Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

Spring Breakers: MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

Author: March 28, 2013 0 Comments

Bikinis 4 LifeLet’s start off with a definitive statement: Harmony Korine’s movies are awful, and we are all lessened by viewing them.

However, sometimes people mature. To be fair, Korine has matured, and Spring Breakers does have a method to its awfulness, I think. The fact that it remains awful is part of the point: This film is meant, like most of Korine’s film, to irritate. So, I didn’t enjoy it. I actually had a curious lack of reaction to it, really: When it was over I honestly wasn’t sure if I had enjoyed myself or not. Or stabbed myself in the eyes or not.

I’ll say two things about this movie that are semi-coherent.

1. Korine Makes Partying Look Painful. This is, I think, a triumph actually. Korine manages to make a film about four nubile college-age girls who spend much of the film wearing bikinis, snorting drugs, and engaging in SexyTime dancing that is about as titillating as a Root Canal. After watching this film the last thing I want to do is go down to Florida and party with the coeds. And he does this with some skill – there’s no abrupt moral event horizon. No one gets sick (in fact, these chicks bust out the coke and booze constantly and never once seem to have a single moment of physical suffering for it) and no one has a bad date-rapey moment. Korine manages to make partying look just as exhausting as it actually is – the sort of good time you have to ingest chemicals to even tolerate, much less enjoy.

2. Korine Uses Irritation Effectively. One technique Korine uses over and over again in the film is an annoying repetition. Lines of dialogue and images are repeated, sequences shown again, and the repetition is continued until you want to claw out your eyes. Curiously, though, this means that when he finally cuts to a new scene, your sense of relief is visceral. I think this has to be on purpose, judging from how often he uses the trick. And it works. It put me on the edge of my last nerve and when he finally switched to a new scene – even if that scene was three girls in pink ski masks holding guns singing a Britney Spears song – I was psyched to see this new scene just because it was new. It’s an interesting effect, if not an enjoyable one.

So, clearly Harmony Korine is not a hack: He’s a thoughtful filmmaker who makes films the way he wants to, with goals and artistry. I simply find the finish products pretty irritating, and that’s fine. In the end, if you’re looking for a movie about boobs, sex, and drugs, you should look elsewhere, despite the fact that there are indeed boobs, sex, and drugs in this movie. If you’re looking for a movie with characters instead of soulless, expressionless puppets in bikinis, look elsewhere.

If you’re looking for a movie wherein James Franco appears to be slathered in some sort of Sex Grease, then this is the ticket you have been looking for.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

Dredd

Author: March 6, 2013 4 Comments

The Chin.Random thoughts on yet another movie. I’m a simple man; I long ago gave up any pretense of being particularly smart or perceptive. Most of my political opinions are borrowed and I lose every argument I engage in out of an apathetic lack of passion. Yet, even I am moved to opinions, mostly about low-calorie entertainments where the bar for critical mining isn’t too high. So: Dredd, starring Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby.

I am not a fan of the Judge Dredd comics. In fact, I am only tangentially aware of the character Judge Dredd, and most of the information I know about it comes from the truly awful Sylvester Stallone film from the 1990s. Though how that can be is a mystery because I will never admit to having seen it. Moving on.

So, I don’t know shit about Judge Dredd. Due to some interesting reviews, I took a flyer on the reboot starring Karl Urban as The Chin a.k.a Judge Dredd. And damn if it wasn’t a pretty good movie. Is it a good Dredd movie? I have no fucking idea, knowing nothing about the comics. But as a straightforward sci-fi action flick, it was surprisingly good. Of course, there’s a certain amount of low expectations going on here. I didn’t go in expecting something great, and was pleasantly surprised. But there are some lessons here, I think.

Dredd works because of three key decisions the filmmakers make:

1. There’s very little exposition. They not only say fuckit to the origin story and drop us in a universe where Judge Dredd is already well-established, they also barely bother to set anything up, and this is a good thing. A few lines of expo drop like metal weights at the very beginning (voiceover, and my toes curled in horror, but it’s just two lines and then it’s done) and a few more as they introduce two other characters, but that’s it. The exposition is really minimal, which is such a fucking relief.

