Scary, Scary Night

For most of us, Halloween represents kids in cute costumes and parents idling on the sidewalk while their little ones pirouette or rawr at a neighbor's door. We stuff candy into plastic pumpkins and pillowcases and marvel at babies with whiskers drawn on their faces and at six-footers in hockey gear.

Others, however, "see" ghosts and "hear" things that go bump in the night. Halloween raises the hair at the backs of their necks and turns their skin to gooseflesh. These people don't find this time of year precious or fun—and with good reason. They understand things about it that would make the rest of us lock our doors and cower under our beds.

I cede the floor to three writers who know what's afoot tonight: Catie Rhodes, Amanda Stevens, and Debra Kristi. In addition, K. B. Owen gives us an overview of how Halloween traditions arrived in the U.S. and were celebrated in the past.

Catie Rhodes writes about real people in scary situations, and many of her stories are set in her native Texas. She dubs every Friday "Freaky Friday" and recently told tales about a headless Texas horseman and horror in a Houston suburb.

Houston author Amanda Stevens (The Dollmaker, The Restorer) tells an appropriate-for-Halloween story featuring Houston's old Jefferson Davis Hospital at Dark Fairie Tales.

Debra Kristi gets creepy with the tale of a child's encounter with the supernatural .

According to K. B. Owens, we must thank (or curse) the Irish and Scots for the Samhain traditions we celebrate tonight.

I sincerely hope you survive this evening.

GEE, SINCE WHEN IS THE SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY NEW?

Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s plays. At least that was one of the theories thrown around when I was in college. I don’t remember the Earl of Oxford being mentioned, but then again I may not have been paying attention. Probably wasn’t paying attention. And now we have ANONYMOUS, a movie that proposes William Shakespeare was the “barely literate frontman for the Earl of Oxford".

The New York Times review says: “Anonymous,” a costume spectacle directed by Roland Emmerich, from a script by John Orloff, is a vulgar prank on the English literary tradition, a travesty of British history and a brutal insult to the human imagination. Apart from that, it’s not bad.

The outrage is rather amusing. In Warwickshire, where Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon is located, road signs are being covered in protest of the film. Of course, it’s all really an excuse to promote the local tourist spots. Still, as the Showtime hit, THE TUDORS, proved—if it’s great entertainment, nobody cares if it’s rubbish history.

I guess the numbers will tell on Monday whether ANONYMOUS sparked enough interest to bring in the audiences. I’ll see it, but not this weekend. Nope, I’m headed for a flick about another literary great, Hunter Thompson (haven’t figured out the proper font for ‘tongue in cheek’)—RUM DIARIES starring Johnny Depp. Hey, I never claimed to be intellectually enlightened and it is Johnny Depp.

Anyone have any other movie suggestions?

Writers on the Silver Screen

Do lawyers enjoy the depictions of themselves in movies? Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch probably propelled a lot of college students into law school, but lots of courtroom dramas serve up procedural inaccuracies and rafts of bad-guy attorneys. If I were a lawyer, I'd squirm when watching those flicks.

I've read of chefs who consider the finest film depiction of their craft to be Disney's Ratatouille, but car salesmen probably wish Fargo would disappear from the earth.

Writer protagonists in movies often suffer writer's block. They're frequently shown as desperate hacks in thrall to money or alcohol, not art. I can't get enough of them—and I'm not alone.

A recent post at Book Riot about author protagonists on the big and little screens triggered many retweets on Twitter.

Like Dr. B, the Book Riot post's author, I'm a fan of Stranger than Fiction, Castle, and The Squid and the Whale. Warning: the latter serves up adult characters so self-absorbed the movie's painful to watch although well-crafted. I haven't seen Down with Love or Spaced but plan to put both in my Netflix queue. Simon Pegg's in Spaced, and that's all I need to know since I belly-laughed through Hot Fuzz. Go ahead, judge me. I don't mind.

The comments that followed Book Riot's post yielded more movies with writer characters. Judy Lunsford nominated Paper Man, Misery, The Hours, Shakespeare in Love, Finding Forrester, Miss Potter, and Romancing the Stone.

Nice going, Judy! I missed Misery because I'm a 'fraidy cat who avoids anything that hints at horror but recall the others fondly, especially Miss Potter, (which featured Renee Zellweger as children's book author Beatrix Potter) a memorable movie that didn't seem to find its audience. As for Romancing the Stone, be still my heart. Two or three people may think I write because I want to entertain or illuminate the human condition. They're wrong. Deep down, I yearn for the adventure and happy ending the Joan Wilder character found in RtS. Go ahead, judge me. I don't mind.

Book Riot commenter Jeff O'Neal nominated Barton Fink. Good call! The title character, a playwright, leeaves New York for Hollywood lured by the promise of easy screenwriting money. Instead, he finds writer's block. Because misery loves company and I'm often stalled in my writing, I reveled in Barton's agony even though the movie left me with a fear of wallpaper and John Goodman. (I ache for myself and writer friends who hit roadblocks, but when a writer on screen stumbles, the schadenfreude is delicious.)

Speaking of which, another excellent nomination came from commenter Jape: Adaptation. Yes! Barton Fink mined writer's block, but Adaptation drilled a deeper, darker shaft. Its high misery-loves-company quotient invigorates me because, miserable and sick with fear as I am, I'm not quite as anxious and self-loathing as the Charlie Kaufman character, bless him.

My writer-as-protagonist nomination? Ghostwriter. This movie requires the writer to unravel a mystery. When he does, bwa, ha, ha, he must pay the price.

Your turn. What movies or television shows featuring writer characters did/do you find entertaining? Why?