#Jonathan goldstein wiretap podcast movieFor another movie example, many a funny Saturday Night Live became very unfunny when the funny three minute premise was turned into a ninety minute snooze-fest that needed to have a ridiculous plot attached to what is essentially a funny catch-phrase or one-liner. Many of these stories would have been a lot stronger if they had been shaved down quite a bit, but I think that is the problem with humorous writing, sometimes what starts off as a funny joke just isn't made for being more than a short piece. It's not that the same joke is made up over and over again, but it starts to feel like a few of the early stories were pretty inspired and at some point the author thought, I need to get a couple of hundred pages of these stories if I'm going to make this into a book and by the end the stories were feeling as tired as the tenth or twelfth visit to Camp Crystal Lake, or because this is a comedy book and not a horror novel, sort of like the Police Academy movies once all the original cast was gone except for the man who made the funny sounds with his mouth. At times the style works pretty well, but as the book goes on the stories start to feel a little tired. This collection of short stories based on some of the more famous scenes of the Old Testament aims at kvetching humor. Theologians can put a wholesome, orthodox or moral spin to something like Lot telling all of the men of the city that they can ass rape his daughters but there is still a giant, 'huh?' that anyone not set on just nodding along to the reading of the week is going to ask. What did Cain and Abel talk about in the field? What about the majority of the years in the life of Jesus. Usually I'm all for reworkings of the Bible, the great thing about the silly book is all the important parts left out and in the hands of an imaginative writer lots can be done with the material. Let's make Jesus and existential hero, how about we make the story Jacob into that of a class-warrior, etc., fill in what you want about any story and someone has probably tried their hand in re-working it. Many interesting works have been done that use the rough outlines of stories contained in the pages of that dusty old book to flesh out the vague and weak narratives or to spin the tales for a whole host of various reasons. It's like the authors of that silly book wanted to leave it open ended enough to ensure a healthy amount of 'fan-fiction' would get written to fill in all of the gaps. Irrational thought, bigotry, hope and solace, etc., It is also a rich ground for fictional re-workings. Many interesting works have been done that use the rough outlines of stories contained in the pages of that dusty old book to flesh out the vague and weak narratives or to spin Short review. ![]() ![]()
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