The First Law of Bad Literary Novels is simple: there are no happy endings.
It’s the same story with Big, Beautiful Movies with Sad, Stupid Endings.
Now, that’s not to say every book and movie needs a prototypical Hollywood happy ending. Tragedies should have sad endings, and there are plenty of classic movies where the ending is ambiguous.
Rocky actually loses his first fight. The victory comes from not getting knocked out – and from the journey from loser to contender. Rocky suffers, sacrifices and grows. That’s why the movie is good: there’s a big contrast between where Rocky is in Act 1 and where he ends up in Act 3.
The trouble with these movies is the audience doesn’t want to see them again, if they ever saw them in the first place, because the ending sours everybody, despite the beautiful imagery and amazing acting.
I’m not saying you can’t make a great movie without being low-brow and throwing in more explosions than Michael Bay ever dreamed possible.
This tiger is cooler than the other side of the pillow. He’s got authority, doesn’t he? If feels like whatever he said, if he could talk, would automatically have weight, as if he had a British accent and the rumble of James Earl Jones combined. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
Dubai train station and skyline. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
This looks like something George Lucas had his CGI wizards do for STAR WARS EPISODE 12: THE REVENGE OF JAR JAR BINKS, for the scene where Jar Jar lands his shuttle for serious diplomatic negotiations with Trade Federations robots or whatever.
But no, it’s a real photo. I shot it in Dubai, which has the craziest buildings in the world. Some neighborhoods look very old school, like it’s the 1500s, and others are going hard for the Buck Rogers vibe. And until somebody builds something bigger, they’ve got the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which Tom Cruise put to use in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL.
We live in an age when “Boom! Crash!” passes as a good foundation for the lyrics of a hit song. So this young upstart from NZ, Lorde, is quite refreshing in how she treats lyrics as a chance for some poetry set to music.
Maybe she gets it from her mother, a famous poet. I don’t even care if her mom helps write the lyrics, since just about every band these days hires songwriters, choreographers and engineers at the mixboard. You can buy everything and simply show up, if you want.
Here’s the music video, which is interesting:
And below are the lyrics. I like how she flips things, saying a line once, then twisting it the next time. About the only thing to pick on are the “so there” lines, which felt out of place amidst all the imagery and goodness. But it’s a far, far cry from your typical pop song.
TEAM by Lorde
Wait ’til you’re announced
We’ve not yet lost all our graces
The hounds will stay in chains
Look upon Your Greatness and she’ll send the call out
(Send the call out) [15x]
Call all the ladies out
They’re in their finery
A hundred jewels on throats
A hundred jewels between teeth
Now bring my boys in
Their skin in craters like the moon
The moon we love like a brother, while he glows through the room
Dancing around the lies we tell
Dancing around big eyes as well
Even the comatose they don’t dance and tell
[Chorus:]
We live in cities you’ll never see on screen
Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things
Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams
And you know, we’re on each other’s team
I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air, so there
So all the cups got broke shards beneath our feet but it wasn’t my fault
And everyone’s competing for a love they won’t receive
‘Cause what this palace wants is release
[Chorus:]
We live in cities you’ll never see on screen
Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things
Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams
And you know, we’re on each other’s team
I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air
So there
I’m kinda older than I was when I revelled without a care
So there
[Chorus:]
We live in cities you’ll never see on screen
Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things
Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams
And you know, we’re on each other’s team
We’re on each other’s team
And you know, we’re on each other’s team
We’re on each other’s team
And you know, and you know, and you know
This is just a stop sign in Denver and the sun. But somehow, it’s more than that. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
Have you ever kicked yourself for driving past something amazing and not having your Nikon of Infinite Beauty to shoot it?
This is sort of the opposite of that feeling. I was shooting up Denver, CO and didn’t think anything of a boring old stoplight and the blazing sun. But two boring little things combined to make a little magic.
Also: do not look directly at our local star, or expose your camera to our neighborhood starshine. Ruins your eyes and camera sensor. Be careful out there.
So we had some kind of animal lurking about, possibly a mountain lion, which is not a shock because we live smack up against a giant forest. Folks have spotted cougars on our hill time and time again.
The weird part is this critter has apparently decided to live in our backyard. Cougars have a ginormous range, all kinds of territory to patrol and deer to munch, so it’s rare to see them at all. This mystery cat is hanging around for eons.
In the same week, here’s this guy who now lives under a rock by the mailbox.
Oh, hai. I’ve been eating those mice and bugs bothering you. Why are you holding that rock, Mister? Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
Plus five bazillion hummingbirds have taken up shop next door, which is great. Hummingbirds are fearless. They’re like, “Yo, I’m so cute and fast, nobody can touch me. Feed me more sugar water, human!”
HOWEVER: Back to the mystery monster, which freaked out our Hound of the Baskervilles a few times. He keeps barking at the tall grass and trees as if he smells a demon, and this is dog who happily went after a raccoon in the yard even after the went all claw on him, ENTER THE DRAGON style. Do mountain lions eat people? Yeah, sometimes. Wouldn’t want one to randomly pounce on my people.
Now this mystery critter has been captured in a photograph so fuzzy, it makes the Zapruder Film look like 4K high def.
It looks like either an adult bobcat or a baby cougar. Hard to say.
Here are two videos from the Series of Tubes, one of baby cougars and one of an adult bobcat. From the photo versus the videos, I’m guessing bobcat, though I’ve seen other photos and videos where baby cougars have pointier ears, more like the critter in the fuzzy photo, which doesn’t seem to have the short tail of a bobcat.
