Two-Fer Tuesday #14

It's Tuesday, which means another Two Fer Tuesday.  If you're not acquainted with the rules, I use a random number generator to pick a page and paragraph to pluck two sentences from.  Let's see what we get this week.

Page Number: 11
Paragraph Number: 9


Things are a brewin' here:

Ian turned to go, but then quickly changed direction again to look towards Dr. Brighton’s office.  “Has he given you any trouble?”

Is she in trouble?  Hurm...

Tomorrow is August so it's another edition of Comic Captions!

Dog Days of Writing

I haven't done a lot of writing related posts this year.  I'm just taking a minute or two to post my semi-annual progress report.  There's not a lot to talk about really.  I've only written two stories this year, both replacement stories for the second book of a series.  They came out to less than 150,000 words altogether.  That might seem good until you compare it with 2010 when throughout the whole year I wrote almost one million words.  That was pretty epic.  Last year I got off to a really slow start, struggling to finish a couple of things.  Then I picked up some momentum in July and then in August hit on a new idea that carried me through the rest of the year, so I guess things could pick up.

But mostly this year I've been more focused on editing stuff, for the obvious reason that signing with a publisher meant I had to do some editing.  Then of course I decided instead of trying to edit the second one to just rebuild it entirely.  Which then involves more editing.  And then I read this other story I'd written a while ago.  I'd tried to write a sequel in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007 but neither one had turned out very well.  (They quite frankly sucked ass.)  Finally, five years later, I thought of how to do it better.  So hooray.

There you have it.  How are your writing goals coming along?

Guest Post: The Grumpy Bulldog: Night of the Gun

Grumpy Bulldog is back..with a vengeance...

In the wake of the shootings last week in Aurora, Colorado, I needed to let my alter-ego the Grumpy Bulldog out of his doghouse to rant about gun control.  If you're in the NRA or anything like that, you should probably just check back here Tuesday for the next post.  Just warning you, it'll get a little grumpy.

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What happened last week in Colorado was a terrible tragedy.  And as many people are quick to point out, a tragedy that could easily have been prevented.  Not only with tighter security around movie theaters and a ban on assault rifles, but with a change in our mindset about guns.

As someone who lives in the Detroit area, stories about gun violence are nothing new to me.  Just about every day on the morning news there's another story about someone being shot and usually killed by a gun.  The usual story is that two people are arguing over something (a woman, custody of the kids, a pair of shoes, hell by now there's probably been a case of people arguing over the remote control for the TV) and eventually they whip out their guns and BOOM! we have at least one more body in the morgue.

The real problem in my mind is that all your usual suspects--the NRA, their Republican lackeys, rap music, Hollywood--all encourage the frivolous use of guns.  It's what I think of as the "Clint Eastwood Complex" where people think the way to solve their problems is to whip out a gun like they're Dirty Harry or some Old West gunslinger.  Inevitably that leads to the gun being fired and someone winding up dead.

Whatever the issue this Holmes guy in Colorado had, he clearly thought his solution was to whip out an assault rifle and mow down a bunch of innocent people trying to watch a movie.  (Ironically a movie about a character who's a victim of gun violence and refuses to use guns to settle his scores.)  Not that I would consider him a victim, but he is another of the deranged psychopaths our gun-obsessed culture produces.

Another irony is that Hollywood, along with the music industry, are huge enablers of gun violence.  The NRA and their Republican lackeys keep it legal for everyone to own guns but Hollywood and the music industry are the ones who make it look cool.  I mean just go through the list of gun-toting "heroes":  the aforementioned Dirty Harry, pretty much every John Wayne character, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Robocop, the Terminator, even Han Solo or Captain Kirk if you count ray guns.  So in all these different genres through all of history we have "heroes" who demonstrate that if there's a problem, the solution is to pick up a gun and fight back.  I'm not sure if it was just a coincidence or some kind of statement that the guy chose a movie theater but it is a sadly appropriate place for a shooting rampage.  If you don't believe me, the trailer for "Gangster Squad" featured gangsters firing through a movie screen, INTO the crowd.  (That trailer has now been removed and that scene might even have to be removed from the film in the wake of this tragedy.)

So in my final analysis at any rate, we reap what we sow with these rampages.  We endlessly broadcast this idea that guns are necessary to solve our problems and then we make it super easy for people to buy assault rifles and then we're shocked when a delusional person goes too far and uses that assault rifle for evil.  What we need then is more than a ban on assault rifles, but to change our thinking and realize that whipping out a gun should be left to the police, military, and other professionals, though not even they use those guns appropriately all the time.

And I'm not saying this as some fuddy-duddy Bible thumper or anything.  I mean I grew up playing with Transformers and GI Joe action figures.  I have a whole collection of violent action movies.  I played some of the early first-person shooter games like "Wolfenstein 3D" and "Doom."  I've written plenty of violent action stories, such as my story "Chance of a Lifetime" where a girl gets some guns (including an AK-47) and goes to hunt down the people who wronged her.  Really though the difference between me and Holmes or those gun nuts who think everyone should be packing heat is that I still know that stuff on TV, the movie screen, etc. is fake.  Those are just stories for entertainment; they aren't real life nor should they be viewed as some kind of life philosophy.

It's not that I want to be a total tree-hugging hippie and say we need to toss all our guns into a smelter.  I think it's fine if you have a rifle for hunting deer or whatever, though I personally see no fun in that.  I'm not even opposed to you having a handgun in your home for protection if you can use it responsibly.  And therein lies the problem; people don't use guns responsibly.  The reason I don't own one is I always say if I have a gun then I'll be tempted to use it.

