lala

We now are on the eve of Oscar night...but really, who cares? Slumdog and Mickey's redemption. Bleh. I am more excited about my netflix que and the movies I will be attending in the near future at revival theaters. Hell, there are even a few interesting movies at the regular theater (by regular I, of course, mean arthouse fop theater). I now am fully submerged in film. My pores are sweating out theories, plots, narrative arc, dialogue in strangely satisfying ways. I know about comic timing, about dramatic pauses, beats, rhythms, algorithms etc. This applies to tv, as well. I can watch any episode of any dramatic show and tell the one sitting close to me who will be the killer, whom not to trust, who will be the love interest, when the narrative will go off-track, on track, etc etc etc. Poor people who sit by me!

Season 1 in Dexter. There is one shot of a seemingly neutral character, a handsome doctor, and immediately pegged Mr. Man (Dr. Man) as the serial killer. How did I do this? Well, the serial killer can't be just some random person who pops out of nowhere in the last episode. The serial killer has to be an established character, so we can have that wow effect. Up to that episode, there were no characters that were viable suspects; the one person we thought to be a killer was too obvious. But this doctor--handsome, charming, non-threatening--was so obviously not obvious that my obvious bells started obviously ringing. Oh sure, the writers threw him at Dexter's sister, but, again, this was a tad too obvious. So without a doubt, I made the prediction that the shit-balls insane suspect is innocent and Dr. is the killer, even though there was absolutely no evidence to prove it! Boy, how that thrilled the people watching the show with me after I ruined the suspense.

Also, I can tell, by the way the camera lingers for perhaps a millisecond too long, whether a character (or dog) will live or die. Especially dogs. It will always be a neutral scene and the character might refer to the dog, whom will run happily into the owners arms. If this has no narrative function then the dog will meet a terrible end; well-structured screenplays have no fat on them, every single moment in every single scene is there for a reason, so if you ask yourself "why is the writer wasting fifteen seconds with a dog", you know that the payoff will be coming shortly--see Audition or Damages for examples of this.

I'm not saying I'm a genius or even an autistic weirdo; all this proves is I am fluent in this language.