Media Bender

It's always this time of year that my "past movie year" gets it's title. First semester of college, I didn't watch much. But then the library got a completely new building, where media got it's own floor, and--I was gone ^_^. I've been through a Romance Year, Sci-Fi/Fantasy year, and Coming of Age Dramas. Last year was my Television Series year: M*A*S*H, Bewitched, Chuck, House, Supernatural, Gossip Girl, TVD, you name it, I probably watched it. This past year(2011), I went on an "oldie bender". Part of this is because I happen to have Turner Classic Movies on my cable this year.  And my current obsessions are Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. And I've always liked Mickey Rooney. So below I have complied a list of what I think are the greatest oldies of all time.

1. The Mayor of Hell
2. The Torrid Zone
3. Angels with Dirty Faces
4. National Velvet
5. The African Queen
6. Casablanca
7. The Fighting 69th
8. Huckleberry Finn staring Mickey Rooney
9. City of Conquest
10. Harvey
11. Arsenic and Old Lace
12. It Happened One Night
13. Philadelphia Story
14. It's a Wonderful Life
15. Horatio Hornblower(1950)
16. Dead End
17.Winchester '73
18. Meet Me in St. Louis
19. The Canterville Ghost(1940)
20. Call Northside 777
21. The Big Sleep
22. The Maltese Falcon
24. Treasure of Sierra Madre
25. Some Like It Hot
26. Ceiling Zero
27. Footlight Parade
28.Johnny Come Lately
29. Rear Window
30. Vertigo
31. Dial M for Murder
32. Arsenic and Old Lace
33. Quo Vadis
34. Frenchman's Creek, staring Joan Fontaine
35. British Agent
36. Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn
37. Robin Hood, starring Richard Todd
38. The Sword and the Rose
39. The Slipper and the Rose
40. The Three Musketeers, starring Oliver Reed, Michael York, Faye Dunaway and Richard Chamberlain
41. The Four Musketeers, starring Oliver Read, Michael York, Faye Dunaway, and Richard Chamberlsin
42. The 39 Steps
43. The Secret Garden
44. What's Up Doc?
45. Bell, Book, and Candle
46. It's a Wonderful Life
47. You Can't Take It With You
48. Ballots or Bullets
49. The Awful Truth
50. The Shop Around the Corner
51. The Human Comedy
52. Johnny Eager
53. Rebel Without a Cause
54. West Side Story
55. My Fair Lady
56. Sabrina, starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden
57. Treasure Island, starring Bobby Driscoll
58. The Woman in Green
59. Sherlock Holmes, starring Basil Rathbone
60. The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Leslie Howard
61. Only Angels Have Wings
62. Bachelor Mother
63. Sunset Boulovard
64. The Roaring Twenties
65. To Catch a Thief
66. Charade
67. For Whom the Bell Tolls
68. The Magnificent Seven
69. The Ten Commandments
70. Broken Arrow
71. The Stratton Story
72. Highway in the Sky
73. The Defiant Ones
74. The Sweet Smell of Sucess
75. The Big Sleep
76. Here Comes the Navy
77. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
78. Next Time We Love
79. Pot O' Gold
80. White Heat
81. Buck Privates
82. Dracula(1931)
83. Boystown
84. Men of Boystown
85. Footlight Parade
86. Blood on the Sun
87. Yankee Doodle Dandy!
88. Each Dawn I Die
89. G-Men
90. Mutiny on the Bounty(starring Marlon Brando 1960)
91. Great Guy
92. Santa Fe Trail
93. Green Light
94. The Robe
95. The Public Enemy
96. Dark Passage
97. Come Live with Me
98. To Have and to Have Not
99. One Way Passage
100.  Made For Each Other

Please note that all the above have either, James Cagney, Tony Curtis, Pat O'Brian, James Stewart, or a combo of these. Media Bender? I think yes!

Quirky Monday: What Makes a Good Story?

One of my quirks is I eavesdrop, and then I get thoughts like this:

I was sitting at work today, and I overheard one of my supervisors talking about George Lucas. He mad an interesting comment "when he didn't have a budget he was able to concentrate on what mattered most--the story and the characters. That's what makes it good."
While I have no idea what movie he happened to be talking about, that phrase really stuck. And since I'm still on my Red Dwarf bender--third time through all eight seasons and going for a fourth!--I started thinking about that show. Red Dwarf was filmed in the 80s, on next to no budget(thank you cast commentary and behind the scenes featurettes), and so the writers had to come up with a really tightly written story and awesome characters. Yes, it was a sci-fi sitcom, so if it was written in this day and age, you'd need lots of special effects and stuff. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor didn't have special effects that I could see. They used model shots and make-up and stuff like that. For the most part, they concentrated on making a good entertaining story. They came up with four characters--Lister, Cat, Rimmer, and Kryten--that you never get sick of. Each episode has you entertained and wanting more.
Take the episode Marooned form Season Two. All it is on the out set, is two men snowed inside a crashed spaceship and talking for twenty-ish minutes. But they way they talk also establishes their characters, their relationships and their wants(and conflict, like how they're going to get out of this snowed in mess.) And they never leave the spaceship. So what makes it entertaining? Good flesh and blood characters, and good story.
YA Writer S.E. Hinton does the same thing, but in a different vein. She writes books, but she has the same intent that I think Grant and Naylor had. She wrote The Outsiders because she couldn't find a good book for Young Adults. And then she wrote That Was Then, This is Now, Tex, and Rumble Fish for the same reason. She wanted to entertain her audience by telling a good story, one that people could identify with and want to read over and over again. Each of her characters are flesh and blood, and each of them have real problems that need real solutions. 
So, with my own writing, I've tried to follow their example. Real characters, strong story, tight plot. That's what makes any writing good.