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Movie Reviews

Halloween 2018 Review: Murder by Exposition

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(Spoiler-free)

Alright, this review is admittedly late to the party, but there is a method to the madness. I’ll get to it shortly…

First of all, this is a solid sequel and worthy addition to the series. It takes a purist approach by following the groundwork laid in Carpenter’s 1978 genre-creating classic; it doesn’t set arbitrary values for itself like “higher body count” or “more exotic killings,” it doesn’t add extraneous and tangential plot detours to desperately contrive enough story for a new movie, and it doesn’t eat up copious screen time pursuing answers to questions that nobody asked.

All in all, the plot, cinematography, score, and acting effectively elevate the film to such levels that they compensate for some of its lesser qualities and make for an enjoyable watch that’s uniquely worthy of a trip to the theater.

Big deal, you say. That reads like all the other reviews for this movie. So now we come to the reason for this one. There’s a screenwriting elephant in the room that no one seems to be talking about, and I think deserves some attention. Many of the script choices in this movie are highly questionable, and some are just plain weird. Some subplots don’t go anywhere, some “twists” are merely plot contrivances to serve convenient ends, etc. but these are relatively negligible and even forgivable as they tend to fall below the line of suspension of disbelief. My beef with the writing lies elsewhere.

More brutal than the stabs to heart or claw hammers to the skull is the dialog that lands squarely on the nose. And I mean RIGHT on it. Let’s look at one brief exchange from the trailer…

When protagonist Laurie confesses that she hoped spree killer Michael Myers would escape from prison, and she’s asked why; her stunning reply is “so I can kill him.” Now, trailer dialog always entails the caveat that we’re hearing it out of context, so we’re left to think that maybe there’s more to this conversation and it’ll play out much better in its totality. But, no. Like virtually everything from Halloween’s trailers, what we see is what we get.

As a friendly reminder, I liked this movie and Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance in it, but there is no measure for the awfulness of this line. The dramatic punch that the circumstances suggest it’s supposed to have falls miserably flat due to its blatancy, total lack of nuance, and utter failure to do its job of delivering the emotion of the character with a certain eloquent poetry that would never be uttered by a gruff old vigilante speaking of shooting a slasher in the face, but is called for in the name of satisfying storytelling.

In the words of Christopher McQuarrie, “think of what you want to say, and then don’t say it.” Dialog is never just a filmmaker-to-audience conduit for story information. It should be an ornament that adds flavor and style to the film, while covertly imparting exposition under the viewer’s nose. There is no more exigent situation for heeding this advice than this moment from Halloween. Countless preferable responses could have elevated that moment into something like what it was intended to be. Let’s explore a few…

Laurie: Do you know that I prayed every night that he would escape?
Hawkins: What the hell did you do that for?
Laurie: So I can kill him. So I can finish what Dr. Loomis started.

Or

Laurie: Because what he needs can’t be done while he’s locked up.

Or

Laurie: Some animals shouldn’t be caged. They have to be put down.

Or

Laurie: The cops and shrinks don’t know how to deal with him. I do.

Or

Laurie: Because he doesn’t deserve to die of old age.

See? None of these are great. They’re the product of about three minutes of brainstorming, but I’ll stand by any one of them as superior to that black hole of subtlety that made it into the film.

After really harping on that one line, I hate to say that it’s not the least bit rare among this film’s dialog. Every spoken word either serves to explain the plot to us or intimate precisely what the character is thinking, leaving absolutely nothing for us to decipher for ourselves. Need further evidence?

Martin: We’re here to investigate a patient that killed three innocent teenagers on Halloween, 1978. He was shot by his own psychiatrist and taken into custody that night, and has spent the last forty years in captivity.

Laurie: I need to protect my family. You have no security system, Karen.
Karen: Mom, you need help!
Laurie: Evil is real.

Laurie: He is a killer. But he will be killed tonight.

It is certainly true that Loomis had some musing monologues in the original that were borderline clunky (and would have been laughable if not delivered by the likes of Donald Pleasance), but that can be at least partially chalked up to breaking in a new kind of character in a new subgenre; and it doesn’t nearly approach the awkwardness with which the speech in the latest installment comes across.

What’s troubling here is that so many other features of the movie are so good, and this one is so easily fixed with some quick and easy tweaking. Oh well, perhaps this will be addressed in the inevitable sequel(s).

