanted nothing to do with. I was miserable and depressed and couldn’t do it anymore. I never before asked to be taken off a show because I hated it so much, but there’s a first for everything.

Her Private Life (tvN)

I actually haven’t finished this show -- I’ve yet to watch the last two episodes. But I’m including it because, well, I didn’t finish any other show in 2019 except for Item.

As some of you may know, this has been a difficult year. It started with the unexpected stress of my job, when we suddenly lost one of our directors who passed away, and another director was let go (in a complicated situation that is ongoing, but the important thing is that it was during our busiest time when we really couldn’t afford to lose anyone), and another director left for a different job and I was basically the one to pick up all the pieces she left behind. It was exhausting and we were all past the breaking point but somehow miraculously holding it together.

I was looking forward to finally getting a much-needed vacation in September, and then, well, you all know how that went: the first night, on our layover in New Zealand before what was supposed to be three weeks in Australia, my father was taken to the hospital, and then, two days later, he passed away. Life has gotten even more chaotic and stressful and bizarre since then.

So no, I haven’t finished this drama, but it was one of the most wonderful moments of the year for me, watching this fizzy rom-com with my favorite actor, where he got to be charming and handsome and charismatic and finally kiss the girl he loves and have her love him back (and not die or be dumped, as he had been in so many dramas that had gone before). Lion Oppa was everything my heart could desire, and living in his world helped me endure the insanity that I wish I’d known would seem so much more tolerable than what would eventually befall.

Her Private Life reminded me of when I first fell in love with dramas ten years ago, when I would giggle and be delighted by the charming nonsense on screen -- of beautiful people falling in love and fighting against the obstacles between them (some more ridiculous than others, perhaps, but there are always obstacles), and ending up happily ever after. Pure escapism, of the frothiest kind.

A Drama-filled Decade

So, after ten years of dramas, what is the takeaway? What have I learned?

I suppose I’ve learned to trust my instincts and put more faith in writers and directors than actors. That analyzing dramas is fun, and it’s even more fun sharing it with others, and sometimes even more fun if you get paid to do it -- but everyone eventually reaches a breaking point. That I’m too earnest and optimistic to embrace a life of snark. That I want every drama to be good but most of them aren’t, except sometimes they are. That I’m not even sure which genres are my favorite; I just know what I don’t like.

That dramas are best as escapism, and not as work.

I don’t know how many dramas I’ll watch in 2020. I haven’t paid any attention to what’s airing, and I’m okay with that. Perhaps I’m entering a new phase in my life, or perhaps I just don’t have the capacity to escape right now.

But I am pleased to have had dramas in my life, and to have eventually made them my hobby. I’ve met a lot of amazing people and made some genuine friends through a shared love of dramas (or, at times, a shared hatred). I’m honored that all of you are still here and following me, even during this period of fandom silence.

May 2020 treat us all better, and may Kim Do-woo finally write another script.

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tisfan · 5 years

Note

You mentioned that you write a lot and I was wondering what's your process for editing and how do you edit everything you write? I'm getting to the point where I can write, but not edit. And I start to lose interest in my writing once I get into editing.

The very first thing I do when I’m writing (professionally, rather than Fic writing, I tend to be a little more slack on my editing for fic) is let the story sit for about a week after I’m done. I don’t touch it, I don’t try to think about it. Just... let it go.

Then I read the whole thing from front to back. I make notes to check things for consistency, look for plot holes, and otherwise do the major content edits. Betas are particularly helpful for this. Are there parts of your plot that are unclear. If so, why? Fix these things first. Are there parts of your story that drag, that the pacing seems off, or you (or your betas) are wondering when something’s going to happen.

Long expositions should be broken up. Very few readers want to know how the toaster works, they want to toast their bread and move on with their lives.

After the major content edits are finished, read through it again with this in mind

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/07/youll-have-to-go-through-me-eliminating.html

and work to eliminate most of these filter words. This takes... a while. Because not only do i have to find the words, but I have to rephrase the sentences to get rid of them.

After I fix that, I read through it AGAIN. This time I’m trying to eliminate too many run on sentences, em-dash asides, parenthetical commentary.

Throughout this whole process, I look for clarity in phrasing, fix typos and spelling errors, and grammatical changes.

