• A Look Back,  Inside Entertainment

    A Look Back: Raiders of the Lost Ark

    I’ve been going through a lot of movies in lockdown – a sprinkling of newer movies, some older ones I’ve never seen or saw so long ago I can hardly remember them, as well as movies I love which I thought it would be time to re-watch. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is one of the re-watches. I first saw this in 1982 as part of a high school class trip to the city – this is when the city had an almost-exclusive monopoly on cinemas, whereas now you find them in every shopping plaza. The teacher had been looking for a movie based around some topic or other…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    Shallow Foundations

     Note: Although this blog references The Rise of Skywalker, at this point I still haven’t seen it. When you sit down to write a story, you create characters who’ll serve that story. They each have a unique function. Once that function is complete, the character is done. They exit the story. James Bond movies illustrate how characters function in self-contained stories. Bond’s boss, M, briefs Bond about his mission. Q will provide Bond with weapons and gadgets. Once M and Q have fulfilled their roles, their jobs are complete. In a few Bonds, M and Q might reappear, but usually never with any great depth, necessity, or regularity. There’ll be…