Like many film students, and those just interested in film, I read the book the hails Chinatown as being the best movie script ever. I couldn’t figure out just quite why. Chinatown’s actually a pretty great movie, especially if you love the crime noir, hard-boiled detective type stuff. Which, if you’re a Batman fan like me – you do.

It’s a good film, but I couldn’t figure out what made it so special… so Jack Nicholson gets his nose cut because its a symbol of how he’s really nosy? Yeah, that’s subtle, guys. There’s symbolism in the old Silver-Age Superman tales that’s more subtle and clever… no wait, those stories didn’t have symbolism…

In any case, the book Frizz is talking about is Syd Field’s infamous screenplay book, where he outlines the paradigm of all movies in an incredibly formulaic fashion, laying out 3-act structure in all it’s glory, albeit with a few twists (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, this link explains it further). What’s interesting is to see how, even though I disagree that every story and especially every movie has to be structured in strict 3-act, that paradigm is good, and time tested, and just about everybody follows it–even when they try not to. Zach Braff claims to not follow Field’s formula in “Garden State,” but he does, without realizing it.

Now that I’ve put myself on the spot, I’m having a REAL hard time thinking of movies that don’t follow the 3-act formula. Maybe “Lost in Translation”? “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”? Those are arguable… so argue with me – can you guys think of any movies that AREN’T in the 3-act paradigm? What about good an bad examples of it?

And for those of you who think I think too much (most of you, probably) just tell me some films you like – I want to get to know my readers! Maybe I’ll list my official top 20 movies list later… I need to revise it… hmmm… is “That Thing You Do” better or worse than “Star Trek II”? This needs pondering…