Try reading out loud to get a better feel for how your sentences sound. Sometimes changing the font helps to spot typos that your eyes sort of glaze over.

Then it’s time for your proofer to take a look. This is someone who checks for spelling, grammar, and punctuation edits.

Here’s a BIG hint for editing; YOU HAVE TO READ YOUR OWN STUFF.

Constantly. I’d even suggest practicing that part. I know a lot of people who don’t ever read their own stuff once they’re done with it, they get cringy about it. You can’t afford that. You don’t have to love your stuff, but you will generally find if you’re feeling cringy, there’s probably something there you need to fix.

Now, keep in mind, I’ve been writing for thirty years, published for 12, and writing fic for 3 years. I can do a lot of these steps without having to back up. I edit on the fly, and professional editors often tell me I have really clean copy. (that means I do a really good job and they don’t have lots of corrections to make.)

I personally don’t love editing, either. It can be tedious. I do find that if I love the stuff I’m working on, and I re-read it constantly, I do see the errors easier, so that’s part of it, just read it because you enjoy it.

When I’m doing hard-edits for a publication or something, I usually assign myself a page limit or chapter limit to look at. “I’ll edit 2 chapters per day” or whatever. And then STOP when you’re done. That way it’s not too much.

#Anonymous

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nbrownx5 · 5 years

Text

An Interview with Tim Smith

Tell us your latest news?

In addition to publicizing “The Other Woman,” I’m putting the polish on my next Nick Seven spy thriller, “The Neon Jungle.” I’m also working on a summer short story for Extasy Books, and recently began work on my annual holiday story for them. I freelance as a writer, blogger and editor, and I’m getting ready to launch my own blog site.

When and why did you begin writing?

I began writing short stories in high school because I was an avid reader and thought “I’d like to write stories like this!” I’ve always been a creative person, whether it’s writing, music or photography. I’m a fan of old-style pulp fiction stories, but what really sparked my interest in that genre was watching classic movies on TV. I would see an old film noir crime caper and if it was based on a book, I’d get it from the library and make comparisons. If I liked that particular author’s style, my mother (who influenced a lot of my reading choices) could usually suggest another author who wrote something similar.

What inspired you to write “The Other Woman”?

I had released three books in the Vic Fallon private eye series and amazingly, not one murder was ever committed. I had covered every other plot, from blackmail to theft, but no one ever got killed in the process. That seemed like sacrilege for this genre, so I knew it was time to write a Fallon story that focused on someone getting bumped off in the first few pages. Being me, I couldn’t let it go at just that, and had to work in more topical themes and subplots. In this one, the killing du jour is tied in with a government conspiracy, cover-ups, and political payoffs. Can anyone say “Ripped from the headlines”?

Can you share a little of your current work with us?

Vic Fallon is a former police detective who was wounded in the line of duty and took a disability separation. He became a private investigator and lives in Sandusky, Ohio on the Lake Erie shore. Each story has him getting involved with a different woman as part of his current case. When I conceived the character, I wanted to bring the classic gumshoe into a contemporary setting. I was also thinking of the TV shows I’ve always enjoyed, like “Peter Gunn,” “77 Sunset Strip,” and “The Rockford Files.” The main difference here is that when things get hot and heavy between the hero and the leading lady, I don’t cut to a commercial. I’ve included the classic elements, like a buddy on the police force who provides help, quirky supporting characters, and vivid locations. If I could have added a cool jazz score by Henry Mancini, I would have.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Some of my personal experiences may find their way into my stories, whether they’re about spies, private eyes, or contemporary romance. In the case of “The Other Woman,” the kick-off to the story was one of my “What if…” moments. I was returning to Dayton, Ohio from a trip to the Florida Keys, and had a long layover in the Atlanta airport. I was passing one of the departure gates when I recognized the Ohio Attorney General, and we spoke for a few minutes. When I was devising this story, I remembered that encounter and thought “What if Vic Fallon runs into a U.S. Senator from his hometown, and he turns up dead in the men’s room shortly after they speak?” That got my brain working on various subplots and motives.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Since there are more legal aspects to this story than I usually include, I had to do a lot of research into the criminal justice process. I knew the basics but there were some finer points of the law I needed help with. I’ve found that one of the toughest parts about writing a mystery is creating something believable, with enough “Gotcha!” moments to keep the reader interested. Accuracy is always a challenge, too. In this age of in-your-face TV shows and digital literacy, you need to have your facts straight or someone will call you on it.

