Medias in res – Chap. 4, Act 1, Strip 2

As necessary as the pseudo-scientific/pseudo-philosophical intro narration is to establish a B-movie’s credit as a serious and worthwhile cultural undertaking, a good B-movie producer knows you’ve got to be careful – you must not take it so far that the audience actually starts believing they’re watching an educational movie. They’d leave.

Naturally, there are sophisticated and subtle ways to let the narration segue into the story, but Nolan Nobucks, being essentially a simple man with simple tastes, much prefers the safety that comes with the “paradigm shift without clutch” method – jump right from the narration to something involving sex and violence, so the audience is reassured that they didn’t interpret the movie poster wrong. It’d would be hard to interpret wrong…but yeah, technically, with all those tits and blood splatter the movie could also be a boring and slightly nauseating documentary on female puberty.

No, better run no risks – when the plot calls for a bunch of nameless extras to be cruelly murdered in the course of the movie, it’s safest to let the first of those murders take place before the credits. At that point, the audience usually still has popcorn left, so they’re less likely to walk out. This does not mean, of course, that this movie is necessarily going to feature a bunch of nameless extras being cruelly murdered. Knowing Nolan, he’d start “Little Miss Sunshine” with a gruesome murder, just to be on the safe side. Heck, he’d start the movie with a gruesome murder even if it really was a boring and slightly nauseating documentary on female puberty.










Don’t worry, I’m reasonably sure it isn’t. ._.

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