2. The plot is really simple. And I mean, simple. Unlike a lot of other sci-fi films that seem to enjoy cramming a lot of truly superfluous plot into ninety minutes, Dredd is lean and mean. They cut that sumbitch down to a straight line, so much so that I can give you the plot in one sentence: Dredd and a rookie Judge respond to a routine homicide at a huge, dilapidated housing tower ruled by a vicious drug lord and must fight their way out when they are trapped inside. That’s it. It might sound dull, but the reductive quality of that straight-line plotting works.

3. The Rookie was a good idea. It’s a cliche to have the grizzled veteran paired with the fresh-faced rookie for a reason: It works. This allows Dredd to flesh out the characters, the nature of the world and the nature of the Judges in an organic way. It also allows the character of Dredd, who’s pretty grim and boring on his own, honestly, to have someone to play off of.

So, a masterpiece? Not at all. A fun way to spend $1.99 on a weeknight? Sure, why the hell not. Karl Urban never once takes the helmet off, and I liked that, and the man does more acting with his chin than you might suspect. Lena Headly as the villain is cold and underplayed, which works well, though she has almost zero dimension. But it’s a lot better than the scenery-chewing a lot of actors would have brought to the role of a murderous drug lord hell bent on killing two Judges trapped in her building.

The effects – I heard a lot about the effects in this movie. I didn’t think much of them, good or bad — they were just there, really. There were, however, a few shots that I thought were kind of cool, including the final shot of Headley’s MaMa coming to her grisly end – it was gruesome and somehow beautiful all at the same time.

Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing

The Beauty of Being Slow

Author: February 16, 2013 1 Comment

When I was really young, I lagged behind some of the other kids in school when it came to pop culture. All of a sudden these kids were listening to rock on the radio and going out to horror movies, while I remained a little more sheltered. Naturally, I took some shit for it. I remember once, desperate to seem at least marginally cool, I claimed to be a fan of Led Zeppelin. I was challenged to name on song, and couldn’t, and my shame was complete.

Luckily, I have a very short memory for shame, as anyone who has gone out for a drink with me can attest.

The lesson stuck with me, though, and in High School and College I became one of those people who worked really hard to be on the cutting edge of everything. The first to hear about a band, the first to see a movie, the first to refuse to read a book for English Class because he could write a paper on it and get an “A” without actually reading it, a skill I carried with me through my entire education. I did that for a long time. I refused to listen to spoilers, too, because I wanted to rush out and see that movie or TV show right away.

Now? Not so much.

These days, I am in far less of a hurry. I wait. I wait for reviews to come in. I wait for TV shows to hit their stride. I wait for songs to filter up through the chaff. And you know what? It’s SO MUCH BETTER. Because I know longer watch things and realize I’ve wasted another two hours of my life. I no longer waste my time worrying about being on the cutting edge, because there is, actually, zero value in being the first person to know about something. And spoilers? Fuck spoilers. If something isn’t able to stand up to spoilers, it wasn’t very good in the first place.

Part of this, of course, is due to technology. In the ancient days, otherwise known as my youth, if you missed a TV show or movie, good fucking luck ever seeing it again. Certain classics got re-run all the time, but generally speaking if you missed it on its first run, you were SOL. Today with DVDs and on-demand and the Pirate Bay, seriously, you can watch just about anything any time. The better question is, should you? Because most of the stuff out there isn’t worth all that much effort, and we all know it. The vast majority of the entertainment you consume — including, probably, my own books — will be completely forgotten in due time, and you might be forgiven for wondering why you’re wasting your time on it. So why bother breaking a sweat to experience it in the first place?

That’s where the Slow Method pays dividends: By the time I make an effort to actually see/read/listen to something, there’s at least some reason to expect it all to be worth my time. The question is, is my time really all that valuable? Nope. Carry on.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul

Author: January 29, 2013 5 Comments

Hell is Other People

Hell is Other People

I’ve never been a huge Facebook fan. I see the point and all , and I know a lot of folks get a lot out of it, but for a misanthrope like me Facebook is just another way to feel smug while ignoring people. Now, for some folks, Facebook serves a real useful purpose in their lives and that’s great. For me, Facebook has become a glimpse into the Horror That Is Other People. As a result, Facebook has also become the least reliable way to communicate with me – though to be fair, the only truly reliable way to communicate with me is to stand directly in front of me and shout at me while at the same time slapping me in the face. You then have a 66% chance of gaining my attention. Or being vomited on. Depends on how drunk I am at the time.

