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Charlie Wilson's War just came out on DVD. Watching it again after all these months, I was struck by how rich the dialogue is. Something that always ticks me off seeing a movie in the theatre is the (mercifully rare) audience that has been silent for 45 minutes, suddenly laughs because they've finally heard a line from the trailers. It's like they have no ability to judge for themselves if a line is funny or not. But if it's in the trailer, that must be a funny one, here comes the dutiful "Ha ha ha" You just know you're surrounded by the people mentioned previously who absorb advertising, publisher's blurbs, and press releases without ever stopping to consider that this is not an unbiased opinion.

Anyway, back to CWW. Most movies, you can always tell a few lines that are here just for the trailer. A ferociously punchy description of some piece of the plot. In CWW, the thing I realized is they have enough of those to make about 14 different trailers without ever reusing a soundbyte. That's what I meant by rich dialogue.

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, there's another playwright that I certainly respect: Neil Simon. Simon has said that when he started out,he had 5 or 6 jokes on a page, and now that he has matured, it's maybe one-per-page or a little less. He feels that's better and funnier. I had always taken the insight at face value, but now I'm starting to question it. Maybe it depends on the playwright, the environment being depicted, or the subject matter. Or maybe Simon's later works are better simply because they are later works. Maybe it's not the jokes-per-page that is making the diffeence but the natural maturing of a mind as well as an artist. He did lot of living between Plaza Suite and Broadway Bound. He did a lot of writing too. If living and writing aren't the keys to becoming a better writer, I'll be damned if I know what is.

anyway, that's the musing for the day. Have a good one, everybody.