Box Office Blitz Week 25 Results

I suppose the public's love affair with Channing Tatum is over as White House Down was a huge flop.  I suppose there will be some discussion whether it was hurt by "Olympus Has Fallen" premiering in March or what went wrong.  Meanwhile, the public's love affair with Melissa McCarthy continues.  Yes, Melissa McCarthy is hotter than Channing Tatum...at the box office.

Anyway, here were the top 3 this weekend:

1. Monsters U $46.2M
2. The Heat $40M
3. World War Z $29.8M

My sad picks were:

1. Monster University $40M
2. White House Down $35M 
3. The Heat $30M 

That's 100 for MU and 50 for the Heat or 150 total.

Michael Offutt picked:
Monsters University = $41 million
White House Down = $39 million
The Heat = $36 million

That's also 150 points.

Andrew Leon guessed:
1. Monsters University -- $42m
2. The Heat -- $36m
3. White House Down -- $32m

That's 100 for Mu and 100 for the Heat for 200 total.

Maurice Mitchell guessed:
White House Down $50M
Monster University $40M
The Heat $30M

That is 50 for MU and 50 for the Heat for 100 total.

Rusty Webb guessed:
Monsters U - $45 mil
The Heat - $40 mil
White House Down - $35 mil

That's 100 for MU and 100 for the Heat.  Also Rusty is the closest to the total of MU so he wins the round with 500 bonus points.

Stephen Hayes guessed:
Monsters U....$48 mil
White House Down...$36 mil
World War Z.....$30 mil.

That's 100 for MU and 100 for WWZ for 200 total.

And Briane Pagel picked:
White House Down
Redemption
Monsters University

That's 50 points for MU.

As for the bonus question, no one got it right.  White House Down failed to make more than "Olympus Has Fallen."

The updated standings:

	Box Office Blitz
	Scoreboard
		25	Total
1	Andrew Leon	200	9750
2	Tony Laplume	0	7700
3	PT Dilloway	150	7400
4	Michael Offutt	150	6397
5	Rusty Carl	700	5900
6	Maurice Mitchell	100	4600
7	Briane Pagel	50	4350
8	Stephen Hayes	200	2700
9	Cindy Borgne	0	1500
10	David P King	0	200
11	Donna Hole	0	200
		1550	50697

Box Office Blitz Week 25

Since Tony Laplume opted out to go live off the grid or something, Andrew Leon is in firm control of the contest now.  As we're nearing the halfway point, I'm thinking I need to do something to shake things up.  I've considered changing the scoring system to a wagering system somehow, but it occurs to me this would probably just give Andrew a bigger lead.  Or maybe next week we can just cash out and start over again at 0 for the second half and see if anyone else has better luck.  Maybe it would help to make the bonus for winning the round not so high?  Or make it 100 points for getting one right plus 200 if it's in the right spot?  Or maybe a graduated a system where you get 100 bonus for getting #1 right plus 200 points for getting #2 right and 300 bonus for getting #3 right.

Let me know if you like any of those options or if you have another suggestion.  Since these posts seem to be the highest viewed on the blog I don't think "scrap the thing entirely" is an option.

I was thinking of changing the name of it too.  How about Pick Flicks?  Or Flicks Picks?  Or the "extreme" version "Flix Pix"/"Pix Flix?"  Or maybe you can think of something better?

For this week and next at least we'll play by the same rules as always.


Here's the list of movies from my local megaplex (* denotes a new release)

• After Earth
• Epic
• Fast & Furious 6
• Iron Man 3 
• Man of Steel 
• Monster University
• Mud 
• Now You See Me 
• Redemption*
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• The Bling Ring
• The Great Gatsby 
• The Hangover 3
• The Heat* (not associated with the Miami Heat basketball team)
• The Internship
• The Purge
• This is the End
• White House Down* (not associated with Olympus Has Fallen that used the same premise)
• World War Z

  My picks this week will be:

1. Monster University $40M
2. White House Down $35M 
3. The Heat $30M 

And now the bonus question for 362 points:
Olympus Has Fallen made $30.4M its opening weekend in March.  Will "White House Down" make MORE or LESS than that?

Results will be posted at some point Sunday, probably a little later than usual since I will be out of town until Sunday afternoon.

Thursday Review: Chet Finley vs. the Machines of Fate

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing seems to go right and you start to think there must be some big universal conspiracy designed to screw you over?  Guess what, you're right!

That's what a 32-year-old perennial loser named Chet Finley discovers one day.  Chet wakes up one morning to find his girlfriend has abandoned him.  On his way to work he gets into a scuffle with a hot dog vendor, which makes him late for work.  Then he loses his job when he spills a pitcher of cream on a woman at the coffeehouse where he works.  But those are just appetizers for the main course of terrible things to happen to him.

Chet's weird hobby is restoring old computers:  Commodores, Amigas, Ataris, Tandys, etc.  To take his mind off things he's working on one, but it has a bad power cord that shocks him.  That little shock is enough to reveal his "guardian angel," a robot who goes by the name Ziggy.  Before Chet can find out what's going on, a team of heavily-armed robots storms his apartment.  With help from Ziggy, Chet is barely able to escape.

