đ Hello Reader, I hope you had a great week.
Itâs been a busy week for me, so I didnât have time to summarize the news. Itâs been a slow news week anyway, so thereâs 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 itâs constantly trying to refine a unifying theory of the everything. Iâm 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, donât 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. Iâm not much of an artist. Heck, I failed handwriting class multiple years in a row in elementary (primary) schoolâthis is the reason I now write mainly in caps, albeit still illegibly.
But, when I read Blake Snyderâs book, Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting Youâll Ever Need, my brain fell into a happy place. Snyderâs 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 âBeat SheetââSnyderâs 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 itâs also a fun book for people who like movies and want to understand why one movie may be better than another. If you donât 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 youâll never see on live TV these daysâtwo 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 thatâs 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:Â
AllSides - https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news Â
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.