Film forensic autopsies aren’t all that popular, and I have to admit, I could do a lot more to make them more readable. It recently occurred to me that plot summaries would be very handy indeed. The films reviewed tend to be mediocre or bad, and it’s often hard to remember the details that we suggest changes for, especially if the reader hasn’t seen the film recently.

So, I’m going to spend a little time writing up plot summaries for some of the films in the archives. I’ll put a plot summary at the head of each autopsy, in a different colour so that if you clearly recall the film, you can just skip it. This will probably take a bit of time, especially when I don’t remember the film all that well myself! But I think it’ll be useful. My autopsies do assume a recent viewing of the film at the moment, and this will allow a greater readership (hopefully) - including people who have’t seen, and/or have no intention of seeing, the film in question. Because sometimes it’s just fun to watch someone pulling something apart.

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You’ve probably seen the creatively edited trailer for “The Shining”, called “Shining” (The competition that spawned it is discussed at Making Light, by the way.) There were quite a few entries in that competition, and “Shining” was clearly the best of them.

So what makes a good creatively edited trailer? It’s not merely enough to pick the spookiest and darkest moments of a romantic comedy, and put scary music over it. The most fun to be had is when the scenes, taken out of context, perfectly fit the new theme while viciously undercutting what they were *supposed* to mean. “Shining” has these moments in spades. The son looking up at room 237, yearning to make contact with Dad. Jack kissing the woman in the shower, cut short enough that you might imagine it was Shelley. The crayon “redruM” on the door, simply a precocious kid looking for attention.

Here is a more recent example - in my view, even better than “Shining”. Look for “Brokeback to the Future” in the “videos” section.

It makes me want to do one of these. I’ve always loved this kind of willful misinterpretation (The Wizard of Oz: “A young girl travels to a surrealistic landscape, kills a woman, then conspires with three strangers to rob and kill the woman’s sister.” Also, my friend Chris wrote a lovely interpretation of the Star Wars series.) But now that my DVD collection has hit critical mass, and transferring them onto computer and editing them have become a piece of cake, my only excuses are time and creative talent.

Hmm. Perhaps I should start a competition. I’ll get back to you all on this one…

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