Martin S. Wathen
Bio
A writer practicing in both prose and script. With a deep passion for film and screenwriting, I use this platform to publish all unique ideas and topics which I feel compelled to write about! True crime, sport, cinema history or so on.
Stories (25/0)
NFL Week One - My three biggest Surprises
To attribute week one of the NFL’s 2022 regular season a ‘surprising’ one would be a weighty understatement. I struggle to recall another season in recent memory to which held so many storylines, upsets and diversions from pre-established narrative. These surprises range from Baker Mayfield’s struggles within his supposed ‘revenge game’ – or Rodgers’ utter inability to keep the game close against his divisional rival. Chief amongst my surprise are three games in particular. Though, of course, it is a gross generalisation to pinpoint my shock to three games, I feel these set were the most egregiously unexpected.
By Martin S. Wathen6 months ago in Unbalanced
Our Empty Lungs
Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. However, in this particular moment, a certainty arises for Alissa. Watching her brother float exposed through the vacuum of space, she is sure that his ungodly exclamations reverberate through her cowering ears. Then again, it’s probable that her mind calculated the details to which her ears could not. It’s a sight so visceral that disregarding its intricate detail would slight its brutal absurdity. His face contorts. A lower jaw dislodged off-kilter from the other and concocting a skew-whiff grimace. Such an expression is synonymous with a scream, or unearthly wail, yet refuses to quite correspond with the precise definition of one. In a morbid devotion to reality, Alissa doubts his lungs were even capable of evacuating the gasses necessary to scream. His skin crystallizes, blushing a glassy navy. Eyebrows risen, eyeballs wide. An expression of surprise etched between brow and chin, with fingers curling like a Falcon’s talon. Alissa fiddles with her threadbare restraints and tilts her neck from her brother’s demise. With this, a hand behind pugnaciously yanks it back into place – pressing her temple onto the window as she kneels. A lanky and broad window. Near encompassing one half of the ship’s hall, a cinema screen visual association with the backdrop of black projecting its grisly image. Her own face reflects upon it, tears streaming so briskly that they blend her own vision into an abstract kaleidoscopic characterization of reality. Above the rear clamor, begging, screaming and ire, her own body roars above the rest. They call it ‘Rubatosis’. The sensation of hearing, even feeling, your own heart pump. In a pace far too swift to maintain track. She even feels, or which she swear she can, her own blood boil.
By Martin S. Wathen7 months ago in Fiction
2022 AFC Predictions
It's far from an understatement to suggest that the AFC conference seems to be reaching a level of competition far exceeding its NFC counterpart. Following the slight fall of the Patriots after Tom Brady's departure, it seems that several teams have used this opportunity to stack their rosters and challenge the Chiefs as the next true perennial kings of the conference. The 2022 offseason has been a prime example of this, with the Chargers and the Raiders nabbing key NFC talent in Adams and Mack, it seems that the entire division has become an armsrace for dominance. In this piece, I will detail the positions of each team, and make an appropriate prediction for them in light of their competition. Following the season, I will return to this article and address my predictions in comparison to reality.
By Martin S. Wathen8 months ago in Unbalanced
Lived.
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Or so, he believed it to be abandoned. And, once more, it near beckoned him like a moth to its very flame. Through the blinders of his strawberry hair which tickled his eye’s lashes, he squinted through that bedroom window but could not believe it to be true. For as far as he could recall, the cabin had seemed vacant. He’d lock eyes upon it each night, its bark panels peeking through the density of trees. A fair landmark to track winter or spring, comparing the visibility through density of leaves. His eyes were near drawn to it each dusk. It was almost ritual. Comparing the blandest of details from that night to the last. The moisture of the planks, the fade on the windows, the moss crawling up the lower lengths and creeping along external doors. Very little details would change from the last. In winter there would be snow, sometimes icicles. In summer it would be smothered in leaves. But this night? This night, straying too early to be winter, but too late to be summer, there was a candle.
By Martin S. Wathen8 months ago in Fiction
Why does Homelander work?
Homelander – Celebration of depravity. At the ‘American Film Institute’ in 1970, Alfred Hitchcock famously advocated the utilisation of prolonged tension through an analogy often referenced as: ‘the bomb under the table’. In this, he detailed a hypothetical scene in which several men sit about a table discussing baseball when, suddenly, a bomb erupts. In this scene, the audience is treated to a fleeting shock. A shock which, although effective, would be categorised as quite surface level and, certainly, brief. Alternatively, Hitchcock posited the inclusion of an ‘insert’ shot amidst this scene. One which we are made aware of the bomb’s presence – yet the scene goes on all the same. Like the tracking open of Orson Welles’ ‘Touch Of Evil’, we are now awaiting the bomb’s eruption. We watch these men knowing that, in any moment, the eruption can come. In this second approach, the shock is prolonged and, more so, synonymous with anticipatory anxiety than rudimentary shock. This single anecdote encapsulates the core principles of tension. Just as important as it is to climax into drama, it is also key to threaten chaos. To hang a pendulum over the head of the audience from a fraying string. In Amazon’s ‘The Boys’, I find this principle is represented to near perfection through the characterisation of the series’ chief antagonist – ‘Homelander’. No less, I would even argue that the milk obsessed psychopath is even a physical personification of the notion. Anthony Starr’s harrowing, and often times side-splitting, portrayal of the character is one which oozes dread. His dark antithesis to Superman has, over three seasons, become one of televisions most well realised antagonists.
By Martin S. Wathen9 months ago in Geeks
