Compel

In which one character is out of control.      "Yeah, could I have a large Dr. Pepper?"       "What are you doing, Jared?" asked Chris.      "I am ordering a large Dr. Pepper at a McDonald's drive-thru, my dude, what does it look like?"     "No. You did this last time. You can't do it again!"      "Whoa, calm yourself. I don't need shit stains all over my passenger seat."     "Jared. No. I know what you're doing! You gotta stop this, man. Please don't give him the Dr. Pepper," Chris yelled back at the drive-thru speaker. It was too late. Jared was pulling the old Taurus station wagon forward. They were next in line at the window.      "Everything is going to be fine, dude. Relax."     "Nothing is fine! You can't keep doing shit like this."     "Keep your seatbelt on. Buckle up for safety, right?"     "I'm not gonna keep my fucking seatbelt on," said Chris, sq...

Two characters disguising what they really want.      Ollie shuffled toward the front of the room while his classmates all trotted out toward the cafeteria. "Mrs. Leslie?" he asked.      "Yes, Ollie?" she said, looking up from the pile of papers on her desk.      "I was just thinking that maybe you needed some help. You know, with the grading?"      "No, I think I can manage. It's lunchtime. I'm sure you're famished, and sick of sitting in classrooms all morning."      "Oh, no I'm not sick of it at all. Really. If you wanted, I could just eat my lunch in here. I could clean up the classroom for 4th period too."      "That's very sweet of you, Ollie, but I'm sure your friends will miss you out in the cafeteria. Isn't there always a game of dodgeball in the gym after you all eat? Sounds like a blast!"      "I hate dodgeball. Are you sure you don't need help, Mrs. Leslie. I just think b...

Pr omising Young Woman is uncomfortable. It wants to be. It's jab after jab at the predatory culture we've allowed to happen, in which "nice guys" can take advantage of girls who may not be sober enough to "deny consent." But it's a left hook at the institutions that have empowered these promising young men to act with impunity, and it's an uppercut to our expectations.  I watched the blooming romance between Bo Burnham and Carey Mulligan and thought, oh that's nice, it's turning into a rom com. There was always going to be renewed conflict in which Mulligan's Cassie gets pulled back into her dark pursuit of vigilante justice for her friend who killed herself after being raped in med school.  But the movie's climactic scene doesn't play out like I'm anticipating. Cassie, dressed like a mid-century nurse (interesting commentary there) has her friend's assailant handcuffed to the bed at his bachelor party. She is about to ca...

There's this weird thing in life where we wish everything was exciting. We wish everything was about discovery and the feelings associated with something new and fantastic.  Think of it like this. If I were exploring thermal vents and found a bizarre looking species of fish that hovers around them in the deep ocean, I might get pretty excited. I'm already 20,000 leagues under the sea in a submersible. Hollywood as fuck. But not only that, I discover a new species. Wow! So what next? Well, I have to catch one. Collect a sample. I have to go back up to the boat. I have to float back across the ocean to the shore, through probably angry waters. I have to go to my laboratory. I have to where a white coat and goggles and gloves. I have to take very good care of my sample. I have to put parts of it under a microscope and get data to put into a computer to compare with other similar species to see the differences. I have to read lots of scientific names and whatnot. I have to write a ...

Both characters trying to win the conversation: Bri held up his Kyrrin and looked at it carefully. This particular carving seemed to be in a stiff wind. The artist did well with the coloring, too—gray, black, and crimson gradiated throughout the figure. He held it close to see if the artist had left their signature on its base. Yes. There it was. A tree with a door in its trunk. Curious. He’d never seen the symbol before. “Are you taking your turn, or have you just removed that piece from the board?” asked his brother. “I’m happy to accept the latter.” E’Li was always so formal, so serious. Even when he was ribbing Bri it was done with an air of formality. Where the fath had it come from? Their mother was long dead; Bri had no recollection of her manner, which meant E’Li had no recollection either. They were twins, and Bri was the elder. Their father, on the other hand, was a dockman. E’Rydyn paid little heed to formality in all its shapes. A hard day’s work, a stiff drink, a smoke...

Bonnie and Clyde was unwatchable for me. I literally stopped watching. There were some fun elements: the idea was fun (there's nothing like a bank robbery movie); the character concepts worked; I respect the car chase and shootout scenes for what they were trying to do.  Overall, though, it was a bad script and it was tough to tell if the directing was awful, or the editing, or both. The introduction of CW Moss as a character was one of the most awkward scenes I've watched. It honestly felt like this movie took place on an alien world much like ours but with slightly different customs.  If this movie were made today, I think it would have focused much more on a Robin Hood through-line. The scene where Bonnie and Clyde are doing some shooting practice, and we see a Depression family pull up to the house they lost and take pot shots at it with our two heroes would have been a jumping off point. They don't just rob banks: they rob banks to return money to the families who'...