Support the arts in schools...and rent a movie.

Good morning!

Last night I paid $10 to sit in a cramped seat and be entertained for a couple of hours.  Did I got to a movie?  No.  I went to a high school musical.  The musical was "Footloose" which, as many of you know is the stage adaptation of the wonderful 1984 movie starring Kevin Bacon. 

I'd never seen the musical version of this story, but my daughter, who worked behind the scenes in props and stage crew, assured me it was wonderful.

And it was.

No, the acting wasn't professional, and yes, the music drowned out some of the singing, as it always seems to do in live performances.  And a couple of times someone forgot a line or missed a step.

Across town, a number of new movies were opening this Friday, movies that, for $10, I could have sat down and watched and either liked or disliked.  As someone who loves movies, and wishes to one day be a movie critic, that would have been a good choice for my Friday night.

But I believe I far more enjoyed the school musical, and here's why:

Actors in school musicals tend to work really, really hard for their parts.  They are so very earnest in doing it right.  Sometimes that translates into stiffness on stage, but so what?  Everyone watching knows that most of these kids are balancing practice with classes, other activities, and jobs.  The amount of effort it takes to be involved in a school play is tremendous...and there are no understudies to back you up if you're sick and no teamsters to drive you places and no food table at every rehearsal.  Some mom might kick in to pick up pizza if a practice runs late.

Everything in a school play is done by the students from the staging to the music to make up and props.  The final scene of "Footloose" where everyone in wearing formal gear  (I hope that's not a spoiler...seriously, the movie came out in 1984...if you don't know how it ends, you should probably fill in the gaps in your movie watching right now.)  many of the dresses clearly came from the closets of the actress's moms who held on to their 1980's era promo dresses because "You never know if you're going to need it."

And let's not forget the director, a teacher, and the music director, also a teacher, who didn't get paid one extra cent to stay at school late into the night to rehearse for the past how many weeks.

Oh sure, there were no CGI effects, the sound was at times dreadful, and face it, certain members of the football team were recruited for this play mostly because they could lift a girl over their heads and not because they could dance.  And no, there wasn't a ton of chemistry between the leads, but come on...they're kids.  How much sexual tension do you really want to see on stage between classmates?

These are kids who aren't getting paid millions to show up for filming.  These are kids who have to overcome a lot of shyness and insecurity just to get dressed in the morning, and there they are, on stage, singing, and dancing, and saying lines in front of parents, teachers, and adults they don't know.  And they are doing it well.

What I'm saying it that I feel my $10 was brilliantly spent last night.  Had I gone to a movie for the same price, I probably would not have felt the same way.  After the play, I got to shake hands with the entire cast and much of the crew.  You never get that at the movies.

So friends, if you've got $10 and you want to be entertained...check out what your local high school are doing on stage before you hit the cineplex.  Face it, it's a crapshoot either way, and if you go to a high school play, you'll at least get to cheer and clap for the hard work the kids put into it.  And who knows?  You might be, as I was last night, really surprised at just how much talent high school kids have.

Doubtful you'll even cheer at the movies.

PS.  If you are in the Waukesha, WI area tonight (may 5) Waukesha North High school is putting on Footloose at 7 tonight and tomorrow (May 6) at 2.  IT's a lot of fun.  Come on and support some great kids doing a really good musical.

Even a potentially bad movie can hold a compelling story at its heart.

Good morning!

So the saga of my thumbs has reached a hilarious peek.  I'm chronicling that over at my humor blog,  It can only happen to Sarah!

But since I was really laid up last night after my cortisone shot, I had the time to watch a made for TV disaster pic called, "Impact." 

I know...not normally what I go for.  But David James Elliott was the star and he's one of those guys I'll pretty much watch in anything.  (By the way...DJE fans?  the picture at the top of this blog...I'm obsessed because this is so a picture of Quinn from my new book.  What movie/TV show is this from?  A FREE COPY OF DREAM IN COLOR to the first person who can tell me, and hook me up with a copy of said TV show/movie.)


Okay, now that my shameless begging it out of the way, let's move on.

There are a lot of movies out there, and I've watched many of them.  There are great movies that were meant to be great.  There are great movies that weren't expected to be great, but wound up being awesome.  ("The Princess Bride" fits into this category.)  There are movies that were supposed to be great, but fell short, and everyone knows it, even if they won't admit to it.  (Lost in Translation comes to mind.)

Of course, there are also movies that are pretty bad, and were sort of meant to be bad, and yet, I love them, but not for obvious reasons.

One of my favorite movies is "Heaven's Burning" a goofy, violent, buddy picture starring Russell Crowe.  I admit it, I watched it at first because of Russell Crowe.  It's early in his career, and filmed in Australia by Australian film makers.  The plot is as convoluted as it is simple.  I'm not going to give you all the details, just go rent it.  It's one of those of inadvertently hilarious movies.  But, and here's my point...at the end, you'll be cheering for the main characters and you'll weep at the very end.  Rent it, I promise you won't regret it.

I'm being serious.

Even bad movies can have a good story.  Take the movie I watched last night.  "IMPACT." It had all the elements of being a potentially bad flick. 

Made for TV? Check. 

Overly dramatic, yet completely unclear title?  Check.

Disaster film?  Check.

Improbable science and/or technology?  Check

Continuity issues?  In spades.  (The whole world is shut down, but a guy can get from Germany to Washington DC in the span of  one scene?  Right.)

However, I sat through all three hours...you read that right...all three hours of the movie.  Not because I love David James Elliott.  That was the reason I rented the movie in the first place, but not the reason I watched it.  I watched it to the very end because, when you stripped away all the explosions, all the military and scientific jargon, all the made up jargon, what you had, at the heart of it all, was a story about a man trying to make life safe for his kids. And when you put DJE with kids...you have magic.   (It didn't hurt that the young boy who played his son...an actor by the name of Owens Best, was completely disarming and wonderful.)

So for me, it was well worth the three house I sat in bed watching this movie.  I found myself drawn in, in spite of the highly unlikely plot.  (Which wound up being a tiny bit of a rip off of the movie "Armageddon.") And yes, I teared up at the very end.

It's the same with books we read, isn't it?  Maybe you don't like a certain genre of book, but you pick one up and you get sucked in because when you peal back all the bits you don't care for, at the heart, there's a compelling story.  As writers, reading books that aren't necessarily in our genre is a good idea.  You can pick up inspiration everywhere, and reading is so vital to writing.

If you lived in a world where everything was exactly the one way you liked things, that would be boring.  You have friends who are different from you, right?  Step outside of your circle of what you love and take a look at something you think is going to stink. 

At the heart of it, you might find something very worthwhile.  And that, my friends, will help you grow as a writer.