Tellybox Tuesday – Car Crash TV

Television

This weeks television choice is Jeremy Kyle, now just for anyone from outside the UK I am sharing an episode here but don’t worry about watching all of it five minutes will tell you all you need to know…

Now you might wonder how this can relate back to writing but the truth is that truth is stranger than fiction at times.  If you wrote half the stories that appear on the show as fiction the reviews would all say the storylines were unbelievable.  But from a writing point of view it can be worth watching occasionally, most of us will never know what it is like to suffer some of the worst things in life but the guests on the show sometimes display the real depth of pain and emotion that are the consequences of addiction, abuse and illness.  While at times the show does seem to just dwell on the worst aspects of human nature there are times when it does show the amazing things people do and can live with, I never forget it was on this show I saw Haley Okines the girl who sadly passed away earlier this year from Progeria. Also these types of programmes can be a good way to observe body language and to help discover ways to convey action in different ways.

Film

The film this week is Maleficent lets start with the trailer for anyone who has not seen it…

I will confess I only recently watched this for the first time, having a son now rather than a young daughter probably delayed me having to see this and my daughter was fully prepared for most of the ranting I did while watching the film.  Now I am going to be as far as I can the film was okay for what it was it is the very fact the film exists that I really have an issue with.  Firstly Sleeping Beauty is a story we all know, it existed in various forms before Disney got their hands, nowhere did it ever suggest the evil witch suddenly went soppy over Beauty and woke her up herself.  I get they wanted to do a twist on what the traditional story was, a retelling but my question is why? Why not come up with an original idea? Why not do a retelling in such a way it is not directly negating the plot of the previous film?  Why do we need to be understanding over Maleficent herself? I get the theme of heart break, bitterness that consumes, hasty action regretted and redemption but first from about two minutes in the film it was clear what the plot was going to be, and secondly we do not get a realistic ending.  Are we supposed to believe that Beauty just wakes up and forgives her for cursing her, destroying her family and the life she could have had?

The truth is if this had been a completely new story I might have believed it, it might have resonated but to try to rewrite something so well known just does not do it for me, it is cashing in on the franchise in the worst possible way because it takes away from the memories of those who watched, bought and rebought the original in different formats over the years and takes away the pleasure they have of sharing the story with future generations because for many of them it will be the new shiny technically advanced story that will stay in their minds, but hey that’s just my opinion.

YouTube

Two videos this week but you will understand why, the first is the final finished project the second it the behind the scenes making of video and I always find these really interesting.  I tend to shoot my vlogs in one take sat in my house occasionally I might insert a couple of clips of photos but it is pretty basic so to watch the hours of filming numerous cameras and think about the hours spent editing fascinates me and though of course this does not show all the footage and the post production it does give an insight into the shooting process.