Save the Cat! | 16 Feb 25
News from the past week, and a few other things.
👋 Hello Reader, I hope you had a great week.
It’s been a busy week for me, so I didn’t have time to summarize the news. It’s been a slow news week anyway, so there’s not much to report (kidding!).
Instead, I present a couple of fun things to lighten the mood.
Save the Cat!
My brain likes to find commonalities and meaning in things. I think it’s constantly trying to refine a unifying theory of the everything. I’m curious about why people do things and why things happen. In line with this, I have checklists and like things to fit into boxes.
But I also know that things in life, especially people, don’t always fit nicely into boxes. Art also falls into this category. Are there rules for art that you could simply follow to make something interesting or appreciated? I have no idea. I’m not much of an artist. Heck, I failed handwriting class multiple years in a row in elementary (primary) school—this is the reason I now write mainly in caps, albeit still illegibly.
But, when I read Blake Snyder’s book, Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, my brain fell into a happy place. Snyder’s book basically provides a formula for screenwriting, even down to what page of the screenplay certain things should be happening in your movie. He even provides the 10 genres that movies fit into. I printed it out and we keep it on our coffee table, along with the “Beat Sheet”—Snyder’s formula for movies.
Here are the 10 genres that Snyder identifies:
Save the Cat is a book written for people who want to write better screenplays for movies, but it’s also a fun book for people who like movies and want to understand why one movie may be better than another. If you don’t care about that kind of stuff and just want to mentally check out when watching a movie, then skip it.
Dean Martin & Lorne Green - Don't fence me in
This is something you’ll never see on live TV these days—two guys on horses. The funniest thing about this video is how the actors have to adjust their acting when the horses decide to do their own thing. At one point, Dean Martin has his back to the TV camera, because that’s the direction his horse wants to face. Too funny.
Have a great week!
The Curator
Two resources to help you be a more discerning reader:
AllSides - https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
Media Bias Chart - https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
Caveat: Even these resources/charts are biased. Who says that the system they use to describe news sources is accurate? Still, hopefully you find them useful as a basic guide or for comparison.