Fictional universes vs. fact

Due to the fact that I find movies and TV believable, it's important for me to make a list about the things that make them unreal.
1. Obviously, the time. Details like opening doors and putting on your socks are left out. In movies like Lord of the Rings, epic landscapes whiz by when you really want to stop and take them in.
2. People tell stories that are complete with music, sound effects and actors, giving no account for why the storyteller can remember all that dialogue so vividly, or how a pair of Asians with poor English skills can remember a salesman's conversation in its entirety.
3. The Joker cannot logically be both a 40 year old retired businessman who travels the country in a mobile home, a chemically scarred madman who tries to kill everyone in NewYork, and an obsessive compulsive novelist. Also, the schizophrenic insurance man who starts an underground fighting ring couldn't possibly be the same man who made scientific breakthroughs in the field of gamma radiation research and also be the man who created astounding magic tricks back in the 1800's. It's important to note that an actor will appear in movies that don't have any relationship to their previous movie, despite them being a person in that movie. It is analogous to an uneducated man in real life who has gone through an entire career in the IRS while simultaneously being a spy, a college professor, and a prominent neurosurgeon without the necessary transitions between the jobs.
More observations to come.

Prom Night

Prom night is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The title is similar to campy, but better movies. The story is dull and pointless for half the movie. The killings aren't scary or realistic. The killer looks like the Unabomber, but does nothing surprising.
A pocket knife is the uninspired choice for a killing weapon. And there are large plot holes. Apparently the parents of those kids don't care that their senior prom is being held at a friggin' hotel. I guess they don't mind surprise pregnancies and dropouts.
The dialogue is cheesy. The black girl got complimented on her looks so many times that I began to question the truth of those statements. The prom itself contained so much sickeningly sweet sentimentality that I left the theater in search of snacks instead of enduring the lame dialogue and melodramatic moments.
The prom was glitzy, and unnecessarily so. Despite comments that so-and-so spent a million dollars on it, I didn't buy it. Their prom looked like the academy awards. Perhaps if you're on the rich side of California, it may be similar, but it stretches credibility to the extreme, especially with the addition of a hotel. I've never been to a prom and I didn't believe this one. It was that bad.
Cheap shots were abundant. The killer wasn't scary at all, so I never got truly worried about them. The blood was minimal and fake, as if the director were trying to keep a PG-13 rating on a horror movie.
The scenes of boys and girls being together in hotel rooms made the plot holes obvious to everyone. A sensible parent wouldn't let this sort of mischief happen at the prom, unless they're a fan of unemployment and teen pregnancy.
Everyone acted dumb in the story, too. The hotel manager reacted slowly to the missing staff people, with no explanation. He obviously didn't look busy.
The killer was shown too many times, doing stupid things that made me pity the guy rather than fear him.
The cop was also slow. The info dump at the police station was irritating, even with interruptions. I've seen this same story framed better in other movies.
The female protagonist was dumb. You'd think, when an entire hotel is being evacuated under suspicious circumstances, she'd wonder if the killer was around, even if she were taking medication.
The killer didn't need to kill the guy sent to check on the maid. He could have easily told him a better lie or "I don't know," and go on his way. People aren't that clever, so he would have gotten away with it. That would have made it scarier.
If he posed as a cop, that would have been better, too. Or if he had worked with the cops. None of that happened, though. He was just an ordinary human killer. He wasn't even a terrorist or tied in with the government to give it that international thriller feel.
The preppie prom thing was annoying. The rock and roll soundtrack was inappropriate. The prom "scrapbook" looked like a movie company made it, which was cheesy in and of itself.
Too much screen time was given to the prom deejay, and he didn't even get killed.
The ending was a disappointment. The girl fought back a little and the cop magically pops in and shoots the killer. It's disappointing because she didn't struggle enough with the guy. It wasn't scary and I didn't worry about her that much.
Overall, it was campy, melodramatic and fake. I don't know who picks out these screenplays for production, but this is the poorest choice ever.

"Stranded"

For a number of weeks, I have seen a skinny guy and this fat lady standing on the island at the intersection of Blue Ridge and I-470. He holds a cardboard sign reading "Stranded: Need Work, Clothes, Food." A few things bug me about this couple. One, they can't be truly stranded on that island because they leave their post and go elsewhere. At times the island is desolate. And they're not truly stranded because you can easily walk away from there and go to a gas station or any number of places. Two, those aren't things I have handy in the car. I suppose I could drive them to a shelter or something, but every time I encounter them it's on the way to work and I'll be late.

Dilemma of the era

Everybody talks about the blogosphere, but nobody says anything about its diameter or circumference. Can the answer ever be found?

Writing

I just realized something about writing. You can write about your local area and people will believe it's anywhere if you do it write. For example, if you write about Southmoreland Park in Kansas City and call it "Central Park," telling people that you are actually writing about New York's Central Park, people who have never been to New York will be convinced that you are actually writing about New York, especially when your details involve things found anywhere, like hot dog vendors, kids and picnics. This may sound stupid, but the application of this concept can have staggering effects if done right.

Theater in the park

I just thought of a brilliant idea. Someone needs to get together a theater group to do an interactive version of Othello and other Shakespearian plays. They would naturally be amateur actors, someone who doesn't care how royally screwed up their version of Hamlet and other plays become.
The basic premise is this:
1. Perform the play as usual.
2. Allow audience members to shout directions at the actors, especially those that go against the plot.
3. Have the actors improvise their way through whatever horrible direction they've been given, i.e. Romeo decides to live and keep looking for Juliet, Hamlet decides that maybe he should search for more clues before killing everyone, etc.

Ups and downs

Some people talk about their month having its UPS and downs.
I have Fedex and downs.