I think if we really want to solve the problem then first we do need to reinstate the ban on assault rifles.  There is just no fucking reason a guy like Holmes should have been able to buy an AR-15 machine gun.  You don't use those for deer hunting and you don't need a fucking assault rifle to protect yourself unless you're expecting an entire army to come after you.  That should just be common sense.  Really we should ban everything except your basic hunting rifles and handguns.  Nothing automatic, no machine guns or machine pistols.  I mean, come on, what's the justification for letting people carry around automatic weapons?  And don't give me that Second Amendment bullshit either.  That amendment was designed in another time, when the US faced the threat of another British invasion or attacks by Native American tribes and police forces weren't very organized.  Ironically it's the "conservatives" who like to get all liberal about interpreting that amendment.

The second thing is that if you want to own a gun you should only be allowed ONE.  You should also have to take mandatory classes to know how to use said gun.  I'd make mandatory anger management courses too just to help educate people on controlling their tempers.

Of course we also have to stop glamorizing guns in our media.  We have to stop making it look cool to have the lone gun-packing guy (or girl) take on whoever's done him or her wrong.  And stop with all the rap songs about great it is to be packing heat and whatnot.

It's either that or we end up in the Wild West with everyone living in fear everywhere they go.  That seems to be the vision the NRA and their Republican lap dogs would prefer.  It's sure as hell not the country I want to live in.  I mean do you really want to live in a place where you have to live in constant fear of someone drawing out a weapon because they disagree with you?  I don't know about you, but I know I'm not Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid or any of that shit; I'd be more like Barney Fife if I had to draw on anyone.  So really I'd like to keep the guns in the hands of professionals.

Of course if you want to write a rebuttal or anything, you can always Contact Me and write your own guest post.

Tuesday is another Two-Fer...

Practical Superheroism #3: Fight Club

Disclaimer:  This column is for entertainment purposes only.  Construing anything in this column as actual advice will lead you to most likely getting your ass whupped, which will probably be filmed and loaded to YouTube so that you become a laughingstock long after your death.  Is that what you want?  Then yeah, don't try this at home, fool.

OK, so now you've got your super cool name and your awesome costume.  It's time to go fight evil, right?  Slow down there, buddy.  Before you can fight evil it would probably help to know how to fight.  This column isn't nearly long enough to teach you everything you need to know, though, but if you look at Google Maps or White Pages online or something you can probably find places that can teach you boxing, martial arts, etc.

For today I'm going to focus on what kind of fighting style you should employ.  And to do that I'm going to use two examples from my novel A Hero's Journey.  (In part to keep reminding you how supercool the book is for whenever it gets released.)

Percival Graves

First we have the more traditional style.  This is embodied by Percival Graves, the Scarlet Knight from roughly 1946-1971.  Percival was a big guy, like six-four, 250+ pounds, and just in general built like a linebacker.  Having grown up on the mean streets of London, Percy had gotten into his share of fights on the schoolyard and in pubs and such.  He also served as an infantryman during World War II, so he was trained in hand-to-hand combat.

Given his size and background, Percy was pretty much a brawler.  He didn't try any fancy kicks or throws or any of that stuff.  He'd just bash you in the jaw with a solid haymaker.  That was pretty much the style of "Golden Age" superheroes in the comic books right on through the Adam West Batman TV show--POW!

Emma Earl

Now contrast that with the more modern style employed by the latest Scarlet Knight, Dr. Emma Earl.  Emma's tall for a woman (about six feet) but she's also pretty skinny.  She keeps herself in shape primarily through jogging, so she's not weak by any means.  Her fighting background is pretty skimpy, consisting of one unsuccessful fight against a bully in third grade and a self-defense course in college.  As a voracious reader and quick learner she also studied some martial arts, but she doesn't really have a chance to use any of that until donning the Scarlet Knight's armor.

Anyway, since she's shorter and skinnier than Percy, she's not well-suited to brawling.  Instead, she relies on speed and agility to defeat her opponents.  She uses her legs far more to deliver vicious kicks instead of clumsy punches.

Or to sum it up, Percy is more like a boxer while Emma is more like a ninja.

And the point of all that is to say you should figure out which fighting style would work best for you.  If you're built more like Percy, you probably aren't going to be all that fast and agile for kung-fu shit.  If you're smaller and thinner like Emma, you're not going to want to go toe-to-toe with dudes much bigger than you.  And if you're a big fat blob like me, you should really just stay home and watch MMA fights on TV.

Once you figure out how you want to fight, go do what I suggested earlier and look for someone in your local area to teach you.  It will set you back a few bucks and it will take some time to develop, but it'll be worth it when you're not ending up a bruised and bloody piece of meat in an alley.  I'm just saying.

Now that you know a little about what kind of fighting skills to employ, next month we'll talk about weapons.  Hooray!

Just for Michael Offutt, here's another picture of Butler Blue II, desecrating the entrance to Notre Dame.

The shooting in Colorado last week has brought back the Grumpy Bulldog once more to talk about gun control tomorrow...

Two-Fer Tuesday #13

It's Tuesday, which means another Two Fer Tuesday.  If you're not acquainted with the rules, I use a random number generator to pick a page and paragraph to pluck two sentences from.  Let's see what we get this week.

Page Number:  95
Paragraph Number: 3


Jinkies, this one features a g-g-g-ghost!


The ghost of her older self screamed at her younger self to say no.  Stay home, where it was safe.   

Spooky, no?

And by request, here's a picture of Butler Blue II:

 

Tomorrow is another edition of Practical Superheroism...don't try this at home!!!

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

I think the easy way to decide whether you'll like this or not is to say if you liked "Batman Begins" then you'll like "The Dark Knight Rises."  To put it simply, this conclusion of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy has more of the implausible comic book-type elements than the more realistic approach taken in the previous "The Dark Knight."  But it does keep at least one foot on the ground, never becoming too absurd.

Eight years have passed since the end of "The Dark Knight," when Harvey Dent (then going by Two-Face) went on a killing spree.  Batman took the fall for Dent's crimes to preserve the heroic DA's memory.  In turn this has allowed Commissioner Gordon to clean up organized crime in the city and make Gotham City about as peaceful as it's ever been.

