Word: plot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There's a reason King's story feels like a legal thriller: its plot line is melodramatic and painfully one-dimensional. The murder of Byrd is as horrific a crime as can be imagined--chaining a man to a truck and dragging him three miles until he dies of his injuries. And the protagonist is a dime-store white supremacist, spouting anti-black and anti-Semitic dogma and spewing hatred to the bitter end. Last week a Jasper jury tacked a Hollywood ending onto King's life story, convicting him of first-degree murder and sentencing him to death...
...plays on the viewer's emotions more and more as the story unfolds. When first viewed, the events on the eight millimeter film are shocking in their barbarity but not emotionally overwhelming because the girl is just a face with no identity. But as the plot develops, the viewer learns of the girl's past, her family and the remorseless nature of the men who used her and the audience thus forms an emotional investment in the picture and is forced to confront the same moral issues that Wells grapples with. Still, 8MM is a clear cut below Seven...
...claustrophobia. Still, Schumacher was clearly influenced by Fincher, whose chilling directorial methods and artistic flair are better suited to such gritty material. As for Walker, his unflinching style remains as unnerving as ever, but he still has room to grow as a writer. There are several instances where his plot twists and character motivations are slack and lazily conceived, and there is a point near the end where 8MM nearly veers into ludicrousness. Still, as crass as it may be, 8MM is a high-octane thriller with an unwavering level of intensity that is nothing short of admirable. There...
Spanidou's book is as much a meditation on the nature of fear as it is a novel. Plot, subplots and characters all act as vehicles for the author's ruminations...
...simple plot provides a sturdy framework for Spanidou's meticulous examination of her characters. Each is drawn with complexity, such that each of their actions creates further dept. None are either wholly likable or wholly unlikable, and as Fear switches from viewpoint to viewpoint and situation to situation characters become more and then less appealing. Much of the time, for example, the reader is likely to sympathize with Anna. Yet when Spanidou's narrative takes on Val's, the mother's or the father's perspective, it is more difficult to sympathize with Anna...