tone, or tony or anthony to my mom

(willie)


Sorry, Jen says Tone and I think of A. Soprano, waist management consultant.



Jen, who do you WANT to have written the funeral list? We can be whoever you want.
I think you may be underestimating how long it takes to get to the funeral, but I could be wrong. If it is a 100 minute movie ( a little short) I like getting there to take, say, 30-35 minutes, the funeral itself to take 15, the wake and after-wake to take 30 and the kiss-off to get what scraps are left.

When I go to tell someone else about a movie,( usually with Arseburger-like need to tell details, but ADD-like recollection of them,) I like to get in both the plot/story and the structure. As we all know, most movies these days do not tell the story in the most direct fashion. I bring this up because Love Actually has a very different tone and pace, but is not really that different from the Guy Ritchie movies in structure. Many many many plots seem to be all over the place except they link up with a cute little girl singing.

Maybe that is what is missing from SNATCH, a cute girl singing, or, come to that, any female characters to speak of in either Snatch or Lock Stock. Sure little get-along parts like the diamond merchant's daughters and the Gypsy mom, but not much else- in either one.

Sorry, it just hit me. Kind of like no big male stars in The Women, nark nark. I really didn't like the Women remake.

But back to OUR movie. Let's try not to be Seven plots woven into one tapestry of love and fulfillment, like Love Actually. Let's just introduce our people, make them real, make them have lives offline, but concentrate on the online thing. Then the death and its revelation, some reason and way to go to the funeral ( I vote for two women travel together, pick up one guy all before they get there, so the meeting and mixing isn't too general, then they can also speak aloud the confusion over who is and who isn't an eyester. Voice over is good ( see THE RACHEL PAPERS, where he just talks to the camera now and then) but good old dialogue is better. You know, don't tell me, show me...

So anyway, I return to, ooops, what have I got in my pocket?
Sorry.


Anyway, I return to my thought about that early-middle structure: Jen and Pam meet to travel together, immediately friends, no need for a lot of bonding experiences. Maybe they are on a train (Somebody has to have a laptop. Can you get the internet on a train?) . Trains are better because nobody has to navigate. Then Mike joins them before they get to the funeral, but he needs more back and forth. First of all, he keeps thinking "Pam is even hotter than Jen. Who knew" And then our Three Eye-keteers hit the funeral together where they scan the horizon and eventually find Peter-John and Olivia. Hilarity ensues, or at least serious drinkage. And then, either Peter-John hooks up with Pam or Jen, or Mike does with Olivia. And the couple that doesn't hook up sweetly and earnestly talks into the night. And the hook up isn't immediate or obvious, but it starts there. And one person goes off to bed early, posting one more time before they go to sleep.

And there is a breakfast buffet scene at the hotel the next morning. Sheepish grins, hands held, maybe, laptop on the table a New Day a New Topic. Lots of discussion of hangover cures, toothpicks to hold my eyes open, etc.

By the way, when I have a chance, I like to tell really complicated stories using the salt and pepper shakers and the silverware as characters, maybe even the sugar packets. Can somebody do that in the movie? You know, circles and arrows-style, only using ordinary tableware, as found in homes across America. Mike? Peter-John? Olivia?