They circuitously flee to France aboard a freighter loaded with counterfeit DVDs.  Along the way, Ziggy reveals that there are hidden robots all over Earth, monitoring its occupants.  For scientific research?  For galactic domination?  Nope, for gambling.  One of the galaxy's favorite past-times is betting on the activities of puny humans.  Robots like Ziggy work for an entity known as RIGGED that as the name implies rigs things to favor the house.  And RIGGED will do anything to keep their secret quiet, including eliminating Chet and Ziggy.

The only one they can turn to is a black widow named Sadie, who's a shape-shifting assassin formerly in RIGGED's employ.  Sadie agrees to sneak Chet and Ziggy off Earth using an almost literal wormhole, as it's a hole in space created by a giant worm.

From there Chet, Ziggy, and Sadie look for clues about where to find RIGGED's upper echelon in order to bring them down.  The search takes them from a library run by giant birds to a casino that puts Vegas to shame, to a bizarre planet with only one inhabitant.  Along the way there are a variety of weird alien creatures.

Basically if you liked the Hitchhiker's Guide books or especially TV's Futurama then you'd probably like this book.  And also if you ever wondered what two giant Care Bears having sex would be like, then you'd really like this book.  If you want a hint, you can read this entry on my old blog.  And if you want to read about robots having sex, then read this entry from the old blog.

Here are a couple of Fun Facts:

• The original title was "Chet Finley and the Machines of Fate" but it occurred to me later that versus worked better because it's the machines he's fighting against.
• In the first draft at the end was a "Buckaroo Banzai"-ish bit saying "Chet Finley will return in 'Chet Finley vs. the Circuits of Time', but since I've never really given much thought to actually writing the sequel I took that bit out so as not to confuse anyone who might think there was actually a sequel on the horizon.
• I wrote this after I had finished the first drafts of the entire Scarlet Knight series, plus a spinoff story that focused on Sylvia the witch.  It was part of my writing binge in 2010.
• This is pretty much the only comedic piece of writing I've done and it was tough.

You can buy the ebook from Smashwords, Amazon, and B&N for $3.99!

June Recap

What was popular this month?  So far it's:

1. Box Office Blitz 24
2. My review of Man of Steel
3. Box Office Blitz 23

 That's a pretty underwhelming list.  Sad bulldog face:

This is not Butler Blue II, my usual avatar.

And here's some stuff I watched.  The first three are thanks to Briane Pagel.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret:  This dark comedic series focuses on the dimwitted eponymous character, who's working as a temp at a company in Portland (Oregon) until his boss sends him to open a new office in London to sell an energy drink called "Thunder Muscle."  (Incidentally the drink's translation from Korean means "Bad Sanitation" which may give you an idea of what it is.)  Todd is so clueless about English culture that he doesn't even know who's on the money or how much more pounds are worth than US dollars.  He lusts after a cafe owner named Alice, but she's got eyes for a muscular black dude from Canada.  Todd's attempts to impress her are all undermined by his assistant Dave.  In the second "season" (each season being only 6 episodes) we learn Dave's role in Todd's mishaps.  The comedy gets increasingly black, culminating in the final episode with a couple of surprise twists, but there's still plenty of lighthearted fun too.

Arrested Development:  Since "Todd Margaret" starred two people from "Arrested Development" and Netflix was premiering their revival of the series, I figured why not finally watch it?  I watched 7 or 8 episodes the first Sunday, so that should tell you that I enjoyed it.  Of course I'm probably one of the last people on the SEC boat for this show, but then I'm always behind the times.  As a fan of FX's "Archer" it was also interesting to see the connections between the two shows; at least 3 people from "Arrested Development" voice characters on "Archer" and really the characters they play aren't that dissimilar.  It's also the not-so-secret origin of Michael Cera.  (Remember back in 2007 when it seemed like he would be a big deal with "Superbad" and "Juno?")  For the most part it reminded me of "Seinfeld" in its heyday where little misunderstandings would lead to hilariously disastrous results.  The end of season 3 was a bit abrupt and deus ex machina, but I suppose it had to be since they were being cancelled.

I have to say though I really didn't like Season 4, the 2013 season produced for Netflix.  It was really annoying how most of the episodes were flashing back, often to stuff we'd already seen.  There were so many overlapping stories I couldn't keep track of them.  Was it really so hard to get the cast together consistently after 7 years that most episodes only focused on one or two characters?  And adding Ron Howard as a character reminded me of "Ocean's Twelve" where most of the movie seemed like a big in-joke to the stars and probably only existed for an easy paycheck.  And at the end nothing seems resolved.  (On a shallow note, the actress who plays Maebe did not age well at all.  She's one of those Lohan types who's probably still in her 20s but looks in her 40s.)  I could have done without episodes focusing on Maebe, Tobias, and Buster as I never really liked them even in the first 3 seasons.  It also bugged me that they expanded the episodes to often over 30 minutes (since there are no commercial breaks) as they really seemed to drag.  Maybe after blitzing through the first 3 seasons I was so conditioned for the episodes to end in like 22 minutes that some internal timer would go off after that amount of time.

John Dies at the End:  I didn't like the book of this as much as Mr. Pagel.  It seemed too long to me.  That is remedied in the movie version, which since it comes in at about 90 minutes cuts out a lot of stuff.  The somewhat pointless trip to Vegas is cut among other things.  Mostly this has the same blend of gross horror, humor, and campiness of the original Sam Raimi "Evil Dead" movies.  It really could have used a bigger production budget for better effects.

