Class and Movies babble.

[davetheanalyzer]

Near the end of the second-to-last month of 2017 and also near the end of my first semester at Albertus Magnus. I submitted my revision of my original work for The Creative Process for our third and final in-person meeting but due to the professor getting sick, the class was cancelled, so I only received feedback recently. For those days, I usually write comments like I’m going to post them on the forum anyway (and usually do), but the others like to write it in different ways, even take notes on the writing samples they print. It seems like they won’t write them in regular post format and were going to hand their physical notes but I got nothing and I didn’t notice anyone giving an indication they wanted to give me something. I might have to email about that.

We finished Margaret Atwood’s last few chapters in November, covering the relationship between reader and writer and how writers take inspiration from the underworld. It was interesting to read how the former had been interpreted across time, the debates of how intimate it should be, and the talk of how writers use an ideal reader to write. Though I can understand the wariness about fame, I can’t be content to publish works and receive no response. Feedback is what keeps me going. I don’t think about ideal reader much, only concentrating on editing the text itself. If I do think about an Ideal Reader, which for me is an amalgamation of various overemotional reviewers I’ve seen online, it’s more to cackle about how they might react to a story segment to come.

For the last chapter, it was interesting to see how writers connected storytelling to death but I didn’t connect to the conceit that writers write because they want to leave something behind. Writing for me is more a compulsion than anything. I can more believe how the underworld often influences the subject matter of stories, as a theme or source of conflict, and that the past falls under the underworld since even yesterday is dead in a sense and will never be resurrected. All in all, a more philosophical read but still informative.

We moved on to the much shorter Wen Chi’s “The Art of Writing,” a series of poems from an ancient Chinese poet and military person that advises on writing. There was a big preface explaining the poet’s context and that the translation tries to capture the spirit of the poems but like all translations can never be exact. With that caveat in mind, these poems seem to demonstrate that writer experience and struggle is far more common than might be thought, regardless of time and place. There was the expression of fear of not being able to produce any more stories, how starting a writing session might be difficult at first but inspiration will flow into you as go, and that people’s stories are often formed from the stories of the past. There is also some basic writing advice, like to not chase trends, be honest, or not have style overcome substance. Things I have heard before but who knows, I might need that basic advice in the future and so it might be one of the ultra rare college books I have that just don’t gather dust.

I have another paper I need to write before semester’s end. It being the final one, I assumed that it would be twice the length of the five to six pagers we did but judging from the word length, it’ll be around four to five pages and it seems like we can choose or expand on any topic we covered before. I’ll be sure to think about the topic I’ll choose next week, when I’ll have time to write a page a day in time for the due date. But the professor also had a workshop date for that week. Since the date fell on a weekday, I emailed to ask if it was a mistake, but likely due to busy and sick, he fell behind on his forum posts and emails, so it took until today for him to confirm and fix the mistake.

As for the Writing Portfolio class, reviewing one or two works a week as usual but the time to submit my revised work is next week. I remember how hard it was to do two pages a day to get to the six page limit, so I’ve started writing this week with a page a day. I felt a sprout of anxiety in anticipation to starting, as it has been awhile since I made my revision notes to myself and I didn’t know how I was going to get through all those changes. When I actually started, I was slow and stressed, unable to decide if something wasn’t working and then having to erase and rewrite passages all over again to get on the right path. I had the same struggle with writing fanfics. I even fell behind a day. I checked my rewrite notes frequently, to remind myself of a direction to try. Today and yesterday, however, the writing became a bit easier, the direction becoming clearer even if I still hesitated and falling further behind. Still, I’ll press on. I hope I can rewrite and edit a submission that feels right and I can be proud of.

In movie news, I saw Marshall last week. After seeing word about it online, I thought it looked interesting and should support it, though I read some critiques of casting a dark-skinned actor to play a historical figure whose light skin influenced his life. Even with that in mind, I enjoyed the movie. It focused on a case in my state where Marshall had to partner with a reluctant local lawyer to defend a black chauffeur accused of raping his white employer. The conflict between Marshall and the local lawyer Sam Friedman was well done. The first impulse is to think Marshall is being harsh but thinking from his perspective, with the stresses and conflicts of his job, it’s understandable he has to push hard to get anything done. Being away from his wife all the time, who loses a baby in pregnancy in the middle of the trial, only compounded matters. Friedman displays the natural reluctance to get involved in a case that might make him a pariah but he slowly came around and the antisemitism he dealt with as a Jewish man led to some solidarity between him and Marshall after they got attacked.

