Immortal Technique - Dance with the Devil

This here's some gut-wrenching storytelling. A ghetto Greek tragedy, Immortal Technique tells a brutal story of crime, greed and materialism, as New York projects kid Billy, desperate for money and respect, does whatever he has to in order to rise to the top. The consequences of Billy's desires and actions are as harrowing as Immortal Technique's ruthless delivery.

The Lost Room & MacGuffins

In a lecture he gave at Columbia university way back when in 1939, Alfred Hitchcock defined MacGuffins as, "the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is almost always the papers." It's the thing that the main characters want, Marcellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction, unobtanium in Avatar, and the meaning of rosebud in Citizen Kane. In the first act at least, it's what drives the characters and story forward.

The Lost Room is a 2006 sci-fi series about the eponymous motel room and a bunch of everyday objects that possess unusual powers. The protagonist, detective Joe Miller, has to hunt down these objects to rescue his nitwit daughter who got lost in the lost room. It opens with some shady deal to get the Key - the Key can open any hinged door and turn it into a portal to the Lost Room - the deal goes south and the Key ends up in the hands of Joe Miller. Each episode revolves around a different object, a different MacGuffin, and the more MacGuffins we meet the more we learn about the mythology of the Lost Room, it's objects and the numerous cabals searching for the powerful objects.

It's a great hidden gem of a show, and demonstrates not only how to use MacGuffins in storytelling, but also how ultimately meaningless most MacGuffins are - they'll propel the characters and story along for the first act or two but after that, the climax and resolution really revolves around the protagonist coming to terms with their personal flaw or solving some internal conflict, which will probably have been externalized with the MacGuffin or via the characters' relationship to it. In the case of the Lost Room it was Joe's stupid daughter and his anxiety about being an inadequate father - an anxiety which was fully substantiated when he lost her in a portal to another universe. Simply, find his daughter and he's a good father.

An interesting example of MacGuffins in modern cinema are the Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the Avengers, and Captain America: The First Avenger, it was the Tesseract, in Guardians of the Galaxy it looks to be the mysterious orb Chris Pratt's Star Lord is trying to steal in the trailer, and in Thor: The Dark World it was the Aether. These are the Infinity Stones and it's these MacGuffins (and the heroes) that tie the plots together of each individual movie, as well as the different phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because, as will transpire in Avengers 3, the uber-villain Thanos is trying to get his big purple mitts on all six of the Infinity Stones - whoever holds all six stones in the Infinity Gauntlet gains omnipotence, omniscience and God-like power - so this Infinity Gauntlet will be the ultimate MacGuffin of not only Avengers 3 but the whole MCU and stopping Thanos will be our heroes' ultimate goal. Their first aim will be to keep the Infinity MacGuffins away from Thanos, except they'll fail, all will be seemingly lost, and there'll be an epic showdown, from which our heroes will no doubt emerge victorious. But not all of them, I bet.

Is This Your Life?

“How are the headaches, love?”

Darren Macer’s mother, Eileen, had a habit of pestering him at the most inopportune times. While he was backing his car out of the drive into the busy main road was a prime example.

“Watch this car.”

She was also a typical back seat driver.

“They’re a little better, thanks Mum. The new pills Dr Uberman prescribed seem to be help -

The canary yellow Ranger Rover slammed into the side of Darren’s Fiesta killing his mother instantly, and spraying Darren’s face in her blood.

It’s true that in the moments before you die, your life flashes in front of your eyes. But Darren didn’t recognise any of the memories currently playing before him.

The English countryside. A young boy climbing a silver birch tree with a beautiful older women who felt familiar and safe. The smell of fresh laundry. A Sunday afternoon spent taking an Amstrad computer apart with a handsome and distinguished older gentleman. The beautiful woman arguing with the handsome man. The young boy crying, soon consoled by the older couple. A birthday cake with 10 candles on it. When the boy blows them out there’s nothing but darkness, then the blurred image of an operating table. Surgical equipment. The sound of a woman sobbing in the background. Medical pads leaching his body. A scalpel in the talon-like fingers of a Doctor. The woman’s sobs become screams. The scalpel gets closer, the Doctor removes his face mask. He is the only recognisable character. Dr Uberman.

When Darren came to he knew he was in the country. The birds singing in the trees were something the smog ridden cities hadn’t had in years. Darren couldn’t focus, he could only make out shapes of light and dark. But he knew the blur mopping his forehead was female. She smelt of fresh laundry.

“Wh... where, am... I?”

“Sshhh. Don’t speak, sleep. The answers are coming.”

The cottage was quaint, rundown and full of character. The kitchen was small but adequate, arranged around a central Aga and deep porcelain sink. Over it, washing dishes, was a woman with long mahogany hair flowing down her back. She turned as he entered, wearing a smile as much full of grief as it was relief. It was the woman from his near death images.

“Who, who are you? Where are my parents?”

“Pah!”

The non-word was spat out with venom that didn’t fit her serenely beautiful face.

“They weren’t your parents, Cody. They were well paid, highly trained actors.”

A lightning strike of pain flashed through his head. He staggered to the dining table.

“I need, my pills.”

“Those pills are the cause of your headaches, not the cure.”

“They’re migraines. And what do you know?”

“Considerably more than you.”

“Alright then, Oracle. Enlighten me.”

“Your name is Cody Vegas. You’re the most gifted computer scientist on earth. You’ve experienced agonising migraines for as long as you can remember. They are due to the pills suppressing you mental potential, holding your brain back.”

“Why?”

“Because some very powerful idiots believe that one day, you will destroy the world.”