What do you think? How did you find the dialog; and the movie in general? Let us know!

Movie Reviews

The Predator Review: They Were Shooting In All Directions… and Hit Nothing

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(Spoiler-free)

There’s no need to go over the amount of anticipation that comes with this one, or the fact that comparisons to the first one are unavoidable. Let’s just get into whether it delivers or not…

Like the original, it opens with a Predator ship entering Earth’s orbit and delivering a creature to the surface. But this time, instead of just a quick shot to set up the premise that we’re dealing with an alien, it’s a more convoluted space chase that ends up being a significant setup for a later reveal. In this intro sequence, we get a lot of stuff happening, information thrown at us that we should store for later, and nothing too engaging in any of it. I’m sorry to say, this is an apt microcosm of the entire movie.

We’re soon introduced to protagonist McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), an Army Ranger sniper who is mid-op with his team, when they get attacked by the recently arrived Predator and we’re given another rushed and crammed sequence in which they essentially try to do the first movie in about two minutes or less. McKenna’s team gets wiped out, which he lets us know he’s upset about in a few lines of dialog, but we didn’t get to know them at all, so who cares?

This necessitates McKenna being brought to a secret government lab full of scientists and mercenaries who have been studying the Predators for years, want to maintain their secrecy, and are wondering why the visits are rising in frequency. He is transferred there with a group of combat-hardened misfit military prisoners that will become his new team, and this is where the wisecracks really start flying, the action set pieces start popping off, and one of the greatest flaws of the movie becomes glaringly obvious….

It’s packed with misfires. The humor doesn’t land, the spectacle doesn’t excite, and the characters don’t draw us in. What’s worse is that it’s made blatantly obvious what we’re supposed to be feeling and when, particularly in a few moments that are intended to be especially dramatic, but it just isn’t happening. Like the acquaintance constantly uttering bad jokes and leaving pauses where you’re expected to laugh, but it just isn’t in you.

The 1987 masterpiece got us attached to seven characters effortlessly in a short helicopter ride, with almost no talking among them. Here we’re introduced by a quick exchange of quips and a bit of clunky exposition, which is usually the kind of setup given to expendable fodder, but in this case we’re actually expected to care what happens to them without any proper emotional foundation.

We have McKenna. He’s tough, and everything he does and says reminds you of that. His kid is part of the story (who admittedly manages not to not be too annoying). He’s a genius, and everything he does and says reminds you of that. Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes is McKenna’s instant best buddy, who has his back, and everything he does and says reminds you of that. Thomas Jane (is wasted) as the crazy guy, and everything he does and says reminds you of that. See a pattern emerging here?

So then we’re onto the main conflict, which involves a Super Predator, because the regular one isn’t formidable enough, more one-liners, explosions, some disturbingly odd-looking CGI, awkward shots (the flat-angle medium shot used to introduce Olivia Munn, the hot, tough lady scientist, is laugh-out-loud-worthy), a lot of plot-convenient occurrences, choices and actions without clear motivations (from humans and extraterrestrials alike), and it all goes by at such breakneck speed that is easily outpaces the audience’s interest.

In the end, we’re left with a wholly unsatisfying mess of a movie, and they also hit us over the head with an asinine politically-charged theme to add insult to injury. However, a few witty digs inspire some chuckles (especially from Keegan-Michael Key), and some actions scenes rise to the level of “that was kinda cool, I guess,” but that’s about as good as it gets here. It’s not a pleasant things to report, but my bleak predictions from the trailer came true, and then some. This does more (or less) than not live up to the hype. It’s likely to disappoint committed fans and newcomers alike.

Screenwriting Issue of the Day

Writer’s Bliss: The Creative Breakthrough

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Rewriting is, by and large, problem-solving. We clip the stuff that isn’t necessary, add the things that are missing, rearrange and refashion the ideas that aren’t being expressed with maximum clarity and effectiveness, and generally engineer a narrative that will hopefully instill in the reader/ audience the same roused fervor that incited us to write it in the first place.

This means a lot of whittling and fiddling. We spend hours contemplating solutions to ideas that aren’t working and sentiments that aren’t coming through. We list the alternatives, draw out mind maps, watch or read the greats, stare at the wall, etc. Maybe we get flustered and step away to reorganize the DVD collection, clean the bathroom, or think about starting another script. It’s a fight to push through all this resistance and commit to the trial and error of making those needed alterations and get the story going in a more cohesive and engaging direction.