Meanwhile, the man behind the Bat, Bruce Wayne, hides in his mansion, letting everyone think he's taken a Howard Hughes-style turn.  That is until he's visited by a catburglar named Selina Kyle, otherwise known as Catwoman, though that name is never used in the film.  She steals Bruce's mother's necklace but also something else very important.

At the same time, a mercenary named Bane has escaped from CIA custody and heads into Gotham.  He has a very intricate scheme to destroy Gotham, with the help of a business rival of Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, and an army of thugs.  After Commissioner Gordon stumbles onto Bane's hideout in the sewers and is wounded, Bruce decides it's time for the Batman to return, against the wishes of his butler and former guardian Alfred.

I don't want to spoil the Byzantine plot too much.  I will say if you go to Wikipedia and look up "Batman Knightfall" and "Batman No Man's Land" it will give you an idea of where things are heading.  There's a little bit of the French Revolution mixed in too, or perhaps the Occupy movement.  Ultimately it leads to Batman perhaps having to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his city.  If you want a hint about that, think of the end of "The Avengers" from last May.  (And though no one else has probably read it yet the fifth Scarlet Knight story, which I wrote in winter 2010, also ends in a very similar fashion.)

To address what I said at the beginning, there are a few things that were pretty implausible.  The fusion generator first of all, especially a fusion generator that can fit into an armored truck.  At this point even if that technology existed, I'm pretty sure it would take up a very large room.   Also, I'm pretty sure you can't pop your spine back in like a dislocated shoulder.  Even if you could, I don't think you could go running around kung-fu fighting people a month later.  And yeah "The Bat" does not actually fly and probably couldn't.

Anyway, it is a little slow in the build-up.  If you were expecting wall-to-wall action that's not really this movie.  There are some good one-liners and puns, but it's not as funny as "The Avengers" nor should it be.  I mean come on, Batman isn't a funny guy.

The end is great, even if it seems to operate under movie time.  I mean it's still dark when they say "We have 45 minutes left!" and then like the next scene it's morning and the sun is shining.  That's a quick sunrise!  I wasn't happy with the ending for Bane, but oh well.  There are definitely a couple of surprises you probably won't see coming, or perhaps you will.  I'm sure if you watch it again the clues will be more obvious.

It is a great way to wrap up the series, incorporating a lot of elements from both "The Dark Knight" and "Batman Begins."  The latter actually seems to be involved more.  There aren't any mentions of the Joker, perhaps out of respect to Heath Ledger, while we get flashbacks of Ra's Al Ghul and Two-Face.  Anyway, I would suggest doing as I did and watching "Batman Begins" beforehand to refresh yourself with some of the important plot points.

Overall it's been pretty incredible what Christopher Nolan accomplished with these films.  While the Tim Burton ones were nice, the Nolan movies made me at least think Batman could be real.  Not only Batman, but also the villains he faces are not so implausible.  Actually Two-Face might be the most implausible just because of how overboard the FX people went on his face.  I mean no one with that kind of damage should be able to get out of bed, let alone go on a homicidal rampage.

Of course if you really want to know how to be a real superhero, you should read the Practical Superheroism posts every fourth Wednesday, which would be THIS Wednesday.  I'm just saying...

On a side note, I hope people come out and support the film.  You shouldn't let the actions of one lunatic stop you from living your life.  That's what we all said after 9/11, right?  And it's still true in this case.

That is all.

My score:  85/100 (3.5 stars)
Metacritic score:  78/100 (3 stars)

Tomorrow is a Two-Fer Tuesday...

Thursday Review: Batman, The Court of Owls Conclusion

Since tomorrow (or tonight at midnight) The Dark Knight Rises comes out, I thought I'd read a few more recent Batman comics.  In case you missed it last month, I reviewed the collection of the first seven issues of the "New 52" version of Batman. 

Those first seven issues dealt with an evil new group known as the Court of Owls, who have existed in the shadows of Gotham for over a century.  Once Bruce Wayne runs afoul of them, the Owls make it their mission to terminate him.  At the end of issue #7 the Owls have woke up all their undead assassins known as "Talons" to wreak havoc.

In issue #8 then we find out their first target:  Wayne Manor.  Bruce is there, licking his wounds, when the Owls come a'calling.  There's a chase through the mansion that inevitably leads to the Batcave.  The first half of issue #9 then deals with how Batman defeats the Talons using essentially an Iron Man suit and the Batcave's thermostat.  The latter half has Batman going to rescue mayoral candidate Lincoln March from another Talon.  (Apparently if you read other Batman-related titles they deal with the "Batfamily" of Nightwing, Robin, Red Robin, Red Hood, Batgirl, and such fighting other Talons to save Gotham's elite from destruction.)

In issue #10 we're promised Batman finally going to kick the Court's ass.  But wah-wah they're already dead.  Except of course not ALL of them.  There's one more left, which leads to a stunning revelation not only about the Court of Owls, but also about the Wayne family.  It turns out Lincoln March has not only survived the assassination attempt, but he's working for the Court of Owls.  He also claims he's Thomas Wayne, Jr., Bruce's brother.

Issue #11 then is the final clash between Lincoln/Tom Jr. and Bruce.  It's kind of disappointing in that the fight is pretty one-sided.  Most of the issue is Lincoln kicking Bruce's ass while he goes on and on about how he's been cheated out of his birthright because his parents left him in a children's hospital on his own, until the Court of Owls saved him.

As you might suspect, Batman finds a way to turn the tide.  The question from there is if Lincoln is really Bruce's brother or if it was all an elaborate hoax put on by the Court of Owls.  And of course Lincoln isn't REALLY dead, neither is the Court of Owls.  I mean in comic books and soap operas no one is ever truly dead.

Included as "backup stories" (otherwise known as "padding") to issues 9 through 11 is a mini-story called "Fall of the House of Wayne."  This is told from the perspective of Jarvis Pennyworth, Alfred's father, who was the Wayne family butler before his son takes over.  This story promises some reinvention of the Batman origin story that of course involves the Court of Owls.  In particular are some startling revelations about Bruce's mother.

