Movies that I've managed to see this month.

So when it comes to the movies that have been released in the theatres lately, I have actually managed to see some of them in the recent weeks. I managed to watch these films with my friends who were kind enough to join me at the local cinema.

Indeed, over the last month or so we managed to watch the Matt Damon / Christian Bale vehicle 'Ford v Ferrari', Rian Johnson's homage to Agatha Christie called 'Knives Out' and of course the latest Star Wars film 'Rise of The Skywalker'. 

So when it comes to the first movie that I saw, I saw 'Ford v Ferrari' with my friend who was visiting us all the way from Canada. We decided to give the movie a chance because it looked good and seemed to be a great experience based on its reviews.

After all, based on its rave reviews alone (92% fresh from the critics and 98% fresh from the audience) the film looked like it was must watch stuff. There was no way we were going to miss an opportunity like this to have fun together.

Not surprisingly, the movie about the 'underdog' car manufacturing company Ford trying to challenge the ultimate race car Ferrari in the Le Mans 24 h race did not disappoint. Both me and my friend were totally on the edge of our seats almost from start to finish.

Indeed, even though 'Ford v. Ferrari' works well as a drama - thanks to its competent acting (especially the incredible Christian Bale) and writing - what really 'made' the movie was its racing scenes. I have never seen a better racing movie in my life if I'm being honest.

As a whole. what made the film and its racing scenes especially great is that special effects were used relatively sparingly. It really felt like you were part of the race and you couldn't help but to feel the danger and the rush that is involved in being a racing driver.

In hindsight, the only tiny problem that I had with the movie had to do with its ending. Like probably many others, I'm not sure that we really needed that last ten minutes of the film, even though it had to do with the filmmakers being honest about the aftermath too.

Still, when you put it all together, 'Ford v Ferrari' was certainly a movie that managed to deliver. I absolutely loved seeing the film - especially in a theatre - and I would highly recommend it for everyone to see it on the big screen if only possible.

So the second film that I saw with my friend is 'Knives Out', a classic who-dune-it murder-in-the-family mystery about the murder of a successful patriarch. This is a film that we saw since my friend was excited about it and thought that it would be worth watching. 

Indeed, since my friend is a big time reader among other things, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that she would like to see a story like this on a big screen. She clearly has a knack for movies that have a 'classic' story written all over them.

Fortunately, going to the cinema with her to see the film wasn't a hard decision. The fact that 'Knives Out' had gotten superb reviews (96% fresh from the critics on Rottentomatoes.com) made it a safe choice to go watch it in theatres.

So having seen the film, I have to say that 'Knives Out' turned out to pretty exciting and entertaining. Even though I still had some tiny doubts before seeing it, this ensemble movie kept us entertained from start to finish and didn't disappoint us.

Indeed, as you kept watching the film and trying to guess what really happened - and who actually killed Christopher Plummer's character, there's something for everyone. There's solid drama, there's humour and there are some genuinely touching moments too.

Storywise, the biggest reason that the film works so well is because of the maid character (played by Ana De Armas). Once this genuinely relatable character runs into trouble (no spoilers here), you can't help but to empathize with her and hope for the best.

In hindsight, the only tiny problem with 'Knives Out' is that even though the story makes sense on paper, it feels a bit too convoluted as you watch it unfold. I couldn't help but to think (wrongly though) that there were plot holes and other issues too.

Still, when it all is said and done, as a whole I'm more than happy that we saw the film together. 'Knives Out' turned out to be a solid film and certainly redeemed director Rian Johnson a bit after his not-so-well-received 'The Last Jedi'.

Finally, the third and the last film that I (in this case) saw with my friends is 'Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker'. This a film that we saw last Saturday when we didn't have anything better to do during that evening.

After all, when it comes to the movie, we didn't have our hopes up since we had already read the reviews for the film and knew that it wasn't going to be that great (54% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com). We knew that there were going to be problems in it.

Not surprisingly, having seen 'The Rise of The Skywalker', it has to be said that there are a lot of flaws in the movie and the new trilogy. As unfortunate as it is, this final chapter just didn't work as well as one would have hoped.

Indeed, when it comes to the problems and issues, one of the biggest reasons that the new episodes didn't work is that the writers didn't have a roadmap to follow. There was no overarching story for the trilogy, which made the movies inconsistent and incoherent.

