While I’m on the subject, I’ve had a couple of movie-related observations lately. One, the practice of using a quick cut just before an expletive in a commercial or trailer (as in “We’re gonna kick some –!” or “You low-down rotten son of –!”) is getting really annoying. I know there’s a fine line that’s being skirted here and that most trailers need to be suitable for all ages, but give it a rest already, would ya?

The other thing I’ve noticed is that when characters who are writers use in their books things that other characters have said — things that we, the audience, have heard them say earlier in the film — it’s usually just an excuse for the writer of the screenplay to trot them out again because he or she is so darn proud of them. Yes, writers do draw on real life, and sometimes they even quote it directly. I’m not denying that. I recognize that, within the story of the film, it’s usually just a quick way of showing that one character has touched another on some level. (“That thing you said to me was so life-changing I used it in a book, man!”) But the trouble is this — and it’s a trouble I’ve noticed from time to time in writing workshops — just because something happened exactly as you described it, that doesn’t mean it’s good writing. And, in a film, a lousy line of dialogue is probably going to be equally lousy or more so the second time around.