Besides those four issues, I also read the "Annual" issue, which I suppose was an excuse to keep people in suspense for another month about the Court of Owls story wrapping up.  Anyway, this issue focuses mostly on Mr. Freeze.  There's some reinvention of his background as well.  He's also been involved with the Court of Owls, helping them to freeze and revive their undead minions.

The annual also features cameos by the Penguin, Lucius Fox, Nightwing, and Robin.  It was a pretty interesting new take--or at least new to me--on the origins of Mr. Freeze.  For the casual fan I doubt it's all that necessary to read because it isn't really adding a lot to the overall story.  (BTW, why do they call him "Mr. Freeze" when he's a doctor?  Shouldn't he be "Dr. Freeze?")

This was the first time in probably about 20 years I've actually bought individual comics to read.  I don't see much appeal in doing that because it seems like it'd be really annoying to get a little piece of the story and then have to wait a month for the next piece.  I suppose that's why there are like 10 Batman-related titles, so they can stagger them to keep avid readers entertained.  Still, for $3-$4 a pop it gets pretty expensive.  Had I not wanted to do a Batman-related post before the next movie came out, I probably could have waited until the inevitable hardcover reprint, which would have been cheaper, especially if I had some Discover card points to use on Amazon.

All that aside, I have really enjoyed this Court of Owls storyline.  I did figure out Lincoln was in cahoots with the Court, though I hadn't figured the whole thing out.  I'm not sure what the writers of the series will do with the Court in the future, though I know a rogue Talon will be getting a series this fall called, obviously, Talon.  Though as a casual fan it's a little disappointing we haven't seen any of the Joker or hardly any Commissioner Gordon for instance.  At least in this line; they're probably featured more in some of the other titles.

If you aren't a casual fan of Batman comics and more of a devotee, then you might not enjoy this new direction of the series.  You can read Tony Laplume's different reaction to the Court of Owls series here.

Anyway, at some point you might want to read these for yourself because probably with the inevitable 2024 re-re-re-re-reboot of the movie franchise they'll borrow from this series.  Then you'll be well-prepared for it.  Though as I said, you could probably wait to get it in hardcover for cheaper.

The Thursday Review will move to Monday next week so I can post a review of the aforementioned Dark Knight Rises...

Everyday Heroes #3

Last month the Everyday Heroes segment focused on a retiring policeman in Michigan's Thumb.  This time I did the smart thing and went to the Huffington Post "Good News" section, which is really what I should do all the time.  So this time around we have a heroic firefighter in Philly named Fran Cheney.  Not only did he save a woman's life in a pretty superheroic fashion, he also gave the overtime pay he earned from it to the woman's family.  His reward?  The fire department is investigating him for taking off his oxygen mask to give to the lady.  Stay classy, Philadelphia fire department administrators.

Here's the full story, but if you go to the Huff Po you can watch a video too.  Anyway, despite what the administrators may think, I think this guy deserves to be an Everyday Hero, don't you?

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A Philadelphia firefighter became a hero twice over when he rescued a woman from a house fire on Wednesday.

As his fellow firefighters battled the flames, Fran Cheney rushed to the second floor of the burning house to rescue Mary Jackson, who was trapped in an upstairs bedroom.

According to Fox News Philadelphia, the woman was choking on smoke and struggling to breathe, so Cheney removed his own air mask, put it on her face and carried her to safety, risking his own life in the process.

"If I was worried about that, I wouldn't be here, and neither would any of these guys that I work with," Cheney told Fox. "That's what we do. That's who we are."

But his heroic actions didn't stop there. Fox Philadelphia reports Cheney donated the $500 of overtime pay he received to Jackson's family to help them "get back on their feet," he said.

However, Cheney's actions during the rescue drew criticism from fire department officials.

Although he escaped the blaze uninjured, Cheney was treated for smoke inhalation at Temple University Hospital and spent the night there. During his stay, a department administrator paid him a visit and chided him for taking off his oxygen mask.

According to Fox Philadelphia, "the fire department will investigate to determine if proper procedures were followed when Cheney put his mask on a victim."

Cheney said that given the chance, he'd risk his life again. And it wouldn't be the first time. Cheney narrowly escaped a 5-alarm warehouse fire in April that claimed the lives of two other firefighters.

As KNUE pointed out, this is the second time this week that a person described by some as a hero was criticized for going above and beyond the call of duty. In Florida, a lifeguard was recently fired for saving a woman from drowning because the rescue took place outside the zone he was supposed to monitor.

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I keep offering you people the chance to nominate an Everyday Hero of your own.  I mean there are plenty of ways to contact me:  Email, Twitter, and Facebook for starters.  Maybe someone will finally take me up on it.  I can dream...

Tomorrow, in preparation of the new Batman movie, I review some recent Batman comics.  If you want to get up to speed, read my review of Batman:  The Court of Owls first...

Two-Fer Tuesday #12

It's Tuesday, which means another Two Fer Tuesday.  If you're not acquainted with the rules, I use a random number generator to pick a page and paragraph to pluck two sentences from.  Let's see what we get this week.

Page Number:  95
Paragraph Number: 3



This is kind of an ambiguous one:


In the near-darkness and without her glasses, she could only blunder around, feeling the walls like a blind person.  There had to be something here.  

Leave that to your imagination.

Tomorrow we meet another Everyday Hero...

Guest Post: The Grumpy Bulldog: What is a Great Book?

The Grumpy Bulldog Returns!

My alter-ego Grumpy Bulldog is back today to make a guest post on what makes a great book.  As you should expect, it gets a little grumpier than normal.
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A couple of people linked to this article in The New Yorker by Michael Cunningham (The Hours, A Home at the End of the World--both of which are good books and pretty good movies) who was a juror for the Pulitzer committee that ended up selecting no books worthy of the award in 2012.

