Complex Numbers

Controversial?

With the end of the month comes the last prompt from "JAFBG"  [XGC].

What's your unpopular writing or book opinion that you know is a bit controversial?

I've discussed some of these in here before. Honestly, though, most of my opinions are about movies, not books. It's still writing.

Some book opinions:

Ulysses is overrated. It's the literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting: random noise upon which the reader can project their own patterns. No, I never read the whole thing. One should not have to read an entire book to know one doesn't like it.

This is more general, but present-tense narratives suck. They're fine for flash fiction, and practically indispensable for joke-telling ("A priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar..."), but with anything longer than a short story, it's exhausting. Like reading a 70,000 word headline. (Yes, I've written stories in the present tense. Short stories.)

The first Harry Potter book was poorly written. It's been a long time since I read it, but what sticks out in my mind are way, way, way too many adverbs, clumsy scene changes, and some truly cringeworthy moments. To Rowling's credit, she got better at writing as she went along. In that case, though, I did read the whole thing. No, I'm not going to weigh in on her personal opinions; I'm only talking about the actual writing in the actual books.

Television:

"Reality" shows suck, full stop. They're not a guilty pleasure for me. Or any kind of pleasure. They are the worst kind of manipulation. And they're scripted, so their entire existence is a lie from the get-go. I'm not against lying (that's what fiction is), but don't pretend it's real. (See also: Blair Witch Project, which wasn't TV so doesn't belong in this section.)

Deep Space Nine was the best Trek. Also, Enterprise was better than Voyager (though Janeway was awesome).

Movies:

I don't get the hate for Cats. It's like everyone has to jump on the hate bandwagon once it reaches some sort of critical mass. Was it a great movie? No. But it doesn't deserve the opprobrium heaped upon it, either.

I liked the Abrams Star Trek movies. All of them. I guess that's not all that controversial an opinion, but since I mentioned Trek up there, I figured I'd say something about the reboots.

Another more general thing, but the Academy Awards are nonsense and have been for a long time. I guess the clue is right there in the name: it represents what other people in the industry think of particular movies. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean that an "Academy-Award-Winning" or "Oscar-nominated" flick is going to appeal to the uncultured masses (in which I include myself), so I don't get why people keep trying to make that a Thing. So what you end up with is people writing, directing, producing and acting in movies tailored to try to win Oscars, instead of telling a compelling story like a movie is supposed to do.

Yes, those are my opinions (though I know the prompt only asked for one; consider the others a bonus). And no, I don't expect people to agree with me; otherwise, it wouldn't be "controversial."

Speaking of movies, you might note that I haven't done any movie reviews lately. That's because the only theater I care to go to right now is the Alamo near my house, and for the last three weeks, they've had nothing I wanted to walk in the freezing cold to go see. It doesn't look good for this week, either. Naturally, this happens right after I subscribe to their effectively unlimited (one free movie a day) pass. Hopefully they'll get some soon that might be worth it to me to check out.

As for next month, I've got some articles to share, but I'll also be doing some prompts for "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]. I'd recommend checking it out if you feel like blogging a bit next month (eight entries over the course of the month). It's not like there's much else to do in February, after all.

And finally, thanks to the folks at "JAFBG"  [XGC] for giving me stuff to rant about and for putting up with my daily posting over there.