Won’t know for certain unless we go find it and ask for ID and maybe where its registered to vote. I won’t ask if its Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or vegeterian because hey, that’s personal.
Videos for comparison:
Baby cougars
Bobcat
Sidenote: For years, coworkers and friends in Olympia told me tales of a woman who walks a pet bobcat at night, though she tends to let the bobcat go off-leash, because FREEDOM. Buddy of mine got cornered by it while he walked to the parking lot. He was not amused. A different friend shot a photo of it outside the grocery store. Yeah, the woman takes her pet bobcat shopping when she’s low on 2 percent organic milk. Also, you would not believe how ginormous a bobcat’s paws get. If they had to buy shoes, they’d be size 16EEE.
Houseboat floating along the backwaters of Kerala, India. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
So I’ve been on houseboats in Kerala twice now, and it’s something I’d happily do again. Beautiful.
There’s a network of canals, with rice fields below the canals and villages alongside, all connected to giant lakes. An amazing place. You sleep in the houseboats, eat there, and visit villages. Also: we ate huge local tiger shrimp with massive claws. They looked like extras from STARSHIP TROOPERS.
Bonus photo: closeup shot from the houseboat.
Detail from a houseboat in Kerala, India, floating on the backwaters and canals. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
Columbia River Valley. Yes, this is a ginormous river. Do not try to swim across it. There are also giant sturgeon in here, which are like dinosaur fish, unchanged for a zillion years. Interesting creatures. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
There’s something special about black-and-white landscapes, and not simply because Ansel Adams turned the genre into an art form. This is a stretch of the Columbia River, which is not in Columbia at all, but in Washington state — not to be confused with Washington, D.C., with the D.C. standing for “District of Columbia.” It’s like they WANT us to be confused.
There’s a petrified forest near where I shot this, and on the other side of the river, a row of giant steel horse sculptures that you can hike up to see. Worth your time, if you’re driving on I-90 and need a break. The entire northwest corner of ‘Murica is glorious to photograph: Washington state, Alaska, Hawaii — you could spend a lifetime hauling around a Nikon of Infinite Beauty and shooting up the place. I recommend it.
Shot this at a wedding rehearsal dinner for a cousin, who got married in an actual castle. NOT TOO SHABBY.
Also: we drove around Germany, Belgium, Austria and such in the Citroen of Itty Bittiness, which could get up to about 160 kilometers per hour before shaking to pieces. Everyone is required to rent a car in Europe and zoom-zoom on the Autobahn, which will make you come back to ‘Murica and think that 70 miles an hour is completely nancypants.
Here’s a gratuitous shot of the Citroen, and yes, it had a red roof for some reason. Nobody knew why.
The Citroen of Itty Bittiness goes faster than you think. Photo by Guy Bergstrom.
I’m a huge fan of Scarlett Johanssson and Luc Besson, director of THE TRANSPORTER, THE FIFTH ELEMENT and THE TRANSPORTER PUTS THE FIFTH ELEMENT IN THE TRUNK AND DRIVES IT AROUND EUROPE.
So I saw LUCY last night in this giant building where the floors are sticky and popped corn drenched with fake butter costs $10 a bag.
The previews looked great and word was this movie is interesting, if not weird. Hey, it’s directed by Luc Besson, who I really want to call Jean Luc Besson, so it’s going to be exciting and fast and weird.
Here’s the trailer:
And here’s a great parody trailer:
Is this movie good? Sure. Exciting and different. Worth renting, and maybe watching in the theater.
What keeps it from greatness? The Invincible Hero Problem strikes again.
Hollywood keeps forgetting a simple rule: the villain has to be scarier and tougher than your hero.
Otherwise, there’s no jeopardy, no mystery, and the audience doesn’t care, because we know Reacher will mop the floor with every bad guy, Superman will blast Lex Luther and Keanu Reeves became unstoppable once he stopped saying “Whoa” and realized he was The One.
Invincible heroes are boring.
Lucy becomes impossibly powerful about one-third into this movie. The bad guys have zero chance after that. Zippo. She’s like a blonde Neo who escaped the Matrix, flinging people and cars around, communicated with trees and tapping into cell phone calls simply by looking at the electromagnetic spectrum. She’s a stronger god than Thor at this point, though that would make Chris Hemsworth cry when they film AVENGERS 5: IRON MAN VERSUS BATMAN VERSUS SUPERMAN.
For two-thirds of LUCY, the audience sits back and watches her do whatever she wants. There’s a bit of drama at the end, with the crime lord sneaking up behind her with a gun, though nobody using even 5 percent of their brain believed the villain had a chance of actually shooting her.
A great thriller requires a great villain. The hero has to be an underdog. The weaker you make the hero, and the stronger you make the villain, the better the ending.
Look at THE LEGO MOVIE, where the hero — the little boy — has zero shot of winning against his father, who doesn’t want him playing with his perfectly constructed Lego town. Dad holds all the power and authority. The little boy can’t win by beating his father in a fist-fight. This movie is different, and special, because the hero actually gets the villain to change course by using words instead of bullets, and it makes you cry.
So, peoples of Hollywood, please remember the most basic storytelling rule before you do a page 1 polish of a script that already cost you $5 million and has the names of seven different writers hanging from it already. That rule is simple: the villain must be stronger than the hero. Period. End of story.
If you really want to get crazy, and have some kind of unstoppable hero that you don’t want to change, flip the script and make Captain Invincible Pants your villain. How will the puny humans stop him? Oh, now you’ve got something.
The Red Pen of Doom 