But Marshall could also be wrong, as when he dismissed Friedman’s theory the accusation was a cover up of an affair. That turned out to be right, when a white Northern woman flirted with him which angered some white men. The defendant Joseph Spell seemed lost and scared but he was allowed to have some good moment too, such as when he defended lying about the affair under prosecutorial questioning by citing how the Klan in the South would react. I think that might have been one of the major clinchers that got his Not Guilty verdict. The movie did well to show that time’s prejudice and how talented Marshall was to be able to get good verdicts from the gritted teeth of the justice system, even if he was silenced. It was a limited release, so I had to travel to another city to see it but it was worth the effort.

Yesterday, I saw Thor Ragnorak. It was fun. I can see why focusing on the colorful world of the realms and the ad-lib humor was a strength, yet I could see why a few are put off with the humor interrupting the dramatic moments and most of Thor’s previous supporting characters being shipped off screen or swiftly killed off. It was a pity, I liked some of them, and Thor wasn’t show to have much reaction to these events. I didn’t always feel as into it or feel some parts were fleshed out enough. Still, I did like how Chris Hemworth’s comedy chops were exploited and that his intelligence was highlighted to the point he could keep up with Banner and see Loki’s tricks.

Loki also showed some good comedic moments and his self-interest was balanced well with his genuine pathos with others. Hulk developed nicely as his own character, displaying the usual ego-centeredness of his mental age and the frustrations and dangers of it but showing that he did like his friends and would try to help them. The brief glimpse of his rough and affectionate bond with Valkyrie made me wish it had more screentime. It was sweet and interesting. Bruce’s reaction to being on an alien planet being stress and fear rather than wonder wasn’t what I expected but it was interesting. His dynamic with Thor was interesting, with Thor looking after yet needing him and Banner wanting a normal life even if he can’t stand by when danger is afoot. Though with everything else going on, I wish it had more camera time.

For the new characters, Valkyrie herself is pretty good, funny, cynical, and snarky, with a drinking habit that seems to come up partly to cover up the trauma of losing all of her comrades. She did bad things forcefully recruiting potential fighters for deadly combat, but I could how it was connected to her disillusionment with Asgard and the point of doing anything for good. Yet after Thor’s repeated attempts to reach out to her and Loki making her remember her past, she decides to do something worth dying for. I read some article that said this mirrors indigenous struggles and reclaiming identity, which from what I heard seems accurate. I also read she is bisexual but that got cut over the objections of the director and her actress. Hopefully that won’t get erased if she has any future appearances. This news does makes me wonder what chemistry she and Sif might have. From what I know of their personalities, the ship is tantalizing.

The Grandmaster was camp and amusing, Jeff Goldblum playing a parody of himself, a dictator only interested in entertaining himself. I did enjoy he had limits to cruelty, at least for practicality’s sake or his deluded thoughts of good.  No surprise it doesn’t take much to get the locals to overthrow him. I wonder how he can negotiate himself from execution. He does have that Collector as a brother apparently, depending on the circumstances maybe the latter could bail to the former out and they could continue causing trouble in future installments.

Heimdell did good, using his all-seeing eyes to know when danger is coming to help the people but like before, it doesn’t seem like they developed him enough to do his great actor justice. Skurge wasn’t a bad person but the type who aligns with terrible regimes to save their own hide and do things they have misgivings about. Still, he couldn’t leave with the evacuees like a coward and stand by while they were threatened, so he went down saving them and giving a great middle finger to Hela. Korg was the sweet but eccentric character expected in this film, his experience as a fighter probably compounding how blasé he can be to the carnage around him, but he was willing to help and rallied his fellow escaped fighters to rescue the Asgardians and defend them to the death.

Hela herself was pretty fun and dramatic, though with much of the action taking place on Sakaar, we didn’t see or get her developed as much as she should have been. Her continued thirst for power and conquest, in contrast to how her father stopped and settled for a more peaceful rule, does lead to some interesting commentary on how colonialist and imperialistic Asgard actually is, and that it hasn’t always been doing good after all. Still, that doesn’t condone how she treats the citizens. They might be complicit but they are still ordinary people worth saving. Hela didn’t seem to ever have had any regard for ordinary life, so she believes she should have birthright to the throne despite any of her issues. This is in contrast to Thor, who has come to value innocent life. She values her position and gaining power so much she doesn’t flee when Surtur starts destroying Asgard and attacks, leading to her getting taken down. I don’t know if she’s dead after this but she might at least be quiet for awhile.

The ending is bittersweet with Asgard destroyed but much of the people surviving. With that mid-credit scene of Thanos’ ship coming in and the scenes from the trailer, though I can’t help fearing this might become a downer ending with all Asgardians slaughtered. Since word is Valkyrie will appear in Infinity War, I hope this means she wouldn’t come back to die and that Thor will still have a people resettle when his story ends.

 

That’s all I can think to talk about for now. I’m still coughing from a sickness caught last week, so I’ll go for a check-in tomorrow. I hope I can catch up with my writing and end this semester on a high note. At any rate, see you at the end of 2017!