Madmind

Before I write something please watch this video from Thomas D, a musician you probably won’t know. It is the title “Uns trennt das Leben” aka. “Life separates us” (Lyrics in German and English are here) from the album “Lektionen in Demut” aka. “Lessons in Humility”:

Ok, now listen to the very first song of his new follow up album:

Quite a surprise isn’t it? Just when you think that this new album is almost the same in terms of depression and dark notes, he suddenly and completely switches the mood. And for me it absolutely works. I simply couldn’t stop

…

The director hates it and the studio hates it. In a nutshell, this is BABYLON A.D. with Vin Diesel, a sci-fi dystopia which is in some ways similar to CHILDREN OF MEN.

In all truth I never had this urge to watch BABYLON A.D. although I somehow like Vin Diesel for his work in PITCH BLACK and XXX. Well, destiny in the form of a sneak preview can be funny sometimes. While at first I had this I-don’t-want-to-watch-it feeling, it turned out to be a great let’s-look-at-what-went-wrong-here thing, thanks to my gained knowledge about screenwriting.

Learning screenwriting for my 3D animated short A ROBOT’S DREAM was in many ways a great experience so far. Not the writing itself – this one sucks in many ways – but reading books

…

Since yesterday my mind is racing because of a paragraph in Robert McKee’s book STORY that deals with James Bond (and Rambo) and the reason for his massive success. One reason is the big insight I got of screenwriting, or to be more precise of character creation and the other one is a feeling that McKee indeed hit the spot, but on the same time missed some other ones:
“Compare that flat pattern to James Bond. Three seems to be the limit on Rambo’s, but there have been nearly twenty Bond films. Bond goes on and on because the world delights in the repeated revelation of a deep character that contradicts characterization. Bond enjoys playing the lounge lizard: Dressed in a tuxedo, he graces parties, a cocktail glass dangling from his

…

Movies can be interesting. Especially when you get the chance to watch an example in which the writers tried to tell a message but forgot to fill some massive plot holes along the way.

So, what am I writing about? Exactly, UNTRACEABLE. I recently watched this serial-killer movie in which an FBI Agent has to track down a really nasty guy who uses the internet and its geeks/nerds/users for his “work”. In other words: he showcases a victim on the net and the higher the hits/views on the video stream the faster the victims dies.

Now, this is something that would sound to be material from Awesome-Land which cannot fail. But for some reason unknown to me, the writers not only managed to fill in some “politics”, but also built a monumental

…

Did you ever watch a movie in which the main protagonist acted like a complete idiot for no apparent reason? If your answer is yes you must have watched a German comedy…

Sometimes I am really glad to be able to watch (major) Hollywood movies. Despite their lack of truly good stories lately they at least manage to create characters that are not complete idiots who would be better off dead. It is an accomplishment to be proud of. In comparison German screenwriter seem to lack everything of how to write a good character – at least in comedy movies.

Yesterday I watched a German comedy movie called HARDCOVER. It revolves around a writer of pulp crime stories who finally want to write something good and decides to investigate the real life

…