BETA BOY

"We could've written this!"

This refrain was often heard in our kitchen (usually over a glass of bubbly) when James and I came home after a movie and started analyzing where it had gone wrong.

Maybe there was a specific turning point in the narrative that shifted the whole story in the wrong direction. Maybe a character did something so inexplicably out-of-character that the whole thing lost its credibility.

But sometimes, as we went over plot points, themes and epiphanies, it seemed like the scriptwriter simply had not made the best use of all the elements that had already been set up and established in the storyline.

If this character had done this or that in the first quarter of the movie, we reasoned, then this exposition in the third quarter would make a lot more sense. Or this action that feels completely arbitrary might have been salvaged if it was done by a different character or from a different motivation. We often found everything needed to make the story work right there in its narrative bones, but it just hadn't been put together correctly.

After we'd figured out where it had gone wrong, and worked out the fix that could have saved it, it was time to clink those glasses. "Hey, we could've written this!"

I miss those critical download sessions, especially now that I'm grappling with my own busy fictional narrative that needs to be shaped into a coherent story. After my 187 years in journalism, I can still pretty much figure out what does or doesn't work in a movie. But I'm all at sea confronted with the unwieldy text of my own next book.

Among so many other metaphorical hats that my Art Boy wore around here, he was also my most trusted beta reader. If he didn't understand a plot point, even after the long-winded explanation in Chapter 21, or he questioned why a character said or did something peculiar, and my only defense was "because the author said so," I knew it was time to go back to the keyboard.

It was also at his urging that I started reading early drafts of my manuscripts out loud to him. Okay, he just didn't want to have to slog through all those pages in a box, himself, but it turned out to be great for me. If a word or sentence or passage felt clumsy in the mouth, or sounded tinny out loud, even to me, then out it went. Or, at least, it had to be finessed.

We were partners in my literary adventures, just like we were partners in everything else. Flying solo into new terrain still feels weird to me, but I just have to start viewing my own work through the lens of James' logical common sense and healthy skepticism.

Think of all those movies we saved, I tell myself.

We can write this!


(Top: A Book Is a Wondrous Thing, by James Aschbacher)

MAIN STREAM MOVIES

Regular readers will note that I prefer watching movies on a gigantic screen, the way God intended. In the future, no doubt, movies will be digitally implanted directly into our lobes, but at this historical moment, we are somewhere in-between. Move theaters are closed thanks to COVID-19, so we're stuck watching movies on our home screens. With a zillion options, some are more worthy than others, but here are a few titles I've notice popping up on streaming platforms that might be worth your time!

THE ASSISTANT Her new job as office assistant to a famous movie mogul ought to be a dream come true for a bright young college graduate with ambitions to produce her own movies. But it's a nightmare for the conflicted protagonist who discovers enabling her boss's sexual conquests is the unspoken part of her job description in this taut, claustrophobic and entirely effective drama from filmmaker Kitty Green. The focus of her story is not on predators or their victims, but on the system of silence and complicity that allows such misconduct to happen. Julia Garner has the pale, porcelain face of a Renaissance angel, darkening with visceral anxiety over the course of her workday. (R) 87 minutes. (***) (2020) (Amazon Prime)

THE HANDMAIDEN It may seem like an odd collaboration: bad-boy Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park, famed for the violent male revenge melodrama Oldboy, and British author Sarah Waters, whose femme-centric erotic thrillers are set in the Dickensian underworld of Victorian London. But it turns out to be a surprisingly happy match-up in Park's Asian riff on Waters' novel Fingersmith. Filmmaker and source material are both edgy in complementary ways. Gorgeously shot and composed, audacious, and full of witty visual asides, it's a sly entertainment of sex, larceny, deception, double-crosses, and female liberation. (R) 144 minutes. In Korean and Japanese with English subtitles. (***1/2) (2016) (Amazon Prime)

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO This first feature from director Joe Talbot is remarkably assured and absorbing meditation on the mythology of the city's fabled past while its characters — two young black men born and raised in the city — reckon with the uncertainty of its present. As a semi-autobiographical version of himself, Jimmie Fails' character is obsessed with a stately Victorian-style house built by his grandfather that his family no longer possesses. Jonathan Majors offers poignant support as his best friend in this dreamy, splendidly composed mood piece about the search for home and identity in the rapidly evolving city they love. (R) 120 minutes. (***1/2) (2019) (Amazon Prime)

MILLIONS Money doesn't grow on trees, but it does fall out of the sky in this wonderful film from the ever-surprising Danny Boyle, about the comic misadventures of two young brothers in the working-class north of England when they find a mysterious suitcase stuffed with cold cash. Little Alex Eitel is terrific as the boy whose superheroes are the Catholic saints; he's up on all their biographical stats (birth, death, martyrdom), and they keep popping up in the story to help him figure out how to use the money to do good. Boyle's fresh, kinetic filmmaking style complements a touching story that's acute, funny, sophisticated, and full of imagination. Not a kids' film per se, this is a story told from a child's perspective that beguiles viewers of all ages (****) (PG) 97 minutes. (2005) (Disney Plus)

St. Peter (Alun Armstrong) (note keys and halo) instructs Alex Eitel in Millions

SONG OF THE SEA Anyone who loves seals, ancient Celtic folklore, fairy tales or mythology will be utterly charmed by this magical Irish animated feature. Directed by Tomm Moore, whose previous film was the lovely Secret of the Kells, inspired by the famed illuminated manuscript, this Oscar-nominated fable combines traditional tales of the selkies (seals who transform into humans on land) with a stunning visual palette, and an endearing tale of a young girl and her destiny. Every hand-drawn frame of this movie is ravishing — even on a small screen! (PG) 93 minutes. (****) (2014) (Netflix)