I think the best of us revel in this process, regardless of the individual’s workflow. As exhausting as it is, the wherewithal to inflict this mental, emotional, and intellectual self-torture on a regular basis separates those who could have a career and those who become a statistic.

BUT…

There are also those moments that come along and remind us why we do it, and why we fancy this more than anything else. Those precious nuggets that make the process – not only not miserable – but a great pleasure in itself. The pinnacle of these is the creative breakthrough.

This is a different animal from the typical hard-won story fix that materializes from the aforementioned grind. These are those ideas that spring forth, maybe as a result of some serious brainstorming, perhaps after spending some much-needed time away from the piece, or most intriguing of all, without warning while we’re focused on something else. And they have some amazing attributes that truly set them apart…

They’re simple: So many story logic issues, overwritten tangents, flat sequences, disagreements between character or plot actions, etc. necessitate a bunch of explanatory fluff as a vain attempt to square those circles. When a breakthrough hits, it irons things out, streamlines the operation, obliterates the anomalies (and the fluff right along with them), leaving action and dialog that are more intuitive, coherent, visual, and concise, which brings me to my next point…

They’re economical: Early drafts (mine, anyway) carry a compulsion to explain every last feeling, motivation, gesture, and tick to combat the bugbear of “they won’t get it.” What’s left is a 145-page eulogy to the human imagination. But after one of these amazing boosts of inspiration, we’re left with a more intriguing sequence, with more for the reader to decipher, at a lower page count. It’s a fantastic moment for a fledgling writer when the true meaning of “say more with less” really hits home.

And coolest of all…

They fix other issues: This is the magic ingredient that let’s us know we’re really onto something. We get one idea out of the crapper and it touches on other story elements that were either missing or not doing their job, and sets off a chain reaction of plot repair.

I’ll use this example of a recent breakthrough I’ve had to illustrate my point:

Problem: I have a character in my script, a friend of a friend to the protagonist, who is a doctor, and ultimately ends up giving our hero the help he needs to fight his ailment, complete his arc, and achieve his goal. Since this doctor is a relatively small (but important) supporting character, she seemed to just show up when needed, do exactly what was required to progress the narrative, then disappear, rinse and repeat. So she wasn’t a character at all, but a flimsy plot device. I had developed her relationship with the hero’s friend, but the dynamic between her and the hero was an afterthought, and it showed. In trying to round her character out, I had fabricated a bunch of plot interruptions where he had to visit her for help, and attempted to justify it with convoluted discussions and circumstances.

Breakthrough: Turn her against the protagonist. Make her hate him and resist helping him at every turn.

Once I made this change, it did so much to straighten out my story. Now this character wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire. Their interactions have become terse, conflict-laden, and they keep things moving, because they come up much more organically as the consequences of various accidents and calamities that befall the main character, and neither of them is happy about it. These new hardships and obstacles subject him to a great deal more suffering through the middle of the movie, creating a much more interesting series of events.

Without my initially realizing it, this also filled in an element that was missing before. The main conflict of the piece arises from a mistake made by the protagonist, stemming from his main flaw. While a sense of guilt slowly builds in him throughout, there was no one to hold up a mirror to him, force him to take a hard look at himself, put him at a dramatic low, and make him realize he needs to change. But now there is. This character now dovetails so nicely into this task, it seems as if I’d planned it for her from the beginning.

Oh, and as a casual aside, she now feels like a real person that has a rightful purpose in the film. Her contentiousness toward the hero, contrasted with her protective affection for the friend, adds a realistic complexity to her that makes her someone the audience would (hopefully) like to get to know. It also allowed for a much-needed arc for their relationship, in that (you may have guessed) he manages to earn her respect and a certain amicable understanding develops between them. This, of course, also added another layer to him.

This kind of beneficial butterfly effect from one snap flash of inspiration can’t be expected to happen all the time. Perhaps even the opportunities for them recede over time as greater experience precludes one from leaving such gaping chasms in the story that require this type of drastic solution. Whatever the case, these occasions bring a true thrill to someone in the early stages of exploring their creativity.

How about you? Has something like this happened to you? What have been the biggest leaps, bounds, and setbacks in your process? Let us know below!