Freaky Deaky:  This was a movie based on an Elmore Leonard novel I watched just because like a lot of Leonard's material it involves Detroit.  I guess they actually filmed it in the Detroit area.  In one scene they're filming a movie on Belle Isle (in the Detroit River between Detroit and Canada) and in the background you can see the building where I work!  Just one teensy problem:  the building where I work was built about 2000 and the movie is supposed to be taking place in 1974--D'OH!  I noticed an Easter Egg of sorts; the movie is directed by Walter Matthau's son Charles and on a movie marquee you can see "Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in The Front Page."  Anyway, it's not quite as good as "Get Shorty" or "Out of Sight" but it's much the same mix of humor and crime.

The Details:  The gist of the movie is how raccoons completely fuck up a guy's life.  This doctor puts down a new lawn for his house but raccoons keep digging it up to get at the sod or whatever.  He tries various Bill Murray in Caddyshack-esque schemes to get rid of them but can't, until he finally puts down poisoned cat food, which kills the crazy cat lady next door's cat.  And he goes to see a friend about a gun which leads to screwing in an old Benz to a not as old Salt-n-Pepa song.  And from there things get worse.  As I said the gist is how one little thing like a problem with raccoons can cause a whole chain reaction that can screw up your life.

Slither:  A horror comedy that combines alien invaders from space with zombies as alien worms from a meteor invade a small Florida town to turn everyone into zombies.  Except Captain Mal and Elizabeth Banks, who was also in "The Details" (see above).  It was fun and also gross.  My only complaint is it was too obvious who was going to survive.  On a side note, Michael Rooker's character kept making me think of Walter White from "Breaking Bad"--at least until he turns into a gross space amoeba thing.  Hurm, maybe that will be how Breaking Bad ends.

Cosmopolis:  Team Edward plays an American Psycho who rides around in an awesome limo to get his hair cut.  There are all sort of detours along the way like stalking his frigid wife and screwing a member of his security detail.  Maybe the dialogue in the Don DeLillo novel works better but coming out of the mouths of actors (especially not a very good actor in Team Edward) most of it sounds like unrealistic nonsense.  Definitely not recommended.

Mr. Brooks:  This is one of those movies I never got around to renting or looking for on Netflix.  It was finally on cable and it was pretty good.  Kevin Costner is the eponymous Brooks, a well-respected manufacturer of boxes who has an addiction to murdering people, goaded by a devil on his shoulder in the form of William Hurt, who only Brooks can see and hear.  It seems we never find out if William Hurt's character was ever real or not.  Too much time is spent on Demi Moore as a wealthy cop getting a divorce.  It's worth watching though just to watch Dane Cook be brutally murdered with a shovel.

Two Cent Tuesday: Writing & Politics: The Common Thread

Failed attempt at salesmanship

This is one of those things that hit me last month when I was commenting on Andrew Leon's post about how 99% of authors are doomed to obscurity, even those employed by the Big However Many.  Basically it's that authors face the dilemma of politicians at election time.  That is that you can stump, you can appear at events, and you can spend loads of money advertising, but none of it matters unless people actually go to the polls to vote for you.  That was illustrated beautifully in the Simpsons episode where Bart runs for class president and thinks he has it locked up until he finds out too late that everyone (including himself) forgot to actually vote for him.

I don't know about you, but mobilization is the biggest problem I face.  Sure I Tweet, I Facebook, I blog (obviously), I post stuff on different websites to advertise.  What good does any of it do?  Most of the time, none at all.  Actually most of the time it seems like the harder I try to advertise, the less sales I get.  I know there are some articles that say it's a waste of time to self-promote, that advertising is pointless.  And advertising can be pointless if it fails to get people off their butts to buy your book.

Another epic fail in salesmanship

Despite what the GOP might try to spin, Obama didn't win the presidency in 2008 and 2012 just because he was black or even because people were sick of Bush.  He won because he had the machinery in place to get people's asses out there to vote for him.  Sure that was still probably only 30% of the electorate, but that's still better than a lot of elections.  I remember in 2008 when I went to the polls I saw some Goth chick ahead of me in line and some other young people and so I felt pretty good that Obama was going to win because when you get that most apathetic voting demographic out there, you've done something right.

In Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full, the mayor of Atlanta talks about his creative way to solve the problem of mobilization.  On election day his campaign would go around with vans and round up people and take them to polls.  (Probably more than one polling location too.)  Because especially in the inner-city it can be difficult for people to find the time and transportation to get to the polls.  So if you go and pick them up and grease their palms with a few bucks they don't have any excuse.

Maybe this would work!

Which actually if you have a few thousand dollars this could be a good technique.  Just go around and sign up a bunch of people and pay them $5 or $10 or $20 or whatever to go buy your book.  The best strategy would be to synchronize it so everyone buys the book at a certain time.  Like say you pay a thousand people to all go buy your book at 9am EST next Tuesday.  Then you'll probably make a splash on Amazon's sales rankings, for a couple of hours and that might help bring your book to more people's notice.  Even better is then if you can pay those people to review the book over the next few weeks.

