In real life, children aren’t always cute; don’t have snappy, adult-sounding comebacks; usually have some piece of green snot or other bodily crud somewhere on their bodies; aren’t always clean or dressed perfectly; and occasionally say the darnedest things. I ought to know. I work in a library that literally crawls with snotty kids every Saturday morning.
Movies also have unreal scenes and settings. In real life, meals don’t always taste good—or all that bad either—even at Grandma’s house, and families don’t always sit down together so they can have some snappy dialogue and food hijinks involving what’s really in the meat loaf. In real life, the average yard is…average, the grass more beige than green, the flowers not always alive or blooming, the trees and bushes not always coiffed like a new hairstyle, the leaves not always raked, the weeds not always pulled, the deck…not always attached to the house. And in real life, the house isn’t that spacious or grand. I doubt I’d ever see my house in a movie. My windows are dirt spotted and grimy on the outside.
Robert Maxwell to the rescue? Hmm. Maybe this spring when I want to see what the outside looks like, but not now. Everything is so wintry and gray.
My carpet is worn and dirty, though I vacuum often, and my hardwood floors are so scuffed that I have throw rugs everywhere. My bathroom is clean, but it’s anything but gleaming. Hard water will do that to your fixtures. My sink, however, is not full of dishes…because I use lots of Styrofoam. My refrigerator is often bare (except for condiments) by the end of the week, and I sometimes hear echoes from my cupboards and cabinets. No, my home will never be in a movie, unless they do a sequel to Animal House.
And please don’t get me started about the so-called jobs people in the movies have. Yeah, I have lots of issues with the movies, and I’ve even thought about being a movie critic, too, but I doubt my reviews would ever go on any poster or DVD cover. In real life, jobs are tedious and frustrating at times, and there’s rarely enough time to flirt, cheat, make conversation, or develop relationships. Folks generally work at work, and the only people hanging around the copy machines are the people repairing them.
Movie people just aren’t real enough for me. In real life, folks spend a lot of time in line: at the Department of Motor Vehicles, in traffic, at the supermarket, or at the “big game.” They do nothing but wait and think, “Here I am again in line, waiting to get into another line.” In real life, people actually read newspapers, novels, magazines, and cell phone manuals silently to themselves in bed late at night until they fall asleep. And in real life, every phone call isn’t life changing, life affirming, mind-blowing, or the least bit shocking—or all that interesting, for that matter.
If Hollywood followed the average person around for twenty-four hours, it would be real, but who would watch it? Who would watch a movie about, well, nothing?
Just look at the average romance or “chick flick.” These movies do pretty well at the box office if there’s chemistry between the two principles, but what real-life romance has chemistry, heat, and passion all the time? In real romance, so much nothing happens that eventually something has to happen—which is usually a burst of passion followed by more nothing. Nothing has the ability to happen for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years at a time (don’t I know it!), leaving the average person time for introspection, a few collected thoughts, a nap, trips to the bathroom, chores, vegging out in front of the TV, another nap, and/or a shower. Can Hollywood put all that in a romantic movie? Of course not! While it is logical and everyone can relate to it, it’s ultimately boring. Something has to happen every nanosecond in romantic comedy, or the romance (and the movie) fizzles.
I know, I know, romance is about hope, about possibilities, about chance encounters, and Hollywood doesn’t have time (or the budget) to be completely real. Hollywood wants to get to the juicy stuff, to get to the passion, to get ’em rolling and writhing in bed, so Hollywood can get to the sunset, to the limo, to the church, and to the credits scrolling during a song that just might win a Grammy.
Maybe I’m too cynical, but reel life can never be real. And though many of the books I review fall short, at least they try to be real.
I flop into my comfy chair, an overstuffed leather lounger, and open four packages, each addressed to “Nisi.” That’s right. I’m just like Madonna or Cher. I am the one-name MAB reviewer. Mama thinks I should use my “Christian” name, but Mama doesn’t know how angry some of these authors can get. My pseudonym gives me a little security, and in a way, I have made a name for myself. If “Nisi” gives a book high marks, the book is good.
The first book is called The Quiet Game, by Anonymous. Hmm. Anonymous? Maybe it’s a big-name author afraid to ruin sales of his or her other books. Either that, or this is a stinker, and the publisher doesn’t want anyone to know who wrote it. No title graphic, just plain black text on a white cover. Most advance review copies I receive are dull like this to save money, I guess. I open and read the first page:
I’ve been playing the quiet game ever since I was a little boy.
I’m good at it. No one has ever beaten me. No matter how much they tried to make me talk, I didn’t talk. No matter how much they tried to make me laugh, I didn’t laugh. No matter what they did, said, or threatened, I didn’t make a sound.
And I still don’t.
I am the champ.
If they only knew what was going through my mind….
If they could only see what I see through my little lens….
I’m not sure that I want to know or see, but at least this book isn’t full of typos so far. I hate that. You wouldn’t believe how sloppy some authors and editors have gotten in their rush to get a quote or two from a reviewer. It’s almost as if I’m reading a first draft half the time. This reads smoothly, but I don’t think this is going to be my cup of tea.
Virginia is as good a place to play the quiet game as any. It’s already quiet. Except for a little strip of rat-racers in Northern Virginia (NoVa) and around D.C. and Richmond, even the people are quiet, silent almost. Not much has changed since the Civil War. I guess Virginians are just as dead as all those ghosts on the battlefields, the ones they charge admission to. I don’t visit them, though.
There might be a ghost out there who can outquiet me, and I can’t let that happen.
Besides, I have my own personal battlefields, and you don’t even have to get a park permit or sit in traffic or stand in line to see them.
All you have to do is read the headlines….
And if you’re not careful, I’m going to put a bullet in your head.
I don’t have to read this one. It has to be a rip-off of the sniper killings a few years back. When will authors get some innovative plots? There is definitely nothing new under the sun. I mean, where’s the mystery in this? I enjoy reading mysteries, I really do, but after reading this first page—and knowing what it’s based on—there’s no point in reading this at all. And I’ll bet the movie version of the whole sniper mess is either in the works or “in the can,” as they say.
Overkill. That’s all this is.
Yeah, it shocked me that a black man was the sniper, just like it shocked all those fool criminal profilers out there who thought he had to be white to be such a sophisticated criminal. The only thing that shocks me more is the book sitting in my hands. This is old news, and it gets published. Sometimes I don’t think the publishers in New York have a single clue about what folks really want to read. “Hey, here’s something that scared the crap out of Americans on the East Coast, Bob. Let’s sell it.” Yeah, and it kept us inside reading. Now that the sniper has been caught and convicted, we’re outside again…and reading less.
I set The Quiet Game aside and wished Vanessa—the president of the Mid-Atlantic Book Review—would stop sending me every book that takes place in Virginia. I wasn’t even living here during