Inspiration

Awesome Dialog Tips From Karl Iglesias!

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Here the author of Writing for Emotional Impact, one of the most game-changing books I’ve read on screenwriting, discusses some common dialog mistakes and how to fix them!

Inspiration

Tarantino’s Writing Process!

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Love him or hate him, this guy is one of the most influential screenwriters living today. This is the best peek at his process I’ve ever seen.

Book Reviews

Review: Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias

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We as new screenwriters are filled to the brim with questions about how to do it “right.” Does my structure dovetail perfectly into the standard template? Do I have enough white space? Do I need this supporting character? How much back story is necessary for the protag’s mother?

As I learn more and more, and look back at my journey thus far, I find I’ve spent a lot of time asking the wrong questions. My greatest leaps in knowledge and craft have come when I made some major course correction regarding my approach to the writing process. Lately I’ve been lucky to experience several of these thanks to Karl Iglesias‘ Writing for emotional impact : advanced dramatic techniques to attract, engage, and fascinate the reader from beginning to end.

If you’re someone who’s leafed all through the big-name how-to classics, and seemingly learned everything there is to know about story structure, character profiles, plot and subplot mapping, and genre conventions, then you’re exactly who this book was written for! It comes at the whole paradigm from a fresh new angle that’s the creative equivalent of nine hours’ sleep followed by a hot oil massage.

Right out of the gate, Iglesias‘ focus is on the step where the screenwriting rubber meets the road, the emotional effect of the script. Yeah, that’s not a mistake, and you read it right. I meant the script. The point is emphasized that, while it’s a blueprint for an eventual movie, the critical point in the process for us is how the words on the page strike that initial gatekeeper, the (probably assistant or intern to) the producer/ studio head/ financier/ whoever, and sway his/ her decision about whether it’s worthy of getting off the ground in the first place. It’s not good enough to spout, “Just wait till you see it on screen. It’ll knock your socks off!” It’s unlikely to get that far if the read was a lifeless chore to that first reader. His or hers are the socks that must be jettisoned. Pretty insightful perspective, huh? Maybe that revelation alone is worth the price of admission. But we’re just getting started here. The meat of the book consists of telling us how to do it.

As a script reader himself, Iglesias offers the candid inside word on their circumstances, mindset, approach and visceral reactions (which are the reactions that count) when they read our work. He then proceeds to lay out the emotional triggers that are tripped by the best of the best scripts, and how we may achieve them in our own writing.

In all of your reading, podcasts, webinars, seminars, courses, and meet-up groups; how much attention have you really placed on how your work will make the reader feel? What about how that will interact with the characters’ emotions? Do you know which emotional reactions are the most gripping and memorable, and will get your script noticed? Did you know that the simplest of edits and alterations can transform an empty, throw-away beat into something super-engaging that keeps them turning pages? Have you ever approached your writing or editing with these things in mind? This is what you’re going to get from this book.

Whether starting from the initial spark of an idea, or slogging through the rewrite process, there seems to be a certain hierarchy of script writing factors that, if followed in order of importance, can provide an extremely useful, time and grief-saving workflow for building or rebuilding your story. Iglesias’ book is laid out in an optimal flow for not only readability, but workability. It starts with the most broad strokes such as concept and overall story, then filters down to the later-stage fine-tuning of description, dialog, etc. It’s not something to be read, absorbed, and shelved. If you’re really serious, it’ll serve as a manual and roadmap, constantly at your side as you write.

Needless to say, I can’t recommend this book enough. My only caveat would be that, as the subtitle indicates, these are advanced techniques, and meant to be broached once you have a working understanding of the screenwriting basics. So, while I might (and only might) not make this my first book on the craft, my collection would be severely lacking without it.

Software Reivews

Save the Cat! Story Structure Software 3.0 Review

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For the present day screenwriter, the notion of a writing workflow devoid of software has gone the way of, well, the typewriter. Not only is a screenwriting application absolutely vital to proper formatting of the script itself (only a crazy person would type it out on a standard word processor and manually tab, indent, and capitalize to fit industry standards), but there are software suites available for practically every component of the process; outlining, plotting, word-smithing, character profiling, location visualization, you name it. Each of these steps can be ironed out more smoothly and efficiently with the aid of a specialized program as a guide or assistant. Of course one of the most important and challenging bumps in the road from idea to movie is story structure. In this area, many of us can use all the help we can get. It would be great to have a software program to organize, plan, strategize, and map out our structure in a clean and orderly way. Enter Save the Cat! Story Structure Software 3.0.