The problem is for those of us without those kind of financial means, what can we do?  I don't know.  If I knew that, I'd be selling a lot more books and thus probably not writing this post right now.  A problem authors have that politicians don't is there are a lot more of us.  Your book is competing against billions (nay perhaps even trillions or dare I say gazillions!) of other books out there.  In an election you might have a dozen other candidates at most for something like a school board or college trustee election.

As an author without financial means you have to try to come up with an enticing ad campaign all on your own.  It's pretty damned difficult without a lot of luck.  Because most authors are not Mad Men, ok?  That's why publishers have marketing departments and politicians have campaign managers, pollsters, and a whole mess of other people.

Really though the first step is probably to stop thinking like an author and try to think like your potential reader.  Why should I buy your book when I have 89 books in my Kindle already?  Because it's MY book!  (So what?)  Because I'm the greatest author!  (In your own mind, but who the fuck are you?)  Because it's cheap!  (So are a billion others.)

I should probably analyze my own buying tendencies.  Those would be:
A)The price is low, like $3.99 or less (because I'm cheap)
B) It sounds interesting
C)  It helps if I've read other books by the author I enjoyed.  Or if I've at least heard of the author it helps.

Do covers matter?  Not that much to me.  Do titles matter?  Sometimes.  Like last month I bought one on sale called "Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain".  There's a title where you go, "Huh?  WTF?"  And then go to the page to see what it's about.  (Incidentally that book is as hilarious as the title suggests.)  Or one called "Superhero (An Action Thriller) naturally intrigued me even though the cover was lame.  Maybe I should have called A Hero's Journey "Superhero" or something like that so people would know what kind of book it is straight off.

So think about it:  what factors cause you to buy a book?  How can you apply that to your book?  If at some point you get it all figured out, let me know.

Here are a couple of obstacles you face in getting people off their asses.  You have the people who say, "I can't talk about any book I haven't read and approved of!"  And you have the people who say, "I'm too busy to read your book but maybe I can fit it in next year some time."  You can't get much of a campaign together with people like that.  What you need are what another blogger described as "fangelists" (fan + evangelist) the type who will sing your praises online and offline to everyone they meet.  Good luck finding someone like that.  You're far more likely to find the apathetic types.  It does probably help if you aren't the apathetic type yourself so you can pay it forward.

Comic Captions 6/24/13

ANNOUNCEMENT:  Saturday I talked about the Flash Fiction Fest for 2013 and posted the announcement that talked about how unpublished writers can submit pieces to Wattpad.  The first one posted is by none other than my big brother.  You can read his story here.

Now it's time for another Comic Captions, where your job is to recaption a comic book panel.  The goal of course is to make it as humorous as possible.

This week's comes from Batman #682

I'll go first

Squire:  Did someone order the Village People?

Now it's your turn!

Box Office Blitz Week 24 Results

I have to admit I'm a little surprise "World War Z" didn't completely tank.  I guess people who love zombies will watch them no matter how stupid the movie looks.  But still like Prometheus last year it was no match for the kid's movie.  Really I'd wager kid's movies make up half the yearly box office anymore.  I guess there aren't enough entertainment options at home.

The top 3 was:

1. Monsters University $82M
2. World War Z $66M
3. Man of Steel $42M

The pretty much 66% drop for "Man of Steel" might cool WB/DC's heels on rushing out sequels.  But probably not.

Anyway, my picks were:

1. Monster University $70M
2. Man of Steel $50M
3. World War Z $40M

That's 100 for Monster U and 50 each for the other two.

Michael Offutt picked:
1) Monsters University = $92 million
2) Man of Steel = $65 million
3) World War Z = $60 million

That's also 200 points.

Andrew Leon picked:
1. Monsters U -- $80m
2. World War Z -- $55m
and
3. Man of Steel -- $48m

That's a trifeca!  And he's also closest on Monster U so he wins the round (again) and gets the 500 bonus.

Rusty Webb picked:
Monsters U - $75 mil
Man of Steel - $50 mil
WWZ - $45 mil

That's also 200 points.

Stephen Hayes picked:
Monsters U $60 mi
World War Z $45 mil
Man of Steel $35 mil

That's a trifecta for him!

Maurice Mitchell picked:
1. Monsters U $61 mi
2. World War Z $46 mil
3. Man of Steel $35 mil

That's also a trifecta!

And Briane Pagel picked:
1. Monster U, $50 mil
2. WWZ, $46 mil
3. Bling Ring $20 mil

Which is 100 each for the first two, 200 points total.

For the bonus question I asked if World War Z would make more than Prometheus's $51M.  The answer was obviously yes.  Appropriately Michael Offutt won the 222 points.

The updated scoreboard is:

	Box Office Blitz
	Scoreboard
		24	Total
1	Andrew Leon	800	9550
2	Tony Laplume	0	7700
3	PT Dilloway	200	7250
4	Michael Offutt	422	6247
5	Rusty Carl	200	5200
6	Maurice Mitchell	300	4500
7	Briane Pagel	200	4300
8	Stephen Hayes	300	2500
9	Cindy Borgne	0	1500
10	David P King	0	200
11	Donna Hole	0	200
		2422	49147

Without Tony Laplume around, Andrew Leon is running away with it now.

