Category: pop culture

Breaking up a Monopoly

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Thing 1 (the 10-year-old) got Monopoly for Christmas. It came in a wooden box, and everything except the logo in the center of the board is retro. It’s a nice, as Monopoly sets go.

Growing up, I was never a fan because it took forever to play. I’d bail after a couple hours, and I was never around when the game finally ended.

Sweetie’s been at work, though, and I’ve been off, so I thought I’d give the game a second chance. Thing 1 set up the board on the dining room table, and we’ve been playing an hour or 2 a day since Monday, and, as far as I can tell, we’re just getting started.

We’ve bought and developed property, gone to jail and collected $100 when our building and loans mature. Thing 1 has a monopoly on utilities, but we own 2 railroads each. We roll the dice, pass go and collect $200, over and over and over again.

I thought we must be missing something, because we were steadily becoming richer, so sometime on Day 2, we checked the rules, and it wasn’t my imagination. There’s no end to the game. The rules say, “The last player remaining in the game wins.”

So, here we are. Right now, I have a little more money then Thing 1 does, but that could change if I land on Boardwalk again and have to give her $1,400 in rent. We’ll keep playing until she’s tired of the game, or Sweetie reclaims the dining room table or Thing 2 (the 4-year-old) messes up the board.

Which is fine, because, honestly, I can think of a lot worse ways to spend New Year’s Eve.

Flying reindeer can be scary

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When our oldest was 4 and starting to wonder whether Santa was really real, we spent Christmas with my in-laws in Billings, Montana.

What’s neat about Christmas in Billings is that, on Christmas Eve, Santa’s sleigh buzzes Billings and other nearby towns around suppertime.

It’s a tradition that started in 1981 when a local aviator named Gerhart Blain hitched a light display in the shape of a sleigh and reindeer beneath a blacked-out helicopter.  Blain passed away a couple years ago, leaving his sons in charge.

So, the year we went to Montana for Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa told Thing 1 that if she went outside after supper and looked toward the rimrocks, she might see Santa.

She didn’t believe them, of course, but then we saw it, a speck of light flying above the rimrocks toward the house. Within a few seconds, we could make out Santa, his sleigh and a couple of reindeer, all outlined in lights.

I’ll never forget the look on Thing 1’s face:

Panic. Complete and utter panic.

“I’m not in bed!” she wailed, bursing into tears and trying to hide behind Sweetie. “He won’t stop!”

It’s OK, we told her. Santa’s just getting started. He won’t stop at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a few hours. You’ve got plenty of time!

“No!” she screamed. “He won’t stop! I’m not in bed!”

We finally calmed her down and put her to bed, and the next morning, she saw that we were right. Santa came, and he was very generous.

I wish we’d taped Santa’s sleigh and Thing 1’s reaction, but we didn’t. I looked around online, though, and finally found a clip of the helicopter-powered sleigh over Laurel, Montana, last Christmas.

The 17-minute rule

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I learned about the 17-minute rule a few years ago when I was reading a book about screenwriting. 

The idea is that the first act of pretty much any movie ends around page 17 of the screenplay, or about 17 minutes into the movie (give or take a minute).

Act I is the setup. We meet the characters, figure out when and where we are, and then something happens that starts the ball rolling. The hero passes a threshold of sorts, and there’s no going back.

Here’s an example:

George Bailey tells his father he couldn’t face being cooped up the rest of his life in a shabby little office at his father’s building and loan 17 minutes into It’s a Wonderful Life.

The rest of the movie is about everything that happens that stops him from leaving Bedford Falls and drives him to consider jumping off that bridge on Christmas Eve.

It isn’t just old movies that follow the 17-minute rule:

  • Luke’s uncle buys the droids 17 minutes into Star Wars. The droids are what leads Luke to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Princess Leia and, ultimiately, the Death Star.
  • Buddy leaves the North Pole to find is real dad 17 minutes into Elf.
  • The shark eats the little boy on the raft 17 minutes into Jaws. It’s the second attack that forces the town to close the beach and go after the shark.
  • The Iowa farmer is thinking about plowing under the baseball field he built in his cornfield until Shoeless Joe appears 17 minutes after the credits in Field of Dreams.

Of course, the 17-minute rule isn’t set in stone.

In the book I was reading, Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting 424, the chairman emeritus of UCLA’s film school calls it the “floating page 17” rule, meaning the scene setting up the rest of the movie should come around page 17. There are plenty of examples of where that scene comes sooner or later — but only a little sooner or later.

How come?

Hunter says, basically, that 17 pages (about 17 minutes of screen time) is about how long it takes to set up the story and pull people in. Sooner, and we don’t know enough about the characters to care about what happens next. Later, we just get bored.

Ever since I read Hunter’s book, I can’t help but notice when Act I ends and Act II begins, and when I check the clock, we’re usually around the 17-minute mark.