Other ways of communicating with me and their reliability:

  • Email: 5%
  • Text Message: 0%
  • Telephone: 1%
  • In-person but At Normal Volume and No Slapping: 10% (50% chance I will later remember this meeting as dancing the waltz with a bear)
  • Note wrapped around rock thrown through window: %50 (51% if it hits me)

The Five FaceBook People You Will Meet in Hell

I do, of course, check Facebook from time to time, because I’ve been informed that completely ignoring people on Facebook is a Dick Move. So I have become painfully aware of the distinct personality types you meet on Facebook. Let’s stipulate that one of those personality types is what we’ll call the Normal. The Normal enjoys a bit of social media notoriety, likes to post the occasional picture and chat with people. It’s a broad category which we’ll ignore because it’s essentially boring.

Instead, we’re going to explore the Five People on Facebook You’ll Meet in Hell.

1. The Bragger. You guys! I can’t believe I am so lucky and successful! Whether it’s how many books they sold, the big promotion, their amazing relationship, these folks like to brag. Fuck them. Fuck them all. Oh, they get hidden so fast.

2. The Sad Sack. You know what’s great about the folks who post mysterious sadness all the time? The fact that they never tell you what the fuck they are complaining about:

SadSack436: OMFG my life is so awful I can’t believe what just happened

Concerned Fool99: What happened?

SaSack436: It’s personal. But so awful it would turn your hair white.

Note to everyone in the universe: If it’s personal, DO NOT REFER TO IT ON FACEBOOK.

3. The Parent. We get it. You performed the most basic biological function of any organism and procreated. Your child is not special. Shut up. Look, I have nothing against people being proud of their kids and expressing their affection on Facebook. What I don’t need is your torturous twisty logic that somehow equates the fact that your kid remembers to breathe means they represent the next stage in human evolution.

4. The Politico. I don’t care what your political leanings are, your endless posting of borrowed wisdom and half-assed rants are hidden so fast I give myself whiplash. I don’t know for certain what Facebook is supposed to be used for, but it sure isn’t so you can lecture me on politics like some drunk old man in a bar.

5. The Mystery. The Mystery favors one-word posts. Stuff like Gherkins, or, possibly, Bad day. Certainly nothing that makes any sense unless you just spent the last thirty-six hours or so hanging out with them. I’m not sure if this is supposed to underscore that you’re not one of the cool people who understand their codes, or if they’re just incapable of having thoughts longer than one word. And, I find, I do not care.

So, am I a Normal? Of course not. I’m a Lurker. I scroll through your Facebook posts but barely interact, because I am far too cool and mean-spirited to engage on Facebook. And, possibly, lonely. So terribly lonely.

 

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

From the Zine

Author: October 18, 2012 0 Comments

This piece originally appeared in The Inner Swine Volume 14, Issue 1

I KNOW NOTHING

PIGS, every now and then I get asked that perennial author question, how can I get published. The assumption being that because I have been published a little I have some secret voodoo spell you can recite that will result in thousands of your books clogging the mercantile arteries of bookstores everywhere. This assumption is pretty spurious, since most authors, myself included, are drunk when they sell their books and can’t possibly explain what happened; their stories usually devolve into strange tales of magical unicorns and wizards who cast publishing spells.

Still, I get asked. Every time the question comes up, my agent appears in a flash of purple flames and sulphur and slaps me across the face, commanding me to never answer. This is not because it’s some sort of masonic secret, but rather because everyone’s experience is different and most probably unreproducible. I mean, if you sold your book because you sacrificed a chicken and danced the Macarena outside  the publisher’s offices, the chances that such tactics will work for someone else are pretty minimal.

In other words, authors in general are idiots. I am no exception.

Still, the urge to talk about your publishing adventures can be overwhelming. For most writers, after all, being published is the only actual accomplishment we have that impresses anyone. You can win all the awards you like, and none of your nonliterary friends care. You can have all the artistic breakthroughs you want and no one will understand. But when you have an actual check in your hands, suddenly people are interested in your little hobby. So we all have an urge to just bloviate on and on for days about How We Got Published.

Part of this is because writing has transformed from a way to make a living into a lifestyle choice. It’s damned hard to actually make a living wage from your writing work these days, but it has become an artistic sort of hobby—after all, in today’s day and age, anyone can be a writer in the sense of having a printed book in your hands, so it’s become a choice of applied resources instead of a vocation. As a result, people who in past lives wouldn’t have bothered aspiring to being an author fancy they could do it—and why not? It’s not something they’re doing to earn money, or because undeniable artistic urges, otherwise known as Them Voices in Your Head, demand that they do so. They’re writing books because it’s a genteel sort of activity—like painting a sunset, or knitting a scarf.