Flash! Fiction Fest Round 2

I always think of this song when I talk about Flash Fiction:

Anyway, last year Neil Vogler, Sean Craven, and I wrote a bunch of flash fiction stories that were

published online in November and then packaged in the collection "We Are Now" which you can buy for 99 cents on Amazon I think.

Our publisher December House, is announcing that round 2 will take place in November 2013.  Lucky for you (and me) there will be more authors participating this year.  It means more variety for you and for me it means I can do a lot fewer stories.  The theme this year is the "7 Deadly Sins"--you know, all those things that were featured in that movie "Seven."  And this year I guess there are going to be ways for people to get more involved in the fest.

Here's the official press release that may clear things up or just make them murkier:

PRESS RELEASE

20 June 2013

December House announces Flash Fiction Fest 2013 Competition

Innovative digital first publisher, December House, in conjunction with National Flash Fiction Day, has announced the launch of it's Flash Fiction Fest 2013 competition.

Now in its second year, Flash Fiction Fest is a month long celebration of Flash Fiction and the short form of story telling.  Every day in November will see December House publishing new pieces of Flash Fiction at www.flashfictionfest.com, and this year they're giving you the chance to have your work included and published in e-book form.

The theme of this year's Fest will be "The 7 Deadly Sins" and December House are asking writers to submit three pieces on that theme through the FlashFictionFest.com website. Each writer's entry will be read by December House's team and the writer judged to have the best three pieces will have them included in the November event. The pieces will also be included in the e-book of the event and the author will have the chance to work with December House's editor on a novel for possible publication.

For more details visit www.FlashFictionFest.com 

Speaking about the launch of Flash Fiction Fest 2013 Henrietta Smethurst-McIntyre, Managing Editor of December House said:

"We're very excited to be involving the writing community in Flash Fiction Fest 2013. The short form is where so many writers hone their craft and develop their skills, which is why we think it's so important to celebrate it. This year we have a great theme, with lots of scope and the chance for many different interpretations. I can't wait to see what people come up with."

ENDS

For further details contact media@decemberhouse.net or 08432 898 649

NOTES TO EDITORS

1) About December House

At December House we're a different kind of publisher. We don't publish print books, we only publish to e-book distribution platforms (Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Nook, Smashwords, Tomely and Google Play), but we're not self publishing and we're definitely not a vanity press. We only publish great writing from great authors.

If we think a writer's work has promise then we'll work with them to deliver on that promise, just like a traditional publisher. Then we take over everything, from writing a blurb to designing a cover and deciding on a price, through to marketing the book pre and post publication. We believe it's our job to sell a book, and a writer's job to write it.

For more details see www.DecemberHouse.net

2) About National Flash Fiction Day

National Flash-Fiction Day was the brainchild of Calum Kerr a confirmed writer of flash-fiction and advocate for the form. Finding himself in the middle of a project to write a new flash-fiction every day for a year, at the same time as National Poetry Day was happening, he went looking for a National Flash-fiction Day to get involved with. But... there wasn't one. 

Without further ado, he decided that it was up to him to create it and National Flash Fiction Day was born. This year's day, which takes place on the 22nd of June,  will see events held in Bristol, Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh, Hartlepool and Shrewsbury, as well as online activities and the publication of Scraps, an anthology of Flash Fiction.

For more details see www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk

Box Office Blitz Week 24!

Last week it was a superhero ruling the box office.  This week we have monsters versus zombies.  Who will win?  That's a really good question.  I honestly don't care since I don't have any interest in either movie.  I don't really have any interest in any of the big movies until "Pacific Rim" about a month from now.  Just for a little editorial here, does a prequel mean Pixar is officially out of ideas?  They've had a really long record of success but lately like the rest of Hollywood it's been sequels and now a prequel.  Can a "Toy Story" reboot be far behind?  I'm still waiting for "The Incredibles 2" which would have been a lot better than "Cars 2" I'm sure.

Anyway, by now you know how this game works.  You guess which 3 movies will rule the box office this weekend.  For each one you guess right you get 50 points.  You get a 50 point bonus if it's in the correct spot in the order.  And 500 points goes to the winner of the round.  Make sure to add a dollar amount to your guesses since that's the tiebreaker.  Get your guesses in by the end of Friday (very early Saturday at the latest).  There are prizes for everyone who participates at the end of the year, so you can get something for relatively little effort.

Here's the list of movies from my local megaplex (* denotes a new release)

• After Earth
• Epic
• Fast & Furious 6
• Iron Man 3 
• Man of Steel 
• Monster University*
• Mud 
• Now You See Me
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• The Bling Ring*
• The Great Gatsby 
• The Hangover 3
• The Internship
• The Purge
• This is the End
• World War Z*

  My picks this week will be:

1. Monster University $70M
2. Man of Steel $50M
3. World War Z $40M

If you follow my blog and me on Blogger and Twitter then you probably know how much I enjoy rubbing it in to Michael Offutt that Prometheus came in second to Madagascar 3.  This week we seem to have a similar scenario where a live action sci-fi/horror movie is going toe-to-toe with a kid's cartoon.  So the bonus question for 222 points:  Will "World War Z" top the $51M earned by "Prometheus" its opening weekend?

Answer the bonus question along with your picks in the comments.  Results will be posted on Sunday!