Apparently there are four jurors who have to sift through over 300 books and come to a consensus of three or so to pass along to the main committee, who then vote on which novel gets nominated.  Usually they can find one worthy book, or at least one THEY think is worthy.  I've read a number of Pulitzers and there are a few where I think, "REALLY?"  Incidentally I hadn't heard of any of the three books Cunningham and the other jurors picked.

Now we get to the title of the post.  What does greatness mean?  That was what the jurors had to figure out.  Cunningham I guess is really focused on great language.  Someone else wanted to "fall in love" with the story--I hate people who say that--and someone else was more focused on the story.

That's where you get into the problem.  A "great" novel is something different to everyone.  Cunningham posts the first sentence of the David Foster Wallace novel they nominated.  The "sentence" is more like a paragraph.  Look at this thing, it's 89 words long!

Past the flannel plains and the blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the a.m. heat: shattercane, lamb’s-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscatine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother’s soft hand on your cheek.

You need a freaking road map to get through that sentence.  And what is it even saying?  I've read it about 10 times now and all I can figure is there are fields somewhere.  I would have read that one sentence and deleted the book from my Kindle.

Another book was a debut novel by some young woman writing about a family in the south.  My thought would be:  BORING.  There have been like a million books about the south from Huck Finn and Uncle Tom's Cabin to Faulkner and beyond.  He posted a clip of that book too, another sentence loaded down with stuff to convey a relatively simple meaning.  The third one being considered had already been published in a magazine years ago and again the writing was full of stuff trying to add weight to sentences that may not have needed them.

As a reader, sometimes I just want to scream, "Look it's a freaking sunset, all right!?"  Or night or whatever.  Or in the case of that Foster excerpt, there are some goddamned fields out there.  Whoopee.  Like I haven't seen fields before.  (I grew up surrounded pretty much on all sides by fields.)  What's your freaking POINT?!!!

Anyway, what this reminds me of is the voting for baseball's Hall of Fame.  Or any Hall of Fame really.  Inevitably you get columns every year about why so-and-so isn't good enough or so-and-so is being snubbed.  My favorite player growing up, Alan Trammell of the Tigers, falls into the snubbed category.  Why isn't he great enough?  Because he didn't take steroids like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez to hit enough home runs?  Because he didn't do back-flips at shortstop like Ozzie Smith?  Gawd!

The point anyway is the old "different strokes for different folks."  The selection process in choosing awards is invariably flawed because it all depends on the prejudices of the people doing the choosing.  Another example recently is that I finally watched "The Artist" on DVD.  Was that really the best movie of 2011?  According to people who mattered it did.  According to people like me it was meh, a lightweight, heavy-handed story that like books about southern families has been done to death.  But it got the buzz at the right time and let's face it most Academy voters are old folks who probably still fondly remember the silent movie era.

I guess the point of my ranting is that when people say your book isn't good enough or you're not good enough, a lot of the time it's their fault, not yours.  I mean have you seen some of the crap they publish?  Gawd!  I read the upcoming Amanda Hocking novel and it was like, "Really?  This is the person who sold all those self-pubbed books?"  It's not that it was completely terrible but it was oh so mediocre.  I remember too when Ebert posted a link to some Canadian woman who got a movie writing contract because of her Tweets.  I read the linked Tweets and it was like, "Really?"  I mean I know people who make pretty much the exact same witticisms and they don't get movie contracts.  Who decided this one person was "great" and the others not so much?


That's what can be really frustrating, when you get down to trying to figure out why one person or their work is elevated over another.  Looking at the article from the New Yorker, it makes sense why they decided not to give out a Pulitzer to any of those three books.  None of the books they nominated seemed all that great, at least to me.  What do I know?

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If you want to write a rebuttal or anything else, guest posts are still available for Mondays and Fridays (except July 23).  The two guest posts I've had so far are the highest traffic posts on this blog.  I'm just saying.  If you're interested, there are plenty of ways to contact me:  Email, Twitter, and Facebook.

Tuesday is still a Two-Fer...

Thursday Review: (Almost) New Releases

SUPERHERO TRIVIA #3 RESULTS:
Briane Pagel won the $5 for being the first to know that Jimmy Olsen is Superman's Pal and Lois Lane is Superman's Girl Friend.
And Stephen Hayes (The Chubby Chatterbox) won the $1 participation prize.

That's how easy it is, folks.  Just tune in at noon EST (Blogger time) the second Wednesday of August for the next chance to win.  If you're not fond of noon, then vote in the poll on the right side of the screen.  Now on with the show!

I keep telling myself I should go watch movies that are out in theaters right now and review them.  That would probably be more interesting to people.  But I can't ever seem to drag myself to the theater to do it.  Except when the next Batman movie comes out.  I'll make time for that.

Anyway, so here are some recent DVD releases I've watched.  Some are probably still not on Netflix (Qwikster) or Redbox yet (according to someone at Redbox they are available now), but you can get them at Blockbuster or On Demand or in the store.  And if you notice, they all feature a proper name in the titles:  Sherlock Holmes, John Carter, Jeff, and Kevin.  Neat.

First up:  Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows

The short version:  I didn't like this one as much as the first one.  Which is too bad since Moriarity is supposed to be Holmes's the Joker or something so I'd hoped it would be better, like "The Dark Knight" to "Batman Begins."  Instead it was more "Iron Man 2":  OK, but not great.

The first thing that annoyed me was when they killed off a main character from the last movie in the first five minutes or so.  That never works, which is why in part GI JOE 2 has been pushed back from two weeks ago to March; test audiences wanted more Channing Tatum, though I wouldn't.  Then after that the next thing is pretty much this movie rips off the plot of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."  Except there weren't any superheroes or vampires or Sean Connery, but it was the same deal of Moriarty manipulating things to create a World War about 20 years before it happened for real.