I have no wisdom, really. My publishing adventures have been a mixture of pure chance, lucky incompetence, and inexplicable coincidence. People are always looking for rules to follow—the proper query letter format, the right way to approach an agent, whether or not to put your work on the Internet—but I am here to tell you folks that there are no rules. It’s Thunderdome out there.

Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, The Inner Swine

Sleep No More & The Value of Thoughtful Details

Author: September 27, 2012 0 Comments

Sleep No MoreSo: Sleep No More. Know what it is? Aces, let’s begin.

I went to see this the other day with The Duchess, because it was her birthday and The Duchess likes adventure. I was excited because it was just so creepy and mysterious, and I like the idea of immersive massive entertainments. I just wish they weren’t so damn expensive. But then, dozens of actors, endless sets, all that space – I suppose it adds up. Let it drift.

What I was mostly excited about, to be honest, were the details: We were encouraged to be hands-on. Open the drawers, read the letters. Touch the fabrics. Climb into things, get wet. Get dirty. My impression was that these sorts of investigations would reward you, that you’d discover secrets, clues. That ransacking the sets would not only be extremely fun, but would lead you in all sorts of cool directions.

I was wrong.

The Duchess and I were let out on the ballroom floor along with a dozen or so others. We headed towards the music, naturally, and watched the dance turn tragic. When the actors split up, we followed Duncan for a bit, and I immediately began a systematic search of everything. I put my mitts into every possible thing, tried everything. As I moved through the space for the first hour, I literally investigated every nook and cranny I could find, hoping to be rewarded. Once or twice I was even stopped by some of the Black Masks from doing something I was apparently not supposed to do — though how in the world I would ever have known the rules remains a mystery.

Ultimately, I figured out that none of the objects placed in the rooms meant anything, other than as background color, and this is where Sleep No More fails. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed myself tremendously, and the actors are extremely talented. The scenes I did get to witness were hypnotic and passionate. The set dressing is amazing on a purely visual level — you really do get the feeling of being in another world. But the fact that the touchable objects in the rooms were just dumb show was so disappointing. Details are important when telling a story. Details can often make or break a story. But when the details turn out to all be red herrings, every single one, then the whole thing falls apart and you realize you’re not in another world. You’re in a warehouse surrounded by black drapery while a few dozen sweaty audience members attempt to chase after an athletic young actor sprinting through the halls.

It’s the same in novel writing. Details can mesmerize your reader and make them think they’re entering another world. And dense, layered details can enhance that feeling. But if your details are just there, if they don’t actually increase their understanding of the universe you’ve created, then it’s just clutter, and your reader will weary of them.

In the end, I can see why some folks really enjoy Sleep No More. It’s an amazing production, and I did really enjoy myself. But I suspect I personally witnessed about 5% of the story despite my sweaty efforts, and I got tired of trooping up and down stairs with fifty other people in masks, only to arrive on the next floor with no idea where the actors I’d been following had run off to. Finally, the emptiness of the details left me cold. If there had been clues and surprises, I would have been content to sift them, to pretend I was in this ghost world, investigating. Who knows; maybe there were – it’s a huge space, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover I’d missed a million things.

Plus, the drinks were outrageously overpriced in the spooky lounge area. Damn their eyes.

Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

The Worst Whiskies in the World Part One

Author: September 4, 2012 0 Comments

Many people exist in this world with a purpose, to make the place better for those who come after them. I’ve never been one of those people. I was, in fact, kind of bummed to have an epiphany at age 28 and realize I was not only not immortal, but I was not even living in a universe custom-create for me. I was just one of several billion shlubs muddling through, and that was kind of depressing. Then followed a period of Super Villainy, where I not only didn’t try to help my fellow man or improve the world, I actively tried to ruin both.

But now I am mature. And I am here to do what I can to help. How can I help? I considered my talents: Rare and often not obviously useful. I can, for example, almost remember your name after meeting you just four or five times. It’s eerie. Also, I can do simple algebra equations in my head, so if four ounces of chicken has ninety calories, I can tell you how many calories three ounces has. Every time.

