The Death of the Method?


In the past, I've been a proponent of the Banes Method - really, the Save the Cat Method - of story construction and story improvement.

The method became all the rage in film production in Hollywood apparently - and has received some criticism as well, for being ...

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Based on Banes' newspost about the latest Dave Chappelle comedy special, this Quackcast talks about the way audience reception to it has been somewhat divided based on ...

Game of (Sticks and) Stones

I heard about the new Dave Chappelle special, Sticks and Stones, and couldn't wait to finish the long work day to get home and watch it.

A lot of it was hysterical and I was laughing loudly, sounding like some kind of sick donkey ...

Prospector and babysitter, Isaac Alden, know all about the great tragedy that happened in Grand Lake, Colorado, on July 4, 1883. On that day, Bob Plummer was shot to death by Wilson Waldren, who was also a county commissioner. This shooting shows the lack of impulse control of some of ...

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Cooperation Vs Competition. For decades the mantra was competition is good: it produces progress and makes things better… Well that's actually false. Competition is what you ...

So, full disclosure: I am spoiler immune.

I don't really care if I know how a story ends, or where the twist is. I might even enjoy it more as I anticipate it. I will watch the movie without issue and still enjoy it just as much.

Granted, when ...

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Sometimes your audience just doesn't pick up on the clever symbolism, the hints, the metaphor, the underlying themes and all the artistic cleverness in writing and ...

In an attempt to cool down during the heatwave that has taken over two-thirds of the country, all Saturday was spent at the movie theater watching Toy Story 4 and the new Iive-action Lion King movie on IMAX. Toy Story 4 picked up where Toy Story 3 left off and ...

So I watched Hacksaw Ridge the other day (okay it was yesterday) and it was impressive.

Not so much as a movie (though that was quite decent) but the story. The story was amazing.

It's about a man named Desmond Doss who enlists in the army during WWII to ...

The Mysterious Stranger


This is about ‘the mysterious stranger’ in fiction. Well, one of the variations of that, at least. I'm not talking about the mysterious stranger who becomes the MC's lover in a romance novel, or the mysterious stranger who knocks on the door or gets into ...