movie

FOWC with Fandango — Movie

Fandango27 Comments
FOWC

It’s March 19, 2023. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “movie.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

One Minute Fiction — Birds on the Wires

Fandango14 Comments

Cyranny offered up her photo above for this week’s One Minute Fiction challenge. The objective of this challenge is to prompt us to take a minute to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by the photo. I’m not doing that this week. Instead, I’m going to respond with a bit of a stream of consciousness post.

When I saw Cyranny’s photo, two things came to mind. First, I saw three birds on telephone wires on a rainy, cold day. My view of them was through a raindrops-covered window with bare tree branches in the background, making me think it was a winter rain. And then I just felt sorry for these three birds outside in the rain on a cold winter day. Those poor birdies.

Second, the 1990 movie starring Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson, “Bird on a Wire,” popped into my head.

I know I saw the movie, but I don’t remember it at all. So I looked up the synopsis on IMDB and here’s what it said…

Rick has been given a new identity by the FBI for helping convict a drug dealing FBI agent. Fifteen years later, his former fiancé recognizes him. Rick’s FBI ‘minder’ has been replaced by a corrupt agent who helps the drug dealing FBI agent and his accomplice locate him. There are many subsequent chase scenes as Rick and girlfriend revisit his former haunts.

That didn’t help. I still don’t recall anything about the movie. And I have no interest in watching it again, as it apparently wasn’t a very memorable movie. It only got a 6.0 (out of 10) star rating from IMDB, a Metascore of 36 (out of 100) from movie critics, and a 26% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.

Apologies to Cyranny and anyone else who was expecting a piece of short flash fiction.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #188

Fandango33 Comments
FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

Let’s have some fun this week. Or what I hope you’ll think is fun. My question is simple. It’s all about favorites. If you were asked to name your absolute favorite in each of the following categories, what would they be:

  • Song
  • Musical artist or group
  • Book
  • Author
  • Movie
  • Television show
  • Movie or TV actor (male & female)
  • Stage play or musical
  • Live concert

Remember, I’m looking for your all-time favorite in each of these categories.

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

FFfPP — It All Went Wrong

Fandango7 Comments

“I don’t understand how this could have happened,” Elliot said. “We rehearsed this stunt dozens of times and each time it was perfect.”

Beth looked over at Elliot and then down at her husband, who was unconscious on the hospital bed, bandages covering most of his head and with tubes inserted into his nose and mouth. “I’m not sure what happened, either, Elliot,” she said. “Keith was confident, not at all worried, when the filming of the action scene started shooting. But here he is, with a broken nose, a broken jaw, and a serious concussion.”

“They canned me, you know,” Elliot said to Beth. “One fuck up in my entire career as a stuntman, and they fire my ass. Elliot will eventually recover, but I’ve been put out to pasture.”

“Well,” Beth said patiently, “Keith was the star of the movie. Now he’s going to be laid up for months and will require multiple surgeries. Plus there might be permanent brain damage. This incident is costing the producers a ton of money. I can’t say I blame them for firing you.”

“I think someone sabotaged my bike,” Elliot said. “That’s the only reason the stunt went wrong and why my rear wheel smashed down on Keith’s head. There’s no other explanation.”

“You mean other than human error?” Beth said. “Face it, Elliot, you screwed up. But look at the bright side. You can probably get a job with a carnival troupe doing bike riding tricks.”

Written for Roger Shipp’s Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner. Photo credit: Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash.

Truthful Tuesday — At the Movies

Fandango17 Comments

Frank, aka PCGuy, has published another one of his Truthful Tuesday posts. This week Frank wants to know…

Have you been to any movies that you absolutely expected to enjoy, but ended up hating? Or perhaps you went begrudgingly to a film with someone else and ended up enjoying it despite your expectations? Let us know about a time when a movie defied your expectations. What made it better or worse than expected?

It’s been nearly two years since I last went to a theater to watch a movie, so I’m going to substitute “been to” with “watched,” as on TV.

Back in the day, I was a big fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels. I read a bunch of them until I finally got to the point that I thought Herbert had squeezed as much out of the idea as possible and so I lost interest.

So when I saw that a new Dune movie was released, I was psyched to watch it.

I read some reviews of the movie and they were all quite positive. I also saw that it was available on HBO Max as well as in theaters, and since we don’t go to movie theaters anymore, but do subscribe to HBO Max, I convinced my wife, who is not a SciFi fan, to watch it with me this past Saturday.

About a third of the way through the movie I noticed that my wife was on her smartphone, probably on Twitter. Obviously she wasn’t thrilled with the movie. Neither was I. It was, at times, slow moving and I found it confusing. The acting was okay, but not enough to overcome my disappointment in the movie overall. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t like it, either.

Now I admit that I read the Dune series of novels when I was in my twenties, so it’s been a long, long time since I read the books. I don’t vividly remember all the details from the first book. So I’m going to reread Herbert’s original Dune novel and then rewatch the movie to see if that makes a difference. But to be honest, my experience has been that most movie adaptations of novels don’t live up to the books. And this movie adaptation of Dune is no exception.

I’d be interested to hear what any of you who watch the movie think.