Arrival - a review plus randomocity

Just got back from seeing Arrival, finally.

I'll just get this out of the way and tell you that I loved it. For once someone has made a science fiction movie for grown ups. It's rich in subtext and meaning, and mostly skips the bombast and explosions. There are some explosions, but only a few. Mostly it's a delightfully quiet movie, beautiful and moving, with an ending that literally left me in tears.

Only complaint? It gets just a tad draggy at the beginning of the second act.

Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner are brilliant. Direction, screenplay, cinematography, film score are all perfect. I recommend it highly. I'll be getting this one on BluRay when it's available, and will probably put it into heavy rotation, at least for a while.

I'm giving this an A. I would give it an A+ except for that slightly draggy period right at the beginning of the second act. Don't let that stop you. See it. Please. We desperately need more movies like this.

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. Life got kind of crazy for me, there, for a little while, and I've been spending as much time as I can writing screenplays. Plus there's a personal situation kind of hanging over my head--I've had a little bit of relief in that area, though, lately. Hopefully things will work out.

I finished my first draft of my horror film, "Fell." I'm re-reading it and making notes before beginning the first rewrite. So far I'm feeling okay about it--there are one or two things that I'm sort of iffy on and need to think over. And it's just not scary enough. Since that's kind of the point, that's something that needs to be addressed. Anyway, that's the plan for the upcoming holiday--going to put it some time on that one, slicing and dicing and putting it all back together again.

The good news about the partial lifting of the cloud that's been over my head for a year now is I feel like I can start moving forward on developing and shooting my short film, "My Creature." I just need to figure out how much it's going to cost, and then figure out where that money is going to come from. Easy peasy. Right.

So, that's where I am now. How go things with you?