While the first movie was more of a detective story with murders and searches for clues and such pretty much entirely in London, the sequel plays out like a steampunk James Bond movie.  It starts in London and then moves on through the English countryside, to outside Paris, to Germany, and then finally to Switzerland on the trail of Moriarty.  They really should have got them to Monaco or something to do some gambling as happens in most every Bond film.  Then he could have said, "My name is Holmes, Sherlock Holmes."

Something that occurred to me later is they didn't tie it to the first movie very well.  First, if Moriarty is some famous professor and lecturer, why is he always going around in the first one with his face hidden from view?  (I mean other than we hadn't really cast an actor for the second one yet.)  I mean the Rachel MacAdams character knew who he was, so why bother with all the secrecy when they met?  Also, what happened to the radio detonator he stole at the end of the first one?  That didn't seem to have much impact on the second film.  And what happened to his little gun in its spring-loaded wrist holster thing?  Why didn't we ever see that in the second movie?  Really, maybe they should have taken another year or two to work on a better script.  I'm just saying.

But it was entertaining, even if it felt a bit long and stale.  I suppose there will probably be a third one, which I will also probably watch On Demand or on DVD since I wouldn't really pay more than $5 for it.


Next:  the much-maligned John Carter

Short version:  this probably doesn't deserve to be one of the biggest flops of all time.  It wasn't really a terrible movie, not like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or something of that caliber.  I think the biggest problem though was they stuck too close to the source material.

By that I mean it felt pretty old-fashioned.  First was keeping the setting on Mars.  That worked fine in the 19th Century but now we've landed several probes on Mars, so we know there aren't walking cities and spindly alien dudes and such nonsense.  Your target audience (teenagers) has grown up with live feeds from the Martian rover and so forth, so you can't really blame them if they thought that was kind of lame.

Also, the costumes and the machines and such all looked pretty corny.  Or maybe I should say quaint, or again old-fashioned.  OK, that worked for "Avatar" but they did not have James Cameron on staff.  I watched this on an old low-def TV while I was sick, but the effects didn't look great.  Maybe I've just watched too many of these movies, but it was pretty obvious when something was green screened, which kind of made it hard for me to lose myself in the fantasy and whatnot.  While I'm at it, the names were pretty corny too.  The big city is named Helium?  Really?  And Barsoom and Jasoom, it just all sounded lame.  But then Star Wars probably sounded lame to a lot of people too.

The meta device of Edgar Rice Burroughs being a nephew or whatever of John Carter didn't work for me either.  Especially since first you have a prologue and then you have this meta device and only then do you start to get to the freaking movie after like a half-hour.  And then it took another half-hour to get him to Mars.  I'm probably overestimating that, but I doubt by a lot.

It was OK just from an entertainment standpoint.  As I said it wasn't a terrible movie.  They just shouldn't have gone so far over budget that it cost them a huge tax writeoff.

Now for a couple of "indie" movies.  First up:  Jeff Who Lives at Home

I'm a big fan of quirky indie comedies or dramedies like "Little Miss Sunshine" or "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Cedar Rapids."  So this movie was up my alley.  It's about a guy named Jeff who lives at home (obviously) where he spends most of his time smoking weed and watching "Signs" which he thinks holds some key to the universe.  (Though it's funny for how much it's mentioned we never see any footage of "Signs" or even a movie poster or other such merchandise.  I guess the rights cost too much.)

Anyway, one day Jeff gets a call from someone looking for a dude named Kevin, but there's no Kevin who lives there.  Still, Jeff thinks it's a sign.  So when he goes out to buy wood glue from Home Depot and sees a kid with a jersey saying "Kevin" on the back he follows the kid to a basketball court, which leads to him getting mugged.

Eventually he runs into his brother Pat, who's having marital difficulties exacerbated when he bought a Porsche without consulting his wife.  Pat and Jeff go in search of Pat's wife, which ultimately leads to a couple more misadventures and then something that illustrates the interconnectedness of things.  Woven into that is their mom (Susan Sarandon) has a secret admirer at work.  She finds this out via AOL Instant Message, which made me think, "What is this, 1999?"  Who uses instant messages anymore with Twitter and Facebook and so forth?

I thought this was a fun little movie.  The biggest problem with it is while it says a running time of 83 minutes, the end credits run so slow they take as long as "The Avengers" despite that the movie doesn't have 20 computer effects companies involved.  This seemed like obvious padding to me.  The actual run time is probably closer to 75 minutes, which is pretty damned short even for an indie movie.

The camera work also really annoyed me.  This movie was directed by the Duplass brothers and when I watched their movie "Cyrus" earlier in the year I noticed how they would zoom the camera in and out really quickly.  It got to be really annoying because it looked so amateurish, like something you'd see in someone's wedding video or home movies.  The same thing applies to "Jeff..." which made me think for their next movie the Duplasses really need to let someone else work the camera.  I mean if you ever want to be in the big time you need a real cinematographer.  Maybe the idea is to give it a more intimate, homemade feel but it seems kind of bush league to me.

Still, I thought it was a good movie despite the deficiencies mentioned.  Though you could probably wait for it to come out on Netflix or something.  I mean why pay $5 or so for a 75-minute film?  I'm cheap that way.

And finally:  We Need to Talk About Kevin

When a school massacre like Columbine happens, we usually think a lot about the victims and try to psychoanalyze the shooters.  (Or you just make a rambling, largely pointless film to capitalize on the tragedy like "Bowling for Columbine.")  How often do we think about the family of the killers?  In a way they're victims too.

So this movie traces the relationship between a killer, Kevin, and his mother, Eva.  Like many movies we can't do this in chronological order.  Instead it's all a mash-up of past and present.  The easy way to tell what's happening when is by Tilda Swinton's hair.  When it's really short then you know it's before the massacre.  If it's shoulder-length then you know it's after the massacre.  And if it's really long you know it's before she had Kevin.  (Sometimes I wonder how the screenwriter and director figure out how to order everything.  Do they just throw script pages into the air and then put them back together?)