Still, none of these talents seemed like the sort of thing that would help the world in a significant way. So I despaired for a while and turned to writing, and we all know the damage I’ve done there. And then it hit me: If there’s one thing I know something about, it’s booze. And I’ve had a lot of really, really awful whiskies in my time. Why not share that horrible knowledge and spare my fellow man such suffering?

Of course, even there I fail, because I am not a fancy man who can tell you things like how whiskey is made or what it is, exactly, I am tasting. I have the palate of a bum used to drinking moonshine and antifreeze. All I know is whether I would gnaw off my own foot to escape further shots of a whiskey or not.

So, our first candidate is a German whiskey called Slyrs. German whiskey! Next thing you know we’ll have a lady president or something! No, seriously: German whiskey. Rather than bore you with a befuddled and confusing essay about the horrors going on in my mouth when I drink Slyrs, I thought I would use a simple video representation of the fact that if told I had to either drink instantaneously fatal poison made from the crushed testicles of dung beetles or drink another shot of Slyrs, I would choose the poison without hesitation.

Here’s the visual of that reaction:

You’re welcome.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Whiskey

The Role of Terror and Jealousy in Writing

Author: August 20, 2012 11 Comments

Trickster by Jeff SomersSo, I have a new book series coming out from Pocket Books. Trickster will be out in early 2013 and its sequel will follow. Also a digital-only short story in-between the two novels. I really excited, of course. These will be my seventh and eighth novels published, and let me tell you, right up until I sign the contract for the ninth I will be convinced they are also my last. That’s how it goes.

Here’s the story of Trickster in timeline format:

1995: I write a story titled The Night will Echo Back at You which deals with magic spells cast via blood sacrifice in the modern world. I never submit it anywhere. It’s one of those stories that I like in concept but is kind of dull in actual execution.

1996-2010: Nothing much happens. I drink a lot. Sell some other pieces of writing.

2010: Having finished the final Avery Cates book, The Final Evolution, I go to Bouchercon in San Francisco ostensibly to try to expand my audience into the thriller/mystery crowd but really so I can follow my agent around and surreptitiously order booze on her dime all day long (it worked!). Bouchercon teaches me two things: No one knows who the hell I am, and there’s no guarantees that I’ll ever sell another book. I was suddenly incredibly jealous of all the authors around me who had bigger followings, and terrified that I’d never publish again. The sheer energy of everyone around me busily promoting their work got under my skin.

I’d been planning to expand upon this old story anyway. Terrified and jealous, I wrote 10,000 words on the plane ride home. Most of those words survived into the final version of the book. That doesn’t always happen.

Fear is a great motivator for me when I write. Fear that it will suck, that no one will ever read it, that I’m actually not nearly as good a writer as I think I am. It gets the juices flowing, let me tell you. Some books get written peacefully over the course of years. Some burst out in an explosion of terror. I think I’ve done good work both ways, but I also suspect that fear is always down there, bubbling, churning the wheel that drives it all. Even if I’m not bug-eyed terrified like I was on that flight home, chugging tiny bottles of bourbon and garnering suspicious glances from the flight attendants (the strip search in Newark airport upon landing was no fun) the fear is still there, driving me.

It seems pretty obvious to me that if you’re satisfied, you don’t do anything. Maybe this is why so many artists bog down in middle age and stop producing good work; they hit a certain level of material comfort and are satisfied. Fear comes in many forms, and for some maybe the fear of starving to death is all it takes. Me, I don’t mind starving to death. Being ignored for the rest of my life is what gets my goat. I could live in a dumpster and drink antifreeze (not as bad as you might think – it’s got an oakey, spicey finish) and be okay with that. Tell me I’ll never sell another book and I’ll burst into tears.

The real question is, does the type and level of fear have anything to do with the level of work you produce? As an experiment perhaps I should be locked in a cage with two hungry bears and a laptop. See what happens. Well, we know exactly what happens: Bear porn. Don’t ask.

 

Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Trickster, Writing

Interview with Little Old Me

Author: August 14, 2012 0 Comments

Larry Gent interviewed me a while ago and the glorious results have been posted:

http://42webs.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/panic-view-jeff-somers/

“What is your favourite book/author? Why?

I don’t have one! I do have writers I am hatefully jealous of, and would kidnap, Misery-style, at the first opportunity. But I should probably not implicate myself in any future mysterious kidnappings of famous authors, so let’s change the subject. To your original question. Which I suspect you are impatient for an answer to. I just ended that sentence with a preposition. I am a horrible writer. Yes, I’m a little drunk.”

