However, I love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. A pair of funnier ladies is hard to find. Given that, I did watch a little bit of the 70th Annual Golden Globes last night, mainly while The Good Wife was on commercial breaks (my wife loves that show). From what I saw I came away with three thoughts.
First, Brave shouldn't have won for Animated Feature Film. I love animated movies and I love Pixar but Brave didn't live up to their extremely high standard. It was a good but a little boring and predictable. My vote would have been for ParaNorman.
Second, holy plastic surgery batman! There were a few actresses I didn't even recognize they've had so much work done. Kate Hudson is starting to look an awful lot like Lindsay Lohan (which isn't a good thing) and one gall (who's name is now escaping me, which I realize doesn't help this post) doesn't even look like anyone anymore!
Finally, the last thing that stuck with me and the reason for this post was Quentin Tarantino's acceptance speech for Best Screenplay for his movie Django Unchained. If you haven't seen this movie, it's very good. Don't go see it unless you're prepared for some serious violence and profanity but do go see it. It's funny and sad and action packed and wonderful. The amazing thing about Mr. Tarantino's acceptance speech was the small glimpse he gives into his creative process. Take a look (hint: his speech starts at about 1:12):
He thanks his actors (which is good) and then he goes on to thank a group of friends that he reads scenes to as he writes. Apparently, when he's gone through a scene as many times as he can stand, he then reads the scene to a friend or two. Instead of feedback he simply asks for these people to listen. They are sounding boards. Mr. Tarantino explains that when he reads a scene to a friend he hears it through their ears. For him to take the time to thank this group in front of a live national audience lends weight to how important this step is for him in his creative process.
So here's my question: do you do anything like this?
I've done something similar with my non-fiction. When writing journal articles to be submitted to peer reviewed publications I will sometimes read particularly tricky sections to a colleague in order to see how it flows and to gauge their reaction and level of understanding to the material. But I've never done it for one of my fiction stories. Perhaps I should.
What about you?
