Tag Archives: Casablanca
Kaze: Through with Pauline Kael
A couple of Fridays ago I tucked myself in on the couch and watched, for the fourth or fifth time, The Red Shoes. I’m no expert on ballet movies, but my guess is that The Red Shoes is the most … Read more
What Makes a Great Movie? Notes on Casablanca
The Oscars Week Fest at 317am continues today with the nearly impossible question posed by our title. One way of getting at the issue of great movies would be to collect a list of such films and then extract their … Read more
Pick Six Great Movies
Whenever I teach my short-story class, I find myself talking about the movies. I’ve always presumed that my adult-ed students, few of whom were ever English majors, are less likely to have Flannery O’Connor in common than Casablanca. But there’s … Read more
Don’t Kill Your Characters (reprise)
(While I’m away, here’s something to think about before you knock off another protagonist.) I mentioned some time ago that in my short story class I have very few rules. One of them is this: “No writing about serial killers.” … Read more
So René Descartes walks into a bar…
Did you notice, in that post I wrote last week about the value of brainstorming your story ideas, that I slipped in a little test of your cultural expertise? It was the post about how daunting it can be to … Read more
What Do Casablanca, King Kong, Citizen Kane, and Your Favorite Stories Have in Common? A Writer’s Trick.
Storytelling is your chance to play God. But God doesn’t always have to make sense, whereas you probably do. Storytellers know that the proof is in the ending. If it resonates with the audience, if it feels true in light … Read more
TED THE CAT
Ted the Cat (1994-present) is a domestic shorthair blogger and vers libre poet. He also enjoys sleeping, eating, and lurking. Ted the Cat co-habits with Kaze,
also a blogger at 317am.net.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Kaze
Kaze is Washington DC area writing guru Steve Altman. The nickname is Japanese for “the wind.” Read more »
RasoirJ
Ras at Texas BBQ in DC, site of lunchtime chats with Kaze on the art and agony of writing. Ras is also known in some publishing circles as George Clack. Read more »