The Last King

If you like long, boring historical dramas like I do, you may want to skip the Last King of Scotland. Its forced dialogue and weak plot failed and made a tragic historical event humorous instead. Which I did not appreciate in the long-run. Forest Whitaker did an excellent portrayal of a paranoid, insane dictator but that didn't save this mediocre film. I don't know how you can screw up a historical event; it's right there in front of you.

It didn't help that the main character was an asshole. He only cared about himself and his sex drive and did a lot of foolish things that killed a few people. While the dictator Idi Amid killed 300,000 people under his regime, Nicholas killed about five people, albeit indirectly. He ran one over and caused about three to be gruesomely executed by his insane boss. The fifth is in there somewhere.

Anyway, that's my review. I've been trying to experiment with some new forms of writing, including writing accurate (decent) movie reviews. It takes practice and so far these leave much to be desired, especially with my random tangents (like this one). However, I am mostly analyzing this film for the objects used in it.

I've been reading Chuck Palahniuk's writing tip essays on his site. They come out once a month and you have to pay to read them, but every time a new one comes out you can read them for free, once you register. They're important to me so I wait and read them.

This month's was on objects used in fiction. It describes how personal effects in a story can have personality and change meaning and progress action. For example, the ring in the Hobbit is a nice, magical trinket but by the Return of the King it is a device of complete wretched evil. I want to start doing this in my fiction, making items a part of the story but it takes practice. Noticing the items in movies is a good way to start.

In the Last King, there is a medicine bottle with poisoned pills instead of aspirin and a bag with the ingredients for an abortion. These items are used to build tension that Nicholas may be caught and executed by the raving dictator he works for.But that's all I can think of.

I can apply this to my day-to-day as well. A couple of days ago I bought a silicon head from a thrift store. It is incredibly creepy, it has real human hair and you can remove the face. I have no idea what it's used for. I named the head Cirby. I wish I could show you pictures, but my camera mysteriously broke. I've been using this cheap, crap one my mother owns.

I went to the zoo today with Dave and brought the head. I took pictures of myself next to random animals, posing with this creepy head. It freaked an antelope out and it grunted at me and lowered its head, about to charge. Several monkeys were so interested they stuck their grubby hands through the wire and groped the head. I whispered to the monkeys, "Yes, yes, yes! Touch it my precious!" I got plenty of weird stares from single mothers pushing strollers and trying to avoid having their kids ever run into people like me.

The peacocks were especially not amused by my antics with the head. They were running around in the mud and squaking at me. I found two eggs sitting by a fence, which I assumed were peahen eggs. I put them in my backpack and have them now. I plan on eating them later. I also found a fake ID.

The pictures we took were amazing. However, I somehow accidentally deleted all the pictures on the camera. It made me very frustrated but not frustrated enough. With this and my camera breaking I should be really angry at the universe. Yeah yeah yeah. But somehow I'm not.

I think the lesson I learned is that art is about living. It's about doing. It's not about showing off. That's the best compensation I can come up with. You don't need to see those pictures and I don't need to show them to you, no matter how amazing they are.

Now I just look at the head as a new opportunity. I have to top whatever I just did. And I will.

How was that for implementing objects into my writing?