Chinless Creeps (DD4, Chapter Three, Pages 26a-29)

Last week, Alexandra hoped to reconnect and reconcile with her mother after dinner, but she couldn't find her. And then the midshipman had the gall to ask Katerina to dance. Who even invited that kid?

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Notes on these pages…

• Alexandra tells Vignelli, "you should go in." I will probably re-write this, because A) it repeats Vignelli's "should" from two balloons ago, and B) "should" is one of those anachronistic terms - IIRC we only began to use "should" in this context in the 20th century. To be proper here, Alexandra ought to say "ought." However, I will probably not touch Vignelli's line, "how should I know," because even though it's anachronistic it's very easily read and interpreted as crass, and (as the kids say) I love that for him.
• Similarly, I'll probably also change Katerina's "okay, shut up," and "go away." They're exactly the right sentiment, but I wouldn't mind if they were a little more period-appropriate.

I also *just now* made some revisions to the first three pages above to make the whole idea of "I thought I saw my mother" read more plausibly. It's supposed to feel a little ghost-like, I just hope the coin lands more on that side and less on the "confusing!" side.

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Movies! Please allow me to direct your attention to the 2022 action flop THE 355. I tried to write a longer thing about it because there's something there worth chewing on, but the salient points are as follows:

• I had never heard of this movie until I saw the Blu-Ray in my local public library. I don't understand how a big movie like this completely failed to ping my radar. That seems to happen more and more these days.
• Bad name for a movie! Even once the movie explains what it means, it still doesn't make a lot of sense, and it never becomes evocative.
• The reviews are bad! It got 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. Elsewhere, I enjoyed a comment that asked, "is it feminism that women are now getting to make ridiculous action movies that are just as bad as the ones with a primarily male cast?"
• I was expecting it to be bad bad — and to be sure, I can present a long list of weaknesses — but while I was watching it, my primary feeling was, "everyone who showed up to film this movie did a really solid job." It's not great, but it is professional, which is better than I can say for another action movie I watched recently. And the action is good, too. At one point Jessica Chastain makes a painful-looking jump that you can feel.
• Despite not being good, it has enough of a certain je ne sais quois that I bet someone could write and film a really, really good sequel.

I thought it was interesting. A real curiosity. I hope studios don't take the wrong lesson from it.

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Until next week,
I remain,
staunchly refusing to dance,

TC