Comments on: Movie Seen Recently: Clearing the decks, part 1.

By: Hitch

Hitch — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:15:21 +0000

In reply to RK.

PLOTTO! That’s bascially what that is–it’s Plotto. I don’t know who here has ever seen it or used it or tried to use it, just for S&G’s, but what our illustrious and eloquent RK has recited, above, is just that. Credited with being used by the prolific ESG, in fact.

By: RK

RK — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 00:02:20 +0000

I doubt A.I. was doing any writing of movie scripts back in 2010, but old storytelling formulas have been around for probably as long as storytelling itself has; A.I. merely helped automate the process that used to be done manually. Case in point: I remember back in the 1990s when I was a teenager seeing a Mad magazine feature showing a screenwriter’s formula matrix for writing any kind of movie based on a one-sentence premise. The premises were at the head of the rows, while the genres were at the head of the columns; match the premise with the genre, and—tada!—you get a summary of the entire plot in usually just one sentence.

To give an example, one such premise was “A young man goes to meet his prospective fiancee’s family.” Run it through the genres, and…

Slasher: …her family turns out to be a bunch of deranged killers he has to try to escape.
Romance: …he gets an awkward but enthusiastic welcome from her oddball family, whom he learns to accept (or at least tolerate).
Action: …her family gets taken hostage by terrorists and he has to rescue everybody.
Comedy: …he’s so clumsy and nervous that he ends up accidentally setting her family’s house on fire.
Porno: …the gal’s lustful mother decides to “try out” her prospective son-in-law (in the family’s sex dungeon) to see if he’s “hot enough” for her daughter.
Disney: …her family is impressed to learn the guy’s studying to be a missionary.

While I may be remembering some of the details wrong (since it has been some three decades since I read that issue and I don’t remember which issue it was), the same matrix could be applied to any premise and any genre now. For instance…

Superhero: …the guy’s secretly a masked vigilante, and has to come up with a plausible excuse to step out on his fiancee during the family dinner when his archenemy picks this evening to attack; or the gal and/or her family are all secretly superheroes and they have to come up with plausible excuses to keep stepping out on their family dinner to fight the bad guy(s); or both.

So again, maybe Jonah Hex was a rather formulaic movie, but I don’t think that means A.I. wrote it. If A.I. is being used to make any of these movies now (which would explain some of the more head-scratchingly bizarre turns we’ve seen some movies’ stories take lately), it’s only been to speed up one of the industry’s age-old well-worn practices.

By: Hitch

Hitch — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 18:17:18 +0000

“Man on Fire” is a Denzel remake of an earlier film with Scott Glenn, titled (wait for it) “Man on Fire.” Honestly, I thought that the Glenn version had a different title, but I guess that’s my senility popping up. I preferred the Glenn version, FWIW.

Vis-a-vis Losers: I really like that movie a lot. I think it was undervalued by most. I’d say that they equate to the usual A-team (B Team!) category and all the actors did well, even that pint-sized lady actress whose name eludes me. All the time. (Although, as a woman of decent height, 5’8″ and background, military and martial arts, both, I really can’t abide seeing a 90lb, 5’0″ lady throw a 6’2″ man around the room. Sorry, but…BTDT and **it does not work.** Sorry, men who think that looks cool. I used to be able to do a lot when I was young and fit, but…nyah.)

I thought American Ultra blew chunks. Not to be too blunt.

BENT, yup, with ya there; she was wooden at best. And the ending, the denouement…who didn’t see that coming from about 100 miles away???? Sheesh.

Hitch