Let’s get this out of the way first thing. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! books are the subject of some controversy in the screenwriting world. Some find STC’s accessible and grounded approach of applying proven story principles derived by reverse engineering some highly successful blockbusters to be extremely useful. Others call it rote, overly-formulaic, and stifling in its rigid “rules” of screenplay construction. Regardless of where you stand on this, the STC Story Structure Software is a truly modular tool that can provide some monumentally time-saving hacks in getting you to your destination, wherever that may be. How rigidly you stick to the method and philosophy detailed in the STC books is entirely up to you. This program is a great boon to anyone, including those who choose to abandon Snyder’s approach altogether.

The only “mandatory steps of the process” are the first few, which involve filling in a title, logline (for which templates are available), genre (which is an interesting classification unique to STC, not your typical genre labels), and approximate page count. These can be quite helpful to start on the right foot, or they can simply be fudged for later modification, and then you’re off to the races…

There is also an outlining, or “beats” area, which many find a helpful starting point. In addition to listing the beats, you can produce, edit, and update catalogs of characters, locations, setups, and payoffs. You can easily toggle between these lists for referencing, rearranging, troubleshooting, or whatever you need to do.

The main thrust of the software is that it serves as a digital means to plot out your script on a set of virtual index cards laid out in the “board area.” This practice was first made famous in Syd Field‘s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, and while I agree that there’s no substitute for real, physical cards, their editable electronic counterpart is a welcome supplement. There are a number of valuable features added to the layout here. Each card is an interface that can be marked with various story devices, such as the emotional arc of the scene, setup and payoff bridges between scenes or sequences, and which plot (A,B,C, etc.) is served by the particular card. This all allows some hyper-meticulous plot planning, if that’s your thing.

We all know that the writing process entails “killing our darlings,” or removing anything that doesn’t serve the story, even if we’d rather not do so. For all of those elements that we know we should cut, but see some chance for their resurrection in a different form or maybe a different scene later on, there’s the “Litter Box.” Here you can temporarily discard scene cards, while keeping track of where they came from in the structure. Simply drag and drop them in.

If you can’t wait any more, and those perfectly planned-out scenes are screaming to get out of you, there is a script window, complete with sluglines generated from the scene headings courtesy of the cards on your board, where you can begin to write the screenplay itself, and at any time you can export it to Final Draft and continue there. The downside here is that the formatting, while not completely manual, isn’t quite as automated as in Final Draft or other screenwriting programs. It takes a bit more work on your part to keep it straight (lots of pressing “tab.”) If that works for you, have at it!

Now we come to the window where I’ve admittedly spent most of my time; the general notes section. This is simply a digital free-hand bulletin board where you can place infinite, color-coded, virtual post-its to organize your thoughts, store referential materials, and basically pour your subjective process out onto the interface in whatever fashion you choose. External files in nearly any multimedia format can be attached here, and linked to scene cards in the board to customize a story logic web, attach research data to your outline, or just keep yourself on track with simple self-generated reminders. It also includes a “Greenlight Checklist,” formulated by Snyder in Save the Cat!® Strikes Back: More Trouble for Screenwriters to Get into … and Out of, of factors that he deemed important waypoints in the story. You can refer to it or not, but it’s there!

And there you have it, folks. These are the main features of Save the Cat! Story Structure Software 3.0. Some of the big-picture features include the option to backup and retrieve from the Save the Cat! online storage cloud for use on multiple devices, a special function to send and retrieve it from your iPhone version of the app, and the ability to import from and export to Final Draft.

I have found this program hugely helpful in my writing process, and it’s always open in the background as I’m banging away on my script. It’s what I look to in order to stay on course, and where I log my progress, sticking points, and session agendas. One minor gripe is that it’s not the most intuitive software I’ve ever used, and took some getting used to in terms of usability. But, beyond that point, it’s been a key contributor to my process. Regardless of your method or objectives, I believe it can be the same for you.

Screenwriting Issue of the Day

The Rewrite Workflow Labyrinth

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First, the good news: I’ve reached a magical milestone in my rewrite. I’ve completed a draft that, if a deadline were imposed on me today, I could submit without utter shame and embarrassment (only predominant shame and embarrassment).