Another problem with the new movies was that the producers - as sad as it is - killed all the original characters. I don't know what they were thinking when they got rid of Han Solo's or especially Luke Skywalker's character, because we really cared about them.

Still, perhaps the biggest problem with the new saga was that the main character Rey had no noticeable arc (no development). Instead of going through 'a hero's journey,' she immediately knew everything about being a Jedi and had no real struggles.

In that sense, even though this new trilogy and its last movie had its moments - especially the last 30 minutes of 'The Rise of The Skywalker' were solid, I was pretty disappointed. I was disappointed how underwhelming the new trilogy turned out to be.

After all, even though I haven't been a 'super fan' of the series, I still expected more from these new movies. I expected more from these films, because clearly the series had potential to deliver something better and more exciting than what we were eventually given.

Know when to trust your eyes as a writer.

So when it comes to making assessments about the quality of your writing, it's not always easy to figure out whether your stuff works. It's not easy to automatically see where you possibly went wrong with the script and why.

After all, as a writer, it's pretty much guaranteed that you tend to get lost in the process as you keep going. The longer you write, the less you're able to see the forest for the trees, no matter how much you might keep telling yourself otherwise.

At the same time, once you actually manage to take that break from writing and get yourself a fresh pair of eyes, things change considerably. It's pretty remarkable how quick and accurate your assessment about the script can be sometimes.

For example, if I take that break from my project and later (the very next day with articles) get back to the task, even a fast glimpse at the text can show that things don't work. A quick cursory look is all that it might take to see that there are problems.

What this means in practice is that if I'm about to start rewriting the article and have read the first half of it (that works), I might already see that there's a problem with the latter half. Without reading the rest, my eyes are already telling me that I screwed up.

The reason for this is that even though I haven't read the full text, I already see that there's something wrong with it length-wise (missing stuff, too short). My mind can see (based on the pacing & the correct structure) how the text should look when it's done right.

After all, if you notice that the second half of the text seems to be too short (or way too long), it's certain that there are logical / transition problems that need to be fixed. (note: 'correct' length doesn't guarantee that the text works as it should).

This same approach - trusting your eyes - also applies to bigger projects like books where you really have to make sure that your structure / pacing works well. In these cases it's crucial that you're able to see when things don't seem to work.

For example, when I started rewriting my book and went through the pages on my notepad, it became obvious pretty fast that there were problems. As I went through the pages, my eyes (that looked at the sidebar) knew that the pacing was simply off.

By that I mean that once I had read the first 1/3rd in the story (structure-wise), as I kept checking the sidebar, I noticed that I had already gone past the 50% mark in actual pages. This was an absolutely terrible thing pacing-wise and meant that I was in trouble.

After all, even though the script doesn't have to be completely in sync with the story 'structure' or the 'formula', it still has to be close enough. You cannot tell a good story if (for example) the latter half of the story happens in the last 10% of the pages.

Fortunately, in this case, once I started rewriting the story and tried to make sure that the chapters would be well paced, little by little the script started to look better. It didn't seem like the pacing was as obviously off as it was in the beginning.

After all, once I had finished the rewriting process, I noticed that the whole thing seemed to work really well now. The story had finally a solid flow from start to finish and actually felt good (I had increased the word count by a whopping 60%).

In that sense, when it comes to this whole thing, it's pretty clear that if you ever find yourself in a situation where it 'looks' like there's a problem with your script, you should take that feeling seriously. You should take the gut feeling seriously and not ignore it.

After all, even though there are certainly exceptions to the rule (like being too tired from too much writing), in most cases your eyes are onto something. They know that there's a problem, even though your brain might not have figured out the details yet.

In that sense, especially when it comes to my book project, it's fairly clear that had I not trusted my eyes when I re-read the draft, I probably would have not fixed the script. It's very likely that I would have just thought that the book was good already and that was it.

After all, especially considering that I had gotten good reviews from my readers and other stuffs, I was clearly in the danger zone here. There was every reason for me to get too comfortable and complacent with my 'very first book ever'.

Fortunately though, even though I lacked experience, in the end, I did trust my eyes once I gave the draft a fresh look after a break. Once I gave another look at the script, I knew that there was a big problem and that my work with the task had not been finished.