Go read it. Because I am fascinating.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, More Shit I Gotta Do, Writing

WE ARE THE MORON BROTHERS

Author: July 19, 2012 0 Comments

Bad Writing in Movies

by Jeff Somers
[This essay first appeared in The Inner Swine Volume 15, Issue 1]

LEST we forget, movies and TV shows get written too. And plays. And advertising jingles—the term writing covers a lot of ground, some of it sad and strewn with rotting carcasses, some of it merry and lined with beautiful gardens. This wide field means there’s also a lot of room for bad writing, about which Your Humble Editor here knows entirely too much.

When you do something on a professional level, you tend to lose some of your wonder for it. It’s an unfortunate consequence: Magicians don’t get wide-eyed when cards are made to disappear, computer programmers don’t get excited when email pops up on their screens, and writers wince and groan a lot when terrible dialog afflicts our television shows, books, or movies. We see the connective tissue, and we know all the tricks.

Normally, I can keep my mouth shut. Normally, I can manage to swallow clunky lines that fall to the ground with an ear-popping thud. Normally, I can handle a surfeit of cliché and a heavy hand with the purple—this because I am a firm believer in the Rules of Polite Society, that web of semi-transparent rules that keeps our world functioning, and one of those rules is that you don’t bother other folks with endless snobbish assessments of the quality of your entertainments. We’re writers, after all; for a lot of us, the reason we started writing in the first place was dissatisfaction with the stuff on TV and in the theaters, leading us to try and do it right.

Recently, though, I’m losing control of my temper when it comes to one time-honored tradition of Bad Writing: The Moron Line.

Their company is something you won’t miss
When your icetrays are filled with piss

The Moron Line is, quite simply, a line of dialog that is spoken only to help those in the audience who either haven’t been paying close attention or are mentally incapable of understanding anything even remotely complex or fanciful. Here’s a totally made up example:

<In the sewers beneath Los Angeles, The Villain is seen placing a large bomb against one slimy wall. A few scenes later, the Hero and his Sidekick stumble upon the bomb.>

HERO: Look!

SIDEKICK: Jeepers! A BOMB!

HERO: It must have been left here by the villain, earlier, when we weren’t here.

Most of that dialog is not only unnecessary if you have a heartbeat and an attention span of any length, it’s actually annoying, because it’s like that guy at a party who keeps telling you things you already know in a tone of voice that strongly implies he doubts you have the brainpower to know such things. It’s like an echo.

One of the popular uses for Moron Lines is to remind the audience of subtle plot points; having a character regurgitate a little exposition in the guise of summing up or arguing a point. Another is the time-honored Salazar Gambit, where a character—usually the villain—appears onscreen and, just in case you just wandered in from another movie—someone hisses their name:

<The Hero enters SALAZAR’s OFFICE. Cut to SALAZAR, grinning behind his desk.>

HERO: Salazar!

Again, the only people in the room who would be confused as to Salazar’s identity (assuming, of course, that he was in the story previously and this is not some complicated switch of identity or some other potentially confusing plot gymnastic) are folks who fell asleep shortly after the lights went down. Yet the Moron Line survives, because a) it often sounds dramatic to untrained ears and b) a lot of people creating entertainments for the rest of us have nothing but contempt for us, believe me.

They may not go down in history
But they’ll go down on your sister

Once you notice the Moron Line, you can’t unnotice it, and it starts popping up everywhere: Characters describing the clearly visible actions of other characters, characters repeating names and facts for no other reason than to make sure you remember something that happened, oh, fifteen minutes before in the narrative. Often these examples will be paired with quick-cut flashbacks, just to make sure you really notice what you’re being hit over the head with. This last technique could be called The Sixth Sense Are You Paying Attention Technique.

Are there people who need the Moron Line? Probably. I’ve been out to movies where future Nobel Laureates sit and have lengthy conversations about other movies while a movie is playing, and no doubt the Moron Line helps them keep track of at least the Bullet Points of the plot. And sure, there are probably a few functioning morons out there who need the Moron Line. Should these fine folks be abandoned? Of course not. What we need are a sort of reverse Director’s Cuts, where all the Moron Lines and redundant flashbacks are edited in, with a normal cut released for the rest of us with functioning brains.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing, The Inner Swine