Do you have a specific writing style?

My style can best be described as a cross between Raymond Chandler and Carl Hiaasen, with a dash of Mickey Spillane thrown in. I like to incorporate as much realistic atmosphere and detail as I can. The last thing I want is to describe a location and have someone wonder “Has this guy ever been here??” My heroes tend to fall into the wisecracking tough guy mold, with a cynical outlook on life, but enough morality to make them likeable. I try to go for laughs to alleviate the tension. Many of these chuckles come in the form of dialogue and skeptical observations from the hero. When a character tells Fallon that he doesn’t care for his attitude, Fallon’s comeback is “I don’t much care for it myself. I sit up and worry about it on nights when I can’t sleep.”

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

If there is, it was probably unintentional, because I don’t like to mess up a good story with a lot of preaching. The basic message in “The Other Woman” is about someone standing up to do the right thing, even when they’re told to stay the hell out of it. Personally, I think this is something we should all do. My books may contain a subtle commentary on the human condition, but I try not to beat people over the head with it.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

Creating a realistic romantic relationship is always challenging, because it’s very subjective. What strikes me as cute and flirty may make someone else roll their eyes and groan. It’s fun to write a scene where the couple is teasing each other while watching a sunset on a beach, but it’s also challenging to have them saying something believable that advances the relationship. I also find writing erotic scenes to be a challenge at times. After so many books that you could label “hot,” there are times when I come to one of those encounters and I have to do a mental checklist. “Let’s see…in the last one they did it this way, and in the one before that, I used this position, and then there was the scene with the trapeze…” You see the problem.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I started calling myself a writer when my first novel was published in 2002, but what really drove it home was after my third book was released. I did a book signing tour in the Florida Keys, where many of my stories take place. I walked into a book store in Key Largo for my appearance, and I saw my books on the shelf alongside some Florida authors whose work I had long admired, like James W. Hall and Tim Dorsey. I thought “Smith, you have arrived!”

Do you have any advice for other writers?

If you really believe in the story you want to tell, stick with it and don’t get discouraged. If you decide to self-publish, the biggest favor you can do for yourself is using a professional editor. I consider myself to be a good copy editor, but I would never release a book without having someone else take a crack at it first. Most importantly, if you choose to write erotic romance, ask yourself if you’re comfortable having it out there under your own name.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

I hope that they check out not only “The Other Woman,” but the rest of my books. I’ve written 21 of them, from romantic mystery/thrillers to contemporary erotic romance. I think you’ll find them entertaining, because that’s why I write—to entertain. I’m one of those rare creatures who doesn’t write for the literary critics, but for the person in Parma, Ohio or Rugby, North Dakota who just wants some escapism. www.timsmithauthor.com

#writers #book #writing #author #writer #tim smith #authors

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buzrushcommunityblog-blog · 4 years

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communityglobalbuzrush-blog · 4 years

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From the plethora of styles (which include unhindered changes) to the cabability to offerdigital and physical, and affiliate marketer solutions, on the a great number of conversion process optimisation specific tools, you will be really difficult-pressed to get a solo plug-in which could complement WooCommerce concerning functionality or fee (just $12.95/four week period for their most advanced offer).

5. TinyMCE Advanced

This easy free-to-use wordpress plugin permits you toadd and remove, and arrange the control buttons suggested during the Vision Editor toolbar, supplying the chance to configure nearly 5 lines of switches offering (but surely aren’t limited to) font styles, font spouse and children, written text/record colours, furniture, plus more.

When using the click of a button, TinyMCE allows you to dramatically enhance and make simpler your backend WordPress experience, purpose which you can pay attention to exactly what you do most desirable leaving each one of the“button searching” powering you.

6. WordFence Secureness

Website security is more important than ever before, with the proliferation of cyber attacks and website hacks in 2018.

Selling both free and paid version WordFence Reliability offers use of an abundance of devices including:

•Wordpress platforms key document reliability verification and repair.