Anyway, since he was born Kevin never liked Eva.  Why?  Who knows.  Maybe like Stewie Griffin on "Family Guy" he resents being trapped in the womb for nine months.  Whatever the case he's never liked her and after a few months she doesn't like him either.  She tries to get through to him to love him, but it never really works.  The situation isn't helped by her husband Franklin, who spoils Kevin and always takes his side when Kevin destroys Eva's new office or deliberately shits his diaper to make her clean it.

Eventually Eva has the idea to have another kid, this time a girl who is relatively normal.  But this doesn't really help things.  If anything it makes Kevin worse.  And finally he does the unthinkable.  After which, Eva is left to pick up the pieces.  She unwisely stays in the same area instead of moving far away, or perhaps to another country.  She drags herself to prison to visit Kevin despite that they don't say much.

Obviously this is not a feel good movie.  It's not a popcorn movie either.  But it's the kind of movie that might make you think--what a scary proposition.  Maybe it oversells its message a little and the end is a little inconclusive, but it's still a good movie for when you want something serious.

Tomorrow is a guest post by none other than the Grumpy Bulldog...

Superhero Trivia Question #3

It's the second Wednesday of the month and so today is the superhero trivia question.  I'm taking these from 1001 Comic Book Trivia Questions by Rich Meyer.  I'm not sure how great it is, but it was cheap and available for my Kindle.  Anyway, if you have a problem with the question or answer, it's his fault.

Last month people complained it was hard, so here's an easy one:"Name the characters known as Superman's Pal and Superman's Girl Friend."

Answer in the comments.  First one to get it right gets a $5 gift card to Amazon in their email or Facebook.  (Again, I'm not mailing a $5 gift card.  I'm not sure Amazon would even let you do that.)

If you aren't first, never fear!  One respondent will be selected by random number generator to receive a $1 gift card.  Yes, you can give $1 gift cards.  Buy yourself a cheap eBook or MP3 or use it to get a dollar off something else.  The winner for this will be announced tomorrow.  The same person cannot win both gift cards because while that would be more convenient for me it wouldn't really be fair for everyone else.

Also I've decided on what I call the "Andrew Leon Rule" where the same person cannot win the trivia question each month.  So if you win this month you won't be eligible to win the $5 for another 3 months (until October).  But you can still win the $1 participation prize.  Andrew Leon is already disqualified this month for winning May's question and Craig Edwards is disqualified for winning June's question.

Good luck!!!

Tomorrow the winners will be announced and I'll review some new releases...on DVD.

Two-Fer Tuesday #11

It's Tuesday, which means another Two Fer Tuesday.  If you're not acquainted with the rules, I use a random number generator to pick a page and paragraph to pluck two sentences from.  Let's see what we get this week.

Page Number:  16
Paragraph Number: 4


You get a bonus sentence with this one.  What the hell, it was 2 words.

Dr. Dreyfus bent down to look in the microscope, though she doubted he would understand what he was seeing.  “You think it could be something else?  Something alien?”

Is it something alien?  And what is it?  So many questions...

Tomorrow is another Superhero Trivia Question.  With two previous winners ineligible your odds are even better this time around!

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

If you took last week off from Blogging, here's what you missed:

• Another mysterious Two-Fer Tuesday
• A new feature, Comic Captions, where you can write your own comic book meme
• And learn how I shamelessly ripped off "Spider-Man" for my novel

Looking ahead to this week, Wednesday is once again the Superhero Trivia contest, where you can win $5 for knowing something about superheroes, or looking something up on Google.  This week's question is so easy that it almost couldn't get easier unless I asked you something like, "What color is the Scarlet Knight's armor?" Someone would still probably get that wrong like Sean Connery in the old Celebrity Jeopardy parody on "Saturday Night Live."

Besides that there's also another Two-Fer Tuesday and reviews of some recent DVD releases.  So another full week ahead!

Thursday Review: Spider-Man Movies

Out of professional interest I should probably go see the new Spider-Man movie.  But I really don't feel like it.  Maybe I will at some point if I'm bored.  For now, though, I thought I'd talk a little bit more about the original Sam Raimi trilogy and how it connects to my novel A Hero's Journey. 

Unlike most people, I actually liked the first Spider-Man movie better than the second one.  The reason is mostly that the formula was still fresh then.  Also, other people might have liked Doctor Octopus better, but I thought the Green Goblin was pretty cool.  I mean he has a sweet glider and throws a variety of pumpkin bombs that can blow shit up and shoot boomerang knife thingies or disintegrate people.  By comparison Doc Ock was just a fat guy with four robot arms.  Lame.

And really there are a couple of great scenes in the first film the other two never topped.  First was obviously the upside-down kiss in the rain.  That was just pure awesome.  (Even though according to an article I read on the Geek Twins blog, Tobey Maguire could not breathe with all the water running into his nose and was basically getting mouth-to-mouth from Kristen Dunst while they filmed that.)  You know if you had Spidey powers you would do that after you rescued a hot girl in an alley.  Incidentally in my book the Scarlet Knight rescues someone from an alley in the rain.  But it's not a hot chick--unless you're a chubby chaser--and they don't kiss.  I'm just saying.  The second thing was the whole end of the fight between Spidey and the Goblin when they get into that abandoned building.  What I liked about that is Spidey actually gets the crap beat out of him.  By the end his costume is torn up and he's bleeding and stuff.  Which is always good because when the hero takes some punishment but keeps going then they seem more heroic.  I kept that in mind when I wrote the final fight between the Scarlet Knight and Black Dragoon in my book.  By the end both characters have suffered some damage, which I think makes it a lot more dramatic.  The problem with some superhero movies (like the recent Batman ones for instance) is the villain isn't really capable of going toe-to-toe with the hero, which makes the outcome of the fight seem hardly in doubt.  Which incidentally is a problem with my book's sequel.

