Stranger Than Fiction joins the long line of films that begin with a great premise, yet fail to deliver the story goods. This failure comes not as a result of bad directing or poor acting choices, but rather as a result of an inconsistent and faulty story structure. When setting up the dramatics of a story it’s important to make sure that the audience understands exactly to whom the story belongs.

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If there is one thing 300 gets right, it’s the awesome spectacle of blood spattering. Matching with uncanny accuracy the images provided by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, director Zack Snyder provides fanboys with the ultimate comic book adaptation.

If only a complete story had accompanied the crimson-soaked celluloid…

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The Annual Comic Convention in San Diego (ComicCon) is going on right now and throughout this weekend. And while the spectacle of geeks and fanboys in various modes of costume always seems to steal the show, the most fantastic and appealing part of the convention, the whole reason for even going there, is the shear wealth of stories that are available to those who attend.

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Bolstered by a captivating performance from Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix serves up one visual delight after another for fans of the book series. Unfortunately, for those of us who have not read the books, the film fails to provide enough story information to go along with the spectacle.

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By far, the most beautifully animated film ever created just so happens to also be the most entertaining. With stunning art direction that rivals the best of live action and animation that would make legendary Disney animator Milt Kahl weep with pride, Ratatouille is the closest thing to perfection we may ever see.

So why then does the film seem so overly long?

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Ensemble stories are always elusive when it comes to interpreting their meaning. Typically, these kinds of stories bring together several separate throughlines with the intention of making some “greater point.” Unfortunately for many, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s Babel is not typical. While compelling and thought-provoking, the film lives up to the confusing nature of its Biblical namesake.

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Most writers understand the importance of having a Goal for characters in a story to strive for. What is less understood is the flip side of that Goal: the Consequence. And while it may seem that any arbitrary relationship will do, the two are dramatically connected in a very precise and simple way.

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Using this theory to analyze great films or TV series is not always an easy thing to do. Unlike other story paradigms which simply seek to find out whether any “commandments” or rules are broken, Dramatica is chiefly concerned with deciphering the author’s original intent. It’s always nice then when you can have your analysis verified by the original writers…

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For those who’ve seen this 1994 action classic, the biggest complaint always centers around that ludicrous fight on the subway. The story was supposed to be about a bus that can’t drop below 50 M.P.H., right? Then how the heck did we end up on a subway? Wasn’t the story supposed to be over by now? It was…

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Having worked with Dramatica for over ten years now, the one thing I’ve come to learn is that there is always a new way of looking at things. Often this new perspective is so simple that I can’t help but smile and think, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?!” This happened to me recently when trying to decipher the throughlines for Michael Mann’s Collateral.

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