•Viruses, computer virus, and backdoor checking.

•A firewall that features rates reducing, stopping fake Google and bing crawlers, IP IP and whitelisting hindering.

•Genuine-time site visitors that has Google and yahoo Crawlers, Feed viewers and all of other crawlers and bots. (Search engines like google Stats tracking does not contain this details.)

•Email signals of alerts and critical concerns.

•Brute power hacking shield.

•And a lot even more.

If you’re focused on the integrity and security with your web-site, WordFence Safety and security allows you to relax understanding your site, much like the consumers of Allstate, is in decent hands.

7. Yahoo XML Sitemaps

One more worthwhile Seo optimisation plugin for Wordpress platforms, Search engines like google XML Sitemaps helps to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! (customers however use that, proper? ) to improve list your internet-site with a particular XML sitemap.

As soon as you install and activate the plugin, it will automatically create an XML sitemap that makes it easy for search engine bots to view, crawl, and index your site so that you can enjoy a boost in your rankings and some extra “SEO Juice” for years to come.

8. WP Excellent Cache

In 2020, the pace of your website is everything. And also with WP Extremely Cache, it is possible to rapidly and painlessly enhance your website’s standard acceleration.

This free and easy-to-use plugin creates fixed Web-page coding files from the lively Wp online site and therefore the webserver may use that data file and not developing the more heavy (and sluggish) PHP scripts.

Which consists of nominal price and easy setting, WP Tremendous Cache is essential plug-in for all webmaster aiming to boost their online site efficiency and savor the entire rewards associated with it.

Get WP Excellent Cache from Wordpress blogs.org

9. Google and bing Analytics Dashboard for WP by ExactMetrics

If you’ve really want to course the true-time website traffic information on a web site without having recording into and seeking to browse through the labyrinthine Bing Analytics websites, then The search engines Analytics Dash board for WP by Actual Metrics (try proclaiming that 3 times really fast! ) will be the wordpress plugin you have been attempting to find.

This wordpress tool helps you watch not alone the particular-time website visitors stats and acquisition routes but also the:

•Training, organically grown search queries, site opinions, rebound fee google analytics stats

keywords, •Locations, pages and referrers 404 glitches stats tracking statistics

•Traffic routes, social networking sites, site traffic sources, yahoo and google google analytics statistics

•Gadget different types, browsers, os, monitor solutions, smartphone makes statistics stats

And, considering the fact that it’s free of cost for together exclusive and commercial web sites, you could have absolutely nothing to drop by visiting ‘download‘ and creating a try.

Get Search engines Google analytics WP from Wordpress platforms.org

Quickly learn how to Put up And Use Google and bing Statistics WordPress plug-in (procedure-by-part)

10. UpdraftPlus Wordpress blogs Data backup Plugin

Nothing is alot more aggravating (or frightening) for that standard website owner than the possibilities of reducing all of their very difficult work and content because of flawed bring up to date or unintended coding fluke.

The good thing is, with UpdraftPlus Word press Back-up, the world’s finest-scored (2,400 5-superstar critiques and counting) slated back-up wordpress plugin, you can easily get individuals doubts and worries lurking behind you.

All you have to do is click ‘install’ and rest easy as all your data is flawlessly backed up into the cloud.

Get UpdraftPlus from Wordpress blogs.org

11. Elementor Website page Builder

The Elementor Page Builder would be it if the Divi Builder and BoldGrid had a brainchild that was converted into a WordPress plugin.

Elementor Webpage contractor is among the most most effective and easy-to-use WordPress article contractor plugins currently available.

At only $50/season for just a sole homepage, Elementor is worth the capital and will help you quickly and professionally produce breathtaking articles.

Get Elementor from Elementor.com

12. Smush Photo Pressure and Optimisation

Not a single thing will slow down your blog or slowly your load circumstances sooner than large and unoptimized illustrations.

Fortunately, with Smush Photo Compression and Optimization, it is possible to compress, resize, and optimise all of your current website’s photos in under each and every day.

Just click here to master why Smush Appearance Pressure and Optimization is considered the best cost-free picture pressure plugin in the Wordpress platforms industry.

Get more info visit BuzRush

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