Rules for Writing

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According to the Fink:

  1. Write with economy.
  2. Strive for clarity.
  3. Fuh cripesake, stay away from colloquialisms and idioms in formal writing, because people who do that are a dime a dozen. Write your research paper as if you’re composing a textbook for a class; as if it’s fact.
  4. Keep restatement to a minimum. Be careful to not say the same thing twice in as many sentences.
  5. Read your final work out loud to make sure you you haven’t made any careless errors.
  6. Keep in mind that your professor is on the lookout for research papers whose prose is deliberately bloated so as to satisfy the minimum word requirement, or to make it seem as if 60 words are necessary to state what could normally, on any other day, be said in three.  (See Rule #1.)
  7. Don’t use contractions in formal writing; you’ll be penalized for it.
  8. To many people depend on spell checkers that do not detect grammatical errors. If you are unsure about “to” and “too,” ask someone who knows.

Can you tell I’m starting to proofread student work? :-) There are lots of talented and smart students at my school who get a great English and writing education, but who also forget some of the more intricate rules. (The simple ones, too, sometimes.) I also need to follow my own advice, because, as you know, I tend to lean towards the verbose at times, as well as the occasional, comma-infested run-on sentence that, by the time the reader finishes, has lost all continuity, meaning, importance and syntax. And I chop off sentences.

Happy Tunesday

Review: My Week With Marilyn

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In a one-sentence summary, I’d say that this film is a borderline unpleasant story (true stories often are), but with great acting.

Michelle Williams was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Marilyn

The Prince and the Showgirl was one of my many lazy weekend channel-flipping experiences growing up (you know, back when you actually had to physically get up and flip the channel knob on the television). It featured Marilyn Monroe in the beginning stages of her tragic downfall of arriving hours late — if at all — to the set, drugging up, relying heavily on her acting coach to be everything for and go everywhere with her, and generally making producers and directors want to choke her to death. Yet, the fact that she was such a rare and natural presence onscreen cut her an awful lot of slack, right up until the end.

Eddie Redmayne -- *loved* him in "Pillars of the Earth"

In this film, based on the book The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me, Marilyn’s intense need to be adored at all times gets her into trouble. While filming in London with Laurence Olivier, she absorbs into her world a young production assistant and future filmmaker Colin Clark (played wonderfully by the cutest-ever boy-next-door, Eddie Redmayne), and of course he falls hard for her, abandoning his blooming romance with costume worker Lucy (Emma Watson). He is warned by another of Marilyn’s entourage to stay away — that he’d also had a brief fling with Marilyn, and she broke his heart. He ignores the advice, and the plot moves forward.

Kenneth Branagh is a brash and impatient Olivier, and Julia Ormond, whom I haven’t seen in quite awhile, plays his aging and jealous wife, actress Vivien Leigh. Their interaction was stilted and too brief for my taste. (That relationship is a movie in itself, if you ask me.)

I think the movie is saved, of course, by the character of Marilyn so beautifully channeled by Williams. She bedazzles everyone around her, including and especially young Colin, and all forgive her many transgressions that would inevitably lead to her untimely and tragic death just a few years later.

Bottom line: it’s a tell-all movie about a young man’s fling with the most popular woman in the world in 1957. I wish more would have been made of the relationship between Monroe and Olivier (he was, quite curiously, very insecure himself).

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give My Week With Marilyn:

What fresh hades…?

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RtB fiend Will posted a link on my Facebook wall last night: the trailer for the new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie, Dark Shadows. Um…it’s a comedy, people. WHAT?? Talk about a wholesale paradigm shift. Here are my initial reactions:

First — awesome trailer. All serious and dark, then…Curtis Mayfield’s “Super Fly.” HAaAAaAaaaa

Second — it kind of comes off as somewhat Twilight-ish. I don’t know how I feel about that yet.

Third — There’s that familiar Depp puzzled-and-grossed-out look again. Five times, at least, in the trailer. I swear he applies it to every comedic role. Does it work for you?

Fourth — Admit it. At several points, he’s channeling Edward Scissorhands. Maybe it’s the same makeup people.

Fifth — Perhaps the initial premise of Dark Shadows was something Burton felt he couldn’t take seriously, given the tidal wave of negative backlash to the Twilight films (honestly, get over it, right? It’s a movie series, fuh cripesake. Don’t like it? Don’t watch it.). It’s definitely a smart-aleck parody.

Sixth — This is another movie in which Depp is not pretty. No likey.

At first, I was truthfully a bit peeved. The thought immediately popped into my head, “He’s trashed the premise; ruined it.” Where was the creepy music, the alternating sadness and madness in Barnabas’s demeanor, the mists and secrecy and quiet, tortured dignity? The dysfunction of the Collins family appears in garish, cartoony overdo. What am I to make of this? Then, as I watched it again, I figured this might be a case of just taking something for what it is: a director’s wacky, quirky individual interpretation of a “classic” tale. He’s done it before. It’s who he is.

Regardless, I’m so seeing it.

Cripes, is it Finkday yet? Why yes, I believe it is. :-)

¿Por qué? Pourquoi? VI

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  1. Why is it that you can’t wake up enough to shut the window because the air is blowing on your face and giving you a terrible headache, but once you do wake up, the pain is so bad that you wonder how you ever slept in the first place?  :(
  2. Why do some folks ask your opinion or advice when they know they’re just going to do what they want anyway?
  3. Why does Rousseau have such massive flipouts about thunder? Poor pup. Wait a minute. He can go right back to sleepy time when it’s over. I should make him get dressed and go to school with me. Holy carp, a big clap of thunder just hit and he is now glued to the ceiling. Mercy.
  4. Why is it sometimes so easy to let one thing ruin your day?
  5. Why is entertaining the possibility of a huge change in your life so scary? I guess it’s the unknown.
  6. Why is the unknown so scary? Must be based on our intrinsic fear of falling (or failing).
  7. Why am I insomniatic until it’s time to get ready for work? I could sleep like the dead right now, but it’s time to get going…

FO