Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Does reality matter, anymore?

I honestly have to wonder. Movies are becoming more and more divorced from any semblance of reality, it seems. And I'm not just talking about dopy action films where the hero outruns a nuclear blast on his motorcycle or fights for two hours and is barely wheezing or has little more than a scratch. I'm looking at comedies and dramas and romances and even detective stories that don't even try to be honest or real.

Like "Castle" on ABC. Nice chemistry in the cast, and I accepted long ago that TV mysteries were silly exercises in taking up space between commercials, but to have an experienced detective discuss a case in front of a witness or suspect takes me out of the story. I stopped watching for a while; tried it, again, and it's still doing it.

And "Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows" with Robert Downey Junior (?!) as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson. The movie's set in 1891, but it starts out with Watson using a typewriter that wasn't developed until 10 years later (and which types amazingly neatly) and has him driving an automobile that hadn't been made, yet. And a train keeps rolling after half of it's been blown up...and it goes downhill from there.

But then, in "Notting Hill" the whole "meet cute" bit between Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts was not at ALL believable, especially when she kisses him out of nowhere. Same for the stupid press junket that was supposed to be funny...I think.

BUT...they're all very financially successful. Apparently, people don't care about fidelity to the truth when it comes to...well, to anything.

It's the same in life and politics. Obama was born in Kenya and raised Muslim and is helping destroy the US with his commie ways, despite massive amounts of evidence to show that's nonsense, that he's actually more of a Reaganite than anything else. Global warming is already causing weather patterns to change and adding disruptions to crop cycles, but few people really thinks it's really bad enough to do anything about, yet, when in reality it's probably already too late to stop. Oh...and God created the world in 6 days, even though science has proven the earth and life on it is billions of years old.

Facts don't matter to far too many people. Truth doesn't matter. All that matters is what they believe.

Ranting and raving, right now. I didn't watch the debates because it's not worth my time. Romney's scum who will crush the US if he wins; Obama's a bit better, but is already negotiating back-room changes to Medicare and Social Security with the GOP, thinking for some stupid reason they'll play nice if he does what they want. They haven't yet.

So now I wonder if I care too much about locking my stories into their reality, even if it's a fantastical one? Maybe I need to throw logic out the window and have 4 drunk men sneak a stolen tiger into a stolen police car that the cops aren't even looking for then slip it past a casino's security system and have a man stranded on a rooftop for 48 hours in the middle of Las Vegas with no one noticing he's up there in my script. That'd be the easy way out. And financially successful.

And lazy as shit.

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