This comes after a protracted slog to align the plot of my story to the point where a reader could get from Fade In to Fade Out, and and have a fairly clear sense of what had happened. The disposable henchmen have consistent names and actions despite their relative unimportance, the events of one scene don’t obviously counteract or undermine those of a previous one, the payoffs are more or less set up and vice versa, and the main characters are somehow different at the end than they were in the beginning as a result of what’s happened to them. (Of course, this is according to my own judgement of my own work. Am I right? That’s for the next guy to decide in the upcoming phase: getting external feedback.)

As I reach this point of the game, a lesson emerges that I believe will be of extreme importance to my career: How could I have gotten here sooner? What if I were on, say, a realistic professional screenwriting timeline? I’d need to come to these answers and solutions that I’ve pored over for months and months in a matter of weeks.

My process thus far has worked like this: write a draft, find a problem, brainstorm some solutions, mull it over, do other stuff while continuing to mull it over, brainstorm some more solutions, get inspired, rewrite the scene. Now, this has been a wonderful experience of exploring and cultivating my creative inspiration, but it’s not gonna cut in a business of strict, merciless deadlines. So…

This is the tough part when it comes to formulating some kind of regular streamlined system for working out these issues: it seems to be a highly subjective element. I’ve delved into many writing books and a few courses, and I’m afraid the magic bullet isn’t in there. While they do an awesome job getting us acquainted with structure, theme, characters, and all the stuff that makes up the initial steps of deciding what to write, banging out the first draft, and some very broad-stroke rewrite guidelines, they don’t quite get us to where we can confidently and consistently tackle and eliminate more intricate story problems with ease. I think the reason for this is that there is no magic bullet. There are likely as many workable processes for this as there are professional writers.

However, there’s more good news, maybe. I have no doubt I’ll be faster on my next script purely from some lessons learned on this one, even if I didn’t change anything about my process. Ironically, it seems that it’ll just take time and patience to get faster. But more importantly, perhaps the mere identification of this as a screenwriting puzzle to solve is a crucial first step. This awareness and the desire to work out an efficient scheme to put out the best material I can in short order should put me on the right track to improve this facet of my writing. After all, what else can I do about it?

How about you? What’s your rewriting system? What’s the big, obvious answer that I’m missing? Let me know below!

Screenwriting Issue of the Day

Too Many Steps?

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A movie is a story, and a story is a journey, right? We (usually) want to relate to a hero on a quest to accomplish something. We want to see the struggles, the triumphs, the defeats, the

levities, the tragedies, and the breakthroughs that befall our hero along every step of the odyssey. Well, surely not every step. And here

in lies today’s issue…

Am I including too many incremental nudges toward

the end game, and bogging down my plot?

There’s a fine line between showing what’s necessary, so as not to leave logic gaps and have the audience scratching their collective head, wondering how point A lead to this point C, without the necessary point B (and maybe also wondering why bother to continue reading/ watching); and slogging through mindless and unessential details, painstakingly and pitifully trying to address every last doubt about the story’s logical credibility and plead with the audience, “It all makes sense, I promise! Please like me, and my story!”

I’m just not sure where that line is…

Do we need to see the discovery, analysis, and follow-up of EVERY single clue in the course of the investigation?  Surely some can be implied, or presented in retrospective dialog (without being overly-expository, of course), but which ones? Where’s that threshold of relevance that tells me if it should be shown or referenced?

I’m going through my scenes, and attempting to elevate the drama in each of them to ensure that every moment matters, and I can’t help but question whether a few of them should just go. I know some schools of thought say that as soon as the question enters your mind, cut it; but I’m not so sure my instincts are honed to that level.

On this pass, my emphasis will be on making sure something (somewhat) vital is introduced into the story at each turn that we actually see (read). And, for now, I’m pretty much leaving it all in, because…

This puppy is almost ready for another set of eyes to scour it for faults. I’ll be trusting in that step to solve some of the aforementioned riddles. I’m just hoping for some sweet, sweet consistency in the notes, particularly about issues like this one. If three people are telling me that we don’t need to see the helpful rent-a-car clerk expounding that one suspicious transaction, then I’ll have my answer.

Anyway, your thoughts? Let me know below!