Sunday Showdown: AFI vs. IMDb Battle #89

I’m a bit out of order for this week’s SundayShowdown, due to how I received the Netflix disks. This week’s battle is The Sixth Sense (AFI) vs. Braveheart (IMDb)

Remember when Mel Gibson wasn’t the punch line of a joke? Me neither.  So watching Braveheart from a 2012-Janie’s perspective was much different than when I watched it from a 1995-Janie’s perspective.

Don’t get me wrong , the movie is still graphically violent, brutal, heartbreaking and epic in its… 3 hour epicness. And nobody who was over twelve years old in 1995 didn’t run around yelling, “They can take our lives, but they cannot take…” Yeah, you know it. I didn’t even have to finish.

But Mel is not the guy he was nearly 20 years ago. Regardless of how bat-crazy he is now, he was still beautiful as William Wallace.  Even being tortured from beginning to end in Braveheart.

Of course, cute little Haley Joel Osment was pretty much tortured from beginning to end in The Sixth Sense, also.  And in 1999 we all ran around whispering “I see dead people…”  So as far as catch phrases go, I guess both films are equal.

I am not a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan. I think he is mostly a one-trick pony.  But dang, what a trick! The man can definitely set a mood, as long as that mood is spooky. But I loved Sixth Sense.  I really can’t believe it didn’t crack the IMDb’s top 100.  Definitely gets my vote for this week.

	AFI’s Top 100	IMDB’s Top 100 (as of 1/1/12)
#88	Bringing Up Baby (1938)	The Great Dictator (1940)
#89	Sixth Sense (1999)	Braveheart (1995)
#90	Swing Time (1936)	The Bicycle Thief (1948)
#91	Sophie’s Choice (1982)	The Apartment (1960)
#92	Up (2009)	Goodfellas (1990)
#93	The French Connection (1971)	Downfall (2004)
#94	Pulp Fiction (1994)	Gran Torino (2008)
#95	The Last Picture Show (1971)	Metropolis (1927)
#96	Do The Right Thing (1989)	The Sting (1973)
#97	Blade Runner (1982)	Gladiator (2000)
#98	Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)	The Maltese Falcon (1941)
#99	Toy Story (1995)	Unforgiven (1992)
#100	Ben Hur (1959)	The Elephant Man (1980)

Next week: 12 Angry Men vs. Inglorious Basterds.

My Letter from Boot Camp

Dear Mom,

I’m in Boot Camp.  I don’t like it here. They make us work very hard and yell at us all the time. I wish I had never signed up for this. Please send a care package, ASAP.

Your loving daughter,

Janie

No, I haven’t joined the army, but I have signed up for a “Writing Boot Camp” for the month of April. What is a writing boot camp? Well mine is one I found on the Savvy Author’s website. Basically, we group in teams of 4-5, commit to writing a certain number of words during the month, and WRITE. There’s about 100 people participating from all over the country. 

The kicker for me is that we each have report every day how many words we’ve written. 

Somehow, reporting the words is the magic wand for me. I had not written ONE SINGLE WORD on a new book since December 2011. But give me a hard deadline where I have accountability to a team (of complete strangers, mind you) and PRESTO: words start gushing on the paper. Plus there’s a Drill Sergeant who drops in to check your work when you least expect it. 

Pressure is evidently a key factor for successful writing in Janie’s world. 

Like the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I participated in last November, I have committed to writing 50,000 words this April. Basically, that’s the size of a Harlequin Romance Novel. (Yes, I’m writing another romance).   My WIP (work in-progress) is tentatively titled Love and Other Dangerous Stunts. My heroine in the book is a stunt woman. 

All this to tell you why I won’t be posting much original stuff on my blog this month, since a gal’s only got so much daily creativity and I’m going to apply mine to my WIP.   But I’ll have some “guest posts” from other blogs I like and I’ll still have the Sunday Showdown entries.

Meanwhile, if you want to check back to see how my writing is going (People might check?!?  = further motivation for me), I’ll have the obnoxious word counter widget going to the right.  It will tell how many words I’ve completed. And a cartoon like one of the following will let you know what my mood is. The pile of paper in the "novel" tray will grow as I write more words.

Ready to shoot myself or others

Don't bother me now, things are rolling!

So why Book #2? Well, I received enough positive feedback from the early readers of my first book (Unbreak My Heart) that I sent in a query letter about it to a publisher in March, while I continue to make edits.  Hopefully, they will request the manuscript in its entirety. But I found out it could take 4-6 months just to hear back from the query letter.

So I figure I better start something new while waiting to hear about that one. 

Most importantly I’m writing #2, because the same family member who said to me in a completely disparaging tone “So are you a writer now?” back in February read Unbreak My Heart a couple of weeks ago. Her response to the book: “You know what you're biggest problem is? You've only written one book. Go write some more.”  

I'll see you when I surface from Boot Camp at the beginning of May, with book #2.

(532 words, which can’t be applied towards my WIP counter)

Sunday Showdown: AFI vs. IMDb #88

For Sunday Showdown, I’m rating #88 rather than #89 since Netflix decided to send me DVDs in any order it felt like, rather than in the order of my queue.

But finally, two comedies!!  Thank God.  I was almost at my limits of “drama” (Where drama = me crying my eyes out week after week over sad movies).

Chaplin as Hitler = comic genius

The Great Dictator (IMDb). My confession: I’m not a huge Charlie Chaplin fan.  I appreciate him for what he is: one of the greatest silent film comedians, but I’ve never been much interested in watching his movies.  The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first true talkie and was one of his greatest commercial successes. This was the first time I had seen it.

The movie is pretty slow, the slapstick too overly-familiar to an audience watching now. But Chaplin playing Hitler – particularly his speech in “German” – is sheer brilliance; the comedic timing just as relevant for today.  At any moment in that speech he could’ve broken into “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!!” and I totally would’ve believed it was SNL.

What is interesting to me is The Great Dictator was on the IMDb list and not AFI. But AFI stuck with Chaplin’s silent classics: Modern Times (#69), The Gold Rush (#58), and City Lights (#11).

Nobody puts Baby in a corner...

Bringing Up Baby is a wonderful screwball comedy. Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant throw out zany one-liners faster than I can keep up. It’s a 90-minute running joke that is a joy to watch.  It’s not my favorite screwball comedy – don’t worry, it’s coming –, but it’s definitely one of the best.   If it gets a bit silly at times… that can be forgiven.

So once again I’m going with AFI this week. I liked The Great Dictator, but Bringing Up Baby just has that undeniable spark.  But I’m sure Charlie will get a future vote from me.

	AFI’s Top 100	IMDB’s Top 100 (as of 1/1/12)
#88	Bringing Up Baby (1938)	The Great Dictator (1940)
#89	Sixth Sense (1999)	Braveheart (1995)
#90	Swing Time (1936)	The Bicycle Thief (1948)
#91	Sophie’s Choice (1982)	The Apartment (1960)
#92	Up (2009)	Goodfellas (1990)
#93	The French Connection (1971)	Downfall (2004)
#94	Pulp Fiction (1994)	Gran Torino (2008)
#95	The Last Picture Show (1971)	Metropolis (1927)
#96	Do The Right Thing (1989)	The Sting (1973)
#97	Blade Runner (1982)	Gladiator (2000)
#98	Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)	The Maltese Falcon (1941)
#99	Toy Story (1995)	Unforgiven (1992)
#100	Ben Hur (1959)	The Elephant Man (1980)