Of course it wasn't a perfect film.  The effects were kind of lame, especially when he's jumping between buildings and such.  But it was 2002 so what do you want?  Whenever the Goblin and Spidey talked in costume it looked cheesy because neither really had a mouth on their costume.  It made me think of those "Power Rangers" shows where they used footage from the Japanese show when they were in their Ranger costumes and just redubbed it.  I also hated the part where the Goblin takes Mary Jane hostage and offers the sadistic choice on whether to save her or a carload of other people.  I didn't really like that in "The Dark Knight" or "Batman Forever" either because you know what always happens:  the hero saves both.  Compounding that was the part where all these New Yorkers on the bridge come to Spidey's assistance by throwing stuff at the Goblin.  Since this was less than a year after 9/11 it seemed as if it had been added in as some kind of patriotic statement.  Look, I love America, but I didn't pay $8 to watch Joe the Plumber fight the Green Goblin.  And really if you saw the Green Goblin on a bridge would you throw a wrench at him?  I'd be squatting in a corner making a mess in my pants.  I would have been annoyed had the movie ended at that point, but once it got back to the Goblin vs. Spidey I was happy.

As for the second one, it was a well-crafted movie.  It was nice they plumbed a little more of the problems associated with being a superhero, especially one who isn't a billionaire playboy.  That was definitely something I tried to work into my book and the sequels.

The big problem though was they brought up all this stuff about him wanting to quit and so forth, but then they resolved it in such an unsatisfactory fashion:  Doc Ock kidnaps Mary Jane and Peter becomes Spidey again to save her.  Yawn.  It really annoyed me when I thought about that later because why build up this whole angle of him having to choose and then create this scenario that forces his hand?  He didn't really choose anything then except to save his whiny girlfriend from being killed.

On top of that they reused a lot of the same formula.  The bad guy sets up a sadistic choice between Mary Jane and a bunch of ordinary people (in a train instead of a cable car), New Yorkers rush to Spidey's aid (and in the process he reveals himself to half of Manhattan; he really ought to just go around handing out business cards that say "Peter Parker:  Spider-Man" and hire himself out for parties and bar mitzvahs or erotic dancing), Spidey ends up saving both the train and then later Mary Jane.  Huzzah.  So really to me the last third or so just fell flat.  The whole movie ended up being a bridge to nowhere, or a bridge to where we were last movie.  Not to mention the cheesy "Raindrops Falling on My Head" dance number and the utterly pointless chocolate cake scene where the landlord's daughter offers Peter chocolate cake and we sit there watching them eat it...why?  To drive up concessions?  That would be a good point to use the can though.

As for the third one, it had some potential.  If they had just focused on the Sandman guy it probably would have worked out.  But someone (I assume studio assholes) had to make them wedge Venom into the plot too.  Then they fell back on the same formula in the first two movies:  bad guys kidnap Mary Jane to draw Spidey out.  Just like the second one a bad guy (or former bad guy) sacrifices himself to save the day.  I guess from the reviews of the new one they actually let the girl DO something at the end instead of just scream a lot.  That's probably an improvement.  And somehow Peter Parker was even dorkier when he was trying to act like a badass.

There was one great moment in the movie, where just after he becomes a pile of sand the Sandman tries to grab the picture of his daughter but he can't get his fingers to solidify.  That part was sad, which is why I think if they'd just focused on the Sandman it would have worked better.  As it was there was just too much stuff going on so it never got the chance to add up to much.

Anyway, besides what I mentioned before, I pilfered a couple other things from the Spidey movies, perhaps unconsciously.  First off is that our hero Emma is a science nerd like Peter Parker.  She's also an orphan (though that was also in Batman too) and has a sick aunt she lived with.  And if you look at this picture of her, doesn't she look like a combination of Peter and Mary Jane?  If they had a daughter this is what she'd look like, right?

Peter Parker & Mary Jane Watson's illegitimate daughter?

Tuesday is another Two-Fer!

New Feature: Comic Captions

The other day I got an idea for a new feature that will now run the first Wednesday of the month.  I got thinking that people on the Internet love "memes" where you take a picture and write a (hopefully) funny caption for it.

So the idea for this new "Comic Captions" feature is that I find a panel or two from a comic book and erase what's in the word bubbles.  Then you people fill in those bubbles however you choose.  Like memes or the old Mad Libs, it's always better if you try to come up with something hilarious and outrageous.

Sure it smacks of effort, but it could also be fun.

I'll get it started.  This comes from something called Voodoo, issue #10 I got with a free sampler from DC Comics.  Blue bubbles are the monsters and the white bubble is the heroine Voodoo.  The purple boxes are narration boxes, which I'll ignore.

Monsters:  Who's got next?  I do!  I do!

Voodoo:  Don't be fooled by my costume.  I'm not really down with the whole S&M thing.

OK that probably sucked, but let's see you do better.  Post it in the comments.

And happy Independence Day, fellow Americans.  Happy Wednesday for those who are not American.

Tomorrow I review Spider-Man...the old ones, not the reboot.  Had you going for a second, didn't I?

Two-Fer Tuesday #10

It's Tuesday, which means another Two Fer Tuesday.  If you're not acquainted with the rules, I use a random number generator to pick a page and paragraph to pluck two sentences from.  Let's see what we get this week.

Page Number:  314
Paragraph Number: 1

This one is near the end of the Epilogue, so that's pretty cool I think.



As for the boring metal-framed bed with its olive green blanket, it became a canopy bed with an adorable pink bedspread.  Marie was no longer sitting on the bed but floating over it. 

So what's going on?  If you read my Marie Marsh post during the A to Z Challenge you might have a better idea.  Or not.


Tomorrow is Independence Day in America, but also it's the debut of a new feature!  (And BTW, as a housekeeping note, I used to post at 8:30ish EST but no one ever seems to comment before noon anyway so I'm bumping back posting times to around noon EST.  Just so you know.)