... FOR "RANDOM UPDATES TO THE SITE"

When I first embarked on this blogging adventure in February of 2010, I'll admit I was a novice at it in more ways than one. Learning to let my freak flag fly, for one thing, figuring out how to stand toe to toe with (and sometimes head and shoulders above) the millions of other movie blogs out there, by offering up a different spin on the basics of filmcraft - technique, trivia, retrospectives, reviews - than you're probably used to. Or struggling to stay relevant, by paying respect to the films of the present (which, let's be honest, is all people really want to hear about) and also to the films of the past (which, let's face it, is where all modern motion pictures get their ideas). Also learning that you can't be everything to everyone all of the time; sure, people love their Comic Book Movies and their MacGuffin With Egg, but try blogging a quiz or two (or three, or eight), and readers will have nothing to do with it. (It took me too long, perhaps, to realize that once one person responds with the answers, it's pretty much pointless for everyone else.)

Still, the thing that's disappointed me the most is that I haven't been able to build up an audience to the degree I'd initially hoped for. I have my core readership, of course, to whom I'm eternally grateful. Ultimately, though, the responsibility of bringing traffic to the site rests entirely on me, and only me, and I've been slow in making that happen. Never one to toot my own horn, I was uncomfortable at first posting updates to Facebook, or anywhere else for that matter, expecting, I guess, to succeed on the strength of my words alone. But it takes a certain amount of shameless self-promotion to make it anywhere in this world, a fact I've only started warming up to, and now that I've started posting to Twitter and Medium.com, we'll see what that does for the site. (Special thanks to Ether Ling for crafting a marketing plan to help bolster the blog.)

... FOR "MACGUFFIN WITH EGG (PART 4 - 'RONIN' EDITION)"

Been a while. Shall we recap? A MacGuffin, lest we forget, is any object or doodad in a story or film that every character wants desperately to get their hands on. It hardly matters what said object is; all we need to know is that everyone wants it, and will do whatever it takes to get it, often at the expense of each other's lives. Done right, the MacGuffin will reveal important truths about the characters (i.e., just how much is this person willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish his/her goals?). Done wrong, or explain it too much, and, well, who cares?

To wit: In Paramount's Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise and his Impossible Mission Force are sent to retrieve any number of mysterious artifacts, from a computer file to a vial full of hazardous material, before bad guys can sell it for profit or terror. Characters resolve their differences with bullets or by beating each other to a bloody pulp. In Jaws, the MacGuffin is the shark - the existence of which will test the limits of the three men who set out to stop it. And in Hitchcock's Notorious, uranium stored in champagne bottles forces a spy (Cary Grant) to put the woman he loves (Ingrid Bergman) in harm's way.

... FOR "MACGUFFIN WITH EGG (PART 3 - 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE' EDITION)"

So to reiterate: A MacGuffin is any "object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance." The entire function of the MacGuffin is to tempt the characters, to give them a "goal," so to speak – something to chase after. It hardly matters what the object is. The focus of the plot should be on what drives the characters to get it, what they do to get it, what happens if they do not get their hands on it.

It can be tough to do the MacGuffin justice. Explain it too much, and you risk losing your audience ("What? These people are risking life, love and limb for this stupid thing and it turns out to be a pack of gum? I'm outta here!"). Explain the MacGuffin just enough to peak your audience's interest, and it's, well, Hitchcock-ian.

Paramount's Mission: Impossible series is a prime example of how to cook up a MacGuffin right. They take the same basic setup as the television series (the Tape Scene, the Plan, and Mission Initiation) then add a modern twist, sending IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) after bad guys in possession of increasingly treacherous objects. Each object is given a brief description before we're off and running, barely pausing to take a breath or to ask any questions. This is exactly how it should be.

... FOR "MACGUFFIN WITH EGG (PART 2 - 'JAWS' EDITION)"

Wake up call: The MacGuffin in Jaws is the shark, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something.

This might be the reason why so many people who experience Steven Spielberg's terror-under-the- water masterpiece today feel so gypped by it: the shark looks so "fake" - obviously a mechanical monster and not the real thing - that it's hard to focus on anything else. By doing that, though, you take your focus off of what the movie's really about.

... FOR "HITCHCOCK MACGUFFIN WITH EGG - AN INTRODUCTION"

So I decided to pop Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious into the DVD player the other night, starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. I wanted to show it to my wife, for a number of reasons: a) it's Alfred Hitchcock, b) you can never go wrong with Hitchcock, and c) it's so hard to find a quality love story these days worth re-visiting.

That's right: This elegant 1946 masterpiece from the "Master of Suspense" is a romance masquerading as an espionage thriller, about a spy (Bergman) recruited by a CIA agent (Grant) to "reaquaint" herself with an old flame in league with Nazi operatives. The trouble is, the Bergman character has fallen in love with the Grant character, and vice versa - although both are too proud to admit their feelings for each other.