Sunday, July 5, 2009

Films and the Romantic Query Letter

I would not be the writer I am today had it not been for romance novels, cookbooks and the films of the 1970’s. The first two I will write about some other time but for now, I’ll share with you my love of film.


By film, I mean motion pictures as a device of self-expression... not the elitist nonsense about cinema as pure art and thus only good if independent, Merchant Ivory or academy bound. Then again neither is it the regurgitated movies made to finance the bottom-line mass-market Saw XIV unimaginative drivel.

What I mean is, film as one person’s genuine desire to communicate an idea. A beautiful story told plain and simple.
Here is what else: I don’t much care where it comes from whether it be The Hollywood machine, the independent dream or some foreign market – just so long as it’s entertaining. I don’t have to always learn something either. There is nothing wrong with a laugh, a cry or a good scare and I don’t want to be made to feel a fool for wanting just that.

I love, love love Mel Brooks, Pedro Almodóvar, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino and John Carpenter and will see anything they make without question. Oh, and anything with Don Knotts in it.

I have quarrels with my friends all the time about the state of films. They think it’s a dying art form and I tell them to shut it for there is genius in our midst: Zach Helm, Sofia Coppola, Felix Chong, Jason Reitman, Spike Jonze, Susanne Bier, Sarah Polley, Park Chan-wook, Marc Forster, Neill Blomkamp, Allen Hughes, Guillermo del Toro and so on and so on…

Tell me if you agree with me or share some your favourite films (I’ve listed seventy of my favourites on lower right and another dozen in my profile).

Yours Simone

1 comment:

  1. You really seem to know your stuff. Sorry, it's me, the almost-history-major...

    But it's good to see a regency romance writer who has actually done her research. I find that some writers just don't take enough care to be historically accurate.

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