Comic Captions 6/20/13

It's time for another Comic Captions, where your job is to recaption a comic book panel.  The goal of course is to make it as humorous as possible.

This week's comes from Green Lantern #24

I'll go first

Guy:  You guys are never going to get back your deposit on that costume.

Now it's your turn!

Everyday Heroes 6/13

At Everyday Heroes we don't endorse violence, unless it's violence in the service of a good cause.  And this story sounds like a good cause.

This is from ABC's Good Morning America via Yahoo!

 A Florida woman was aided by a group of teenagers she didn't know this weekend when a man police say appears to have mental problems allegedly attempted to kidnap her daughter and nephew in a Tampa-area recreational park.

Sharaya Smith, 28, was with her 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old nephew at Lisa Lake Park in New Port Richie, Fla., Saturday when she was approached by 34-year-old Bienvenido Cintron, who began uttering strange phrases, police said.

"I am Obama. I have been sent by God to cleanse the country of drug dealers and prostitutes," Cintron said, according to a police report filed by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

After she told the kids to get down from the slide they'd been playing on, Cintron allegedly attempted to pull the kids away from her. Cintron then allegedly began to pull on her daughter Tatiana Ortega's hair and arm, and called her nephew Dante a drug dealer, according to the police report.

Smith tried to get away from the park and into the safety of a lit parking lot as she and the kids were being attacked, according to the police report. Soon her brother Chad arrived with his car to pick them up, the report stated. It is unclear at which point she contacted him, or whether he had already planned to meet them.

It was while Smith scrambled to put the two kids into the vehicle that a group of teenagers who saw what was happening approached the scene, according to the police report. To help protect Smith and the kids from Cintron, they circled around the three, creating a divide between them and their assailant, Sharaya Smith told police.

Once the kids were in the car, Cintron attempted to grab at Dante through a partially open door, Sharaya Smith told police. He also spit on the car, which was later used for DNA evidence to identify him as the attacker, police said.

Chad Smith's daughter Shaylin told investigators that once Sharaya Smith had gotten into the car and they were driving away from the park, Cintron approached the group of teenagers, who were at that point walking away. Cintron later said injuries he sustained on Saturday were from a group of unknown teens, according to police.

"At this point we haven't found teenagers that he said he scuffled with," Douglas Tobin with the Pasco Sheriff's Office told ABCNews.com. "We don't know for sure if it was the same teens."

Cintron was quickly located at his home in Port Richie by investigators, and after he was positively identified by Sharaya Smith, he was arrested.

Tobin said police have had run-ins with Cintron before, and that that he believes that the man suffers from mental health issues.

"He was not very coherent," he said. "He made very little sense as we were trying to talk to him."

Cintron has been charged with attempted kidnapping and attempted burglary. He is being held at the Land O' Lakes Jail on $150,000 bond.

Hopefully now this guy can get the help he needs.

Two-Cent Tuesday: Last Chance!

Chances Are (puns!) you haven't read the first book of the Chances Are series, or definitely the second.  But today I'm talking about the third one.  Cuz I can.  It is appropriately called Last Chance.

It starts 4 years after the second one, so that all three cover 5 years total.  (This would actually be taking place in 2015 if you want to do the math.)  Stacey has been living as a woman now for 5 years and is in a good place with it.  Now more than anything what she wants is for her boyfriend, Dr. Macintosh (aka Mac) to propose to her.  But like a lot of dudes--including Stacey back when she was Steve--Mac has trouble with commitment.

He does eventually grow a spine and propose to her and she says yes.  Yet on the day of her wedding, a notorious neoNazi serial killer Steve Fischer put away has broke out of jail.

Unbeknownst to Stacey, the killer knows who she really is and what happened to her.  Stacey's honeymoon is cut short when the killer raids the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug that made Stacey into a woman and puts Stacey's friend Dr. Palmer in a coma.  Worse yet, the drug itself has vanished!

Soon Stacey finds out the killer has been using the drug himself to change his body so he can stay ahead of the cops.  He strangles Stacey to death...so that's the end, right?

Steve's back!

No!  Instead Stacey wakes up to find that she's become Steve again, a big old tough guy.  And now there's no way for Steve to hide what happened to him from his daughter Madison, who was Stacey's best friend as well.  Needless to say she's none too pleased with him.  But they work together to find the killer before he can strike again.
While the second story in the series was more drama, this one balances more of the drama with action as Stacey/Steve deals with the killer from Steve's past.  And really Stacey/Steve runs the gamut in this story from a young woman to a little girl to an old lady to a dude...it's hard to keep track of it all.  But that's what you expect in the last part of a trilogy, right?

Stacey or Renee?  Why not both!

Go here to find it in all ebook formats from Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords!  And don't forget to buy the other two while you're at it!  The first one (Chance of a Lifetime) is FREE on Smashwords and now on Amazon too.

A Fun Fact is that Stacey's punk schoolgirl look is inspired by the character of Renee Kim, who appears in volumes 5 & 8 of the Scarlet Knight series as sort of an alternate universe Emma Earl.  Because I don't just throw characters away; I recycle them!  (I'm very green that way.) 

Monday Review: Man of Steel

(NOTE:  Comic Captions has been pushed to Thursday this week.)

