I am taking some time out at the moment. 2010 is almost over and looking back, I have been incredibly busy at times. I am doing some reading and coding at a leisurely pace. Just recently, I took a transatlantic flight a few days ago and I watched a few movies.
It was quite interesting to me to see how some plot elements were common to the 3 films I saw. I watched "The A-Team", "Robin Hood" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".
The first two films followed very similar plots - there is the introduction of the heroes. The heroes are outside the "law" and are in a few predicaments and ultimately they save the day to clear their names, and achieve a positive outcome so to speak but are betrayed by the "powers". The films are the origin stories leading to adventures that follow.
With "Robin Hood" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo". The lead male characters have flashbacks to childhood memories. As the memories are explained, they are significant as plot devices leading into what follows; interesting coincidence.
All the film were enjoyable. I liked the "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" the most; it was quite a heavy and dark film with the subject matter of a missing girl and the grisly murders that are revealed as the film progresses in the search for the "truth". One thing I really liked about the film how it shows the viewer how in the digital age computers are not everything. There was the need for "old fashioned" investigative journalism to look through old photos and files. The character of Mikael assembled many of the facts he gathered on a wall. I mention this as I am typing on a laptop with a decent sized screen for many things but I really wish I had a mega huge monitor to able to display all things the apps and windows that I would be working with. I know that I am slowed down at times by working this way. By putting the data and photos up on a wall, you can step back and see the big picture and analyse what you are looking at.
Lastly, I am reading the excellent book "Where Good Ideas Come From" by Steven Johnson.