Happy Valentine’s Day from What Does the Protagonist Want?

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Sam’s valentine for his class this year.  In case it’s not clear, that’s Indiana Jones, clutching a stolen heart, being chased by a giant rolling m&m.  (Small bags of m&m’s were taped to the back of each valentine.

As an added attraction, beneath the fold I’ve compiled a collection of my favorite valentine designs from around the internet.  If you "get" every single one of these jokes, congratulations!  You’re a geek.

Feel free to post your own finds.

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Favorite Screenplays: Death Proof part 1

Quentin Tarantino’s movies are explosions of meaning.  They spew significance of many different kinds in every direction on a shot-by-shot basis.  Every element of every shot is fraught with references, usually to other movies.  As such, they invite multiple readings from a number of different points of view and philosophical schools.  For instance, I just read a book-length monograph on Pulp Fiction that examined every aspect of the movie but one — what the characters in the movie do and say.

I am not smart enough or cool enough to catch every one of the thousands of references that give Tarantino’s movies their postmodern punch — I’ve never seen a Shaw Bros kung-fu movie, for instance.  So I will limit myself in this analysis to what I do understand: characters and their motivations.  And I will leave the examination of angles, design choices, costumes, hairstyles, cultural freight and songs to others.

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