My Tweet-friendly review of "Man of Steel" is:  It's a good alien invasion movie.  Superman movie?  Not so much.  That pretty much sums it up.  Most of the movie is more an alien invasion flick than a superhero origin flick.  That's not entirely a bad thing, but it means a lot of the things people associate with Superman are missing:  Kryptonite, Lex Luthor, the Fortress of Solitude, and Jimmy Oleon for starters.  Oh and Lois Lane knows Superman's "secret" identity already.  She figured it out before he even was officially Superman.  Though in a way that's good because it makes Lois less of a dupe than most of the time in the comics and movies, except those comics where he finally tells her and they get married until the next reboot.

Anyway, the lengthy prologue was reminiscent of the 2009 "Star Trek" movie where we start out with the main character being born.  Apparently Kal-El (aka Clark Kent, aka Superman) is the first natural birth on Krypton for centuries.  The Kryptonians have a super advanced society, one that can mine their core for energy and yet they sit idly by while their whole planet goes BOOM!  Well not all of them.  Superman's father Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara put their son into a spaceship and send him to Earth.

Meanwhile, General Zod (Michael Shannon, more low-key crazy than "Premium Rush" or "Bug") unsuccessfully tries to overthrow the Kryptonian government.  This government banishes him and his minions into a black hole or something.  (And yet again they don't have the means to move somewhere other than Krypton?  That black hole is a giant plot hole. Zing!)

We skip forward 33 years (incidentally wasn't Jesus 33 when he was killed in the Bible?  Symbolism, bitches!) to where Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is working on a fishing boat trying to live off the grid.  It's his bad luck that an oil rig nearby is going up, so he has to step in to rescue everybody and then beat a hasty retreat.

He eventually ends up in the Arctic at some military installation.  Lois Lane (Amy Adams) shows up there to investigate the mysterious thing buried beneath ancient ice.  But Clark beats her to it, using his heat vision to burrow underground until he finds a ship.  He's able to bring it to life with the key from his ship, which also brings to life a hologram of his daddy, who explains what happened to Krypton.

Remember when I said Lois Lane figures out who Superman is?  She does this after Clark saves her when she sticks her nose where it shouldn't be on the Kryptonian ship.  Too bad he can't use a memory-wiping kiss like "Superman 2" right?  She pretty easily tracks him down to Smallville, but agrees not to blow the whistle on him.

But not long after, General Zod and his minions show up and demand Superman surrender to them.  Which he does, after he surrenders to the US Army, who stupidly put him in handcuffs.  From there the Kryptonian invasion is on with a lot of battles between Superman and the Kryptonians along with stupid humans who can't seem to get that their bullets and missiles can't kill the aliens.  (And sadly Jeff Goldblum isn't around to give the aliens a computer virus, though something similar does help Lois escape from the Kryptonians to tell Superman how to defeat them.)

Basically if you were looking for a remake of "Superman" or "Superman 2" then you're going to be hugely disappointed.  Of course I thought those movies were pretty corny, but a lot of people liked them and many critics seem to think those are the definitive superhero movies.  There's some romance, but no flying through the night sky to the strains of John Williams music.  And like I said at the beginning a lot of the traditional Superman elements are missing.  I expect though we'll see some of those crop up in the sequel.

I don't usually get into cinematography or anything like that, but there was one thing that kind of annoyed me.  Director Zack Snyder kept shooting things far away and then zooming in really quick, which made it look as if the movie were being filmed on a camcorder like a "found footage" movie like "Chronicle" or something.  A lot of these shots were mostly CGI too, so why do that?

Anyway, despite that it's more "Independence Day" than "Superman" there's still enough action and excitement to keep you entertained.  A lot of the audience applauded afterwards so I guess they liked it well enough.  I'll be interested to see what happens in the sequel now that we've got Clark/Superman established.  I suspect Lex Luthor will be making an appearance then and maybe some of the other stuff that was missing from this one too.

Since I was one of those rare people who didn't hate "Superman Returns" I don't think this was really an improvement overall.  Though we didn't have the creepiness of Superman knocking up Lois and it was good they dialed down Superman's powers a little so he wasn't lifting continents or turning the Earth backwards.  Still, instead of believing a man can fly, you're more likely to come away from this thinking "Gee, being Superman really sucks."  Really I think Grant Morrison's first few Action Comics from 2011 were how they should have done a Superman reboot.  Maybe after this latest reboot series peters out they can do that.

Overall I'd give it 2.5/4 stars.  There's definitely room for this franchise to go Up, up and away!  (Punny!)

Now here's a brain teaser for you.  A lot of people were focusing on how Superman shaves, but as I was watching "Superman Returns" yesterday I got to wondering:  how does Superman keep that cape of his under his clothes when he's Clark Kent?  Wouldn't that be really uncomfortable when he sits down?  Almost like getting a wedgie I'd imagine.  And then when Clark goes to the bathroom, wouldn't he always have to use the stalls?  But what does he do with the cape then?  Hang it up in the stall?  Though I guess since he can fly almost at the speed of light maybe he can just fly up to the Fortress of Solitude to do his business.  Or maybe he uses diapers like the astronauts.

Box Office Blitz Week 23 Results

Man of Steel was the man this weekend.  As if you weren't figuring that already.  The final tally is:

1. Man of Steel $113 ($6 of that was me!)
2. This is the End $20M
3. Now You See It $10M

More powerful than "The Purge" but not Iron Man

"The Purge" disappeared from the top 3 as quick as it appeared.  "Now You See It" really seems to have legs as they say.  Other than "The Purge"'s success last week NYSI has to be the biggest surprise so far this summer.

So much of a surprise that no one except Andrew Leon picked it, which is why he wins this week with a trifecta and the bonus 500 points to solidify his lead.

My picks were:

1. Man of Steel $100M
2. This is the End $28M 
3. The Purge $20M 

That's 200 points for the first two.

Stephen Hayes guessed:
Superman.....$40 mil (less than Batman)
Star Trek...$19 mil
This Is the End...$17 mil

That's 100 for Superman and 50 for TITE.

Briane Pagel guessed:
1. Man of Steel: $110 mil.
2. This is The End  $40 mil.
3. The Purge $10 mil.

200 for him as well, plus 100 bonus for Tweeting my video.

Maurice Mitchell guessed:
1. Man of Steel - $130m
2.This is the End - $30m
3. The Purge - $15m

Also 200 points.

Rusty Webb guessed:
Man of Steel - $125 mil
The Purge - $20 mil
This is the end $17 mil

That's 100 for Superman and 50 for TITE.

And Michael Offutt guessed:
1) Man of Steel -- $115 million
2) This is the End -- $25 million
3) The Purge --$12 million

200 for him as well, plus 100 bonus for Tweeting my video.

(If you Tweeted the link and I didn't see it, let me know.)

The bonus question was whether Man of Steel would make more than twice Batman Begins's $49M opening take, which would be $98M.  Obviously the answer is yes.  And the 375 points goes to Michael Offutt.

Not really any change on the leaderboard.  It is a dogfight between Maurice Mitchell and Briane Pagel for 6th right now.

	Box Office Blitz
	Scoreboard
		23	Total
1	Andrew Leon	800	8750
2	Tony Laplume	0	7700
3	PT Dilloway	200	7050
4	Michael Offutt	675	5825
5	Rusty Carl	150	5000
6	Maurice Mitchell	200	4200
7	Briane Pagel	300	4100
8	Stephen Hayes	150	2200
9	Cindy Borgne	0	1500
10	David P King	0	200
11	Donna Hole	0	200
		2475	46725

Tomorrow is my "Man of Steel" review!

Going Medieval

About 2 weeks ago I bought the Sims Medieval just because of any of the Sims games it seemed like the only one I might actually play.  It's basically like a really simplified, G-rated World of Warcraft type game.  You do a bunch of lame quests, some of which are just ridiculous like creating a new holiday for the kingdom or finding and then returning a genie.  I wouldn't really recommend the game as it's kind of annoying when you have to stop your quest because your person has to sleep or eat or it wants you to do something you have no idea what to do because it's never told you anything about it.  Or in this one case you have to make a special hammer out of this special mineral you can only find in a couple of select spots, but does it tell you where those are?  Nope.  And if you don't find it in time you get fed to the pit beast and die.  D'OH!

Anyway, just for the hell of it, here are some characters I made:

Syliva Joubert the witch (Scarlet Knight stories)

Emma Earl, the Scarlet Knight

Dr. Laura Pavelski (SK stories)

 

Assassin Cecelia Rameau (SK stories)

Louise Earl, Emma's daughter

Percival Graves, original Scarlet Knight

Bard Fflewddur Fflam (The Book of Three etc by Lloyd Alexander)

Reverend Francis Crane (Forever Young)

King Rogue Mutt (he looks kind of like Aragorn doesn't he?)

Shopkeeper Quark (Deep Space Nine)

  

Blacksmith Hephaestus (SK Stories)

  

Witch Agnes Joubert-Chiostro (SK stories)

 

Queen Whiskers (She's a cat so she has pointy ears!)

Louise Earl with snappy yellow boots!

Friar Tuck (I couldn't think of another literary monk)

Spy Brigitte Chiostro (Agnes's daughter in SK stories)

Detective Steve Fischer (Chance of a Lifetime)

Percival kissing some other dude

Fflewddur Fflam consummating his marriage

So there you go.  Scintillating stuff.

Box Office Blitz: Week 23

Last week was a pretty down week for the box office.  The low-budget horror flick "The Purge" came in first while the only other new movie couldn't crack the top 3.  We need someone to revive this "summer" moviegoing season.  This looks like a job for Superman!

For me this is the year's most anticipated superhero movie.  I mean sure Iron Man 3 made a shitload of money but we already know all about Iron Man from three previous movies.  This week we finally get to see what the creative team behind my favorite superhero movies (ie The Dark Knight and Watchmen) can do with the first superhero, Superman.

Of course I'm one of those people who didn't really think Superman Returns (the previous attempt to revive the franchise) was that terrible of a movie.  But this time around we get the reboot treatment.  I'm hoping the Snyder/Nolan tandem can find something to say that wasn't already done in the Christopher Reeve movies or "Smallville" and put the iconic hero back at the top of the heap.  If anyone can, I think it's them.

Oh, right, and there's also a Seth Rogen movie opening.

Here's the list of movies from my local megaplex (* denotes a new release)

• 42
• After Earth
• Epic
• Fast & Furious 6
• Iron Man 3 
• Man of Steel