Umlauts

Umlauts are fascinating.

Way, way back in a time before English had branched off from other Germanic languages, plurals were formed with an –i ending. So mouse was mus, and mice was musi. That plural –i pulled the u forward into umlaut. Later, the –i plural ending disappeared and a whole bunch of other sound changes happened, but we are left with the echo of that mutated vowel in mouse/mice, as well as in foot/feet, tooth/teeth, and other irregular pairs.

Boyhood

Boyhood is quite unlike any film I've ever seen. If you've seen it, you're no doubt a little bit obsessed and want to know more about it. A good place to start is with the Boyhood FAQ, but it's also well worth having a dig through this lot:

• Reviews from all the usual respected sources: Adam Batty at Hope Lies; Ed Williamson at The Shiznit; Neil Alcock at the Incredible Suit; Liz Beardsmith at Empire; and Mark Kermode at The Guardian. 
• Linklater discussing the making of the film on Film4. 
• Drew McWeeny and Ali Gray both give personal accounts of what the film meant to them as fathers (both of which I concur with – it's definitely changed how I think about what's to come in my boy's life).
• Linklater discusses plans for Criterion release of the film.  
• One of the many ways the films marks the passing of time is through a rather fantastic of-the-time(s) soundtrack. The dated opening track alone says a lot about how long this project has been in the works. Here's a complete list of every song used. Any film that takes a moment to discuss I Hate It Here by Wilco is okay by me.  
• Tracklisting for the Black Album.
• Linklater and Hawke interviewed by Esquire.  
• Daily Beast interview with Alabama Worley herself, Patricia Arquette.  
• The New York Times have a fascinating slideshow of star Ellar Coltrane at various ages. In summary: cute, cute, cute and … BLAMMO! puberty.
• As unique as Boyhood is, characters/actors growing up on screen happens on televisions all the time. For example, there's definitely an interesting film to be cut together just using scenes of Sally Draper/Kiernan Shipka in Mad Men (ideally to feature a present-day final scene starring Kathleen Turner … but I digress).
• And for some good old-fashioned reading on paper, I can highly recommend Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes, John Pierson's account of the American indie scene from which Linklater et al sprung. 

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Billy Wilder's ten screenwriting tips

Billy Wilder’s ten screenwriting tips, from Cameron Crowe’s Conversations with Wilder. Can be applied to any form of storytelling, including book cover design.

1. The audience is fickle.

2. Grab 'em by the throat and never let 'em go.

3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character. 

4. Know where you're going.

5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.

7. A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever.

8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they're seeing.

9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.

10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that's it. Don't hang around.

Cinema 2013

Crikey. Despite having a baby following me around all year, I think I've been to the cinema more than ever before! It's all down to the existence of City Screen's amazing baby club, Big Scream. Every Wednesday morning, one of their screens would be full of parents (mostly mums) and their babbling spawn.

The lights would be a little brighter, the sound would be a little lower, but you could sit there and watch a film without too much hassle. Brody would either sleep through it or play on the floor (this mostly involved stealing other babies' toys). It was great, and gave us all a nice family play-date to look forward to each week. It also meant we ended up seeing some absolute crap (The Paperboy), but there were some nice surprises too (I was surprised by how much I loved Les Miserables). 

It wasn't a stunning year for film, but there were a few that stood out: Gravity, Le Week-end, What Maisie Knew. Both Hobbits were great once you got past the fact that they were going far beyond the modest confines of the source material (although I still think Smaug should be pronounced "Smaug" rather than "Smaug"). All the superhero movies were jolly good fun too – I probably enjoyed Thor: The Dark World the most.

A few few big disappointments: Before Midnight threw away the charm of the first two films and just gave us two hours of pretentious bickering; Pacific Rim was embarrassingly shoddy in every possible way; and Danny Boyle followed up his triumphant 2012 ceremonials by … showing off his girlfriend's bits in Trance. That was odd.

Anyway, here's everything I saw on the big screen this year:

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

• The Impossible

• Les Misérables

• Lincoln

• Hitchcock

• Stoker

• Oz the Great and Powerful

• The Paperboy

• Robot and Frank

• Trance

• Oblivion

• The Place Beyond the Pines

• Iron Man 3

• Star Trek Into Darkness

• The Great Gatsby

• Man of Steel

• World War Z

• Before Midnight

• Now You See Me

• Pacific Rim

• The Wolverine

• The World's End

• Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

• Kick-Ass 2

• The Iceman

• Elysium

• What Maisie Knew

• The Way Way Back

• About Time

• Le Week-End

• Gravity

• Thor: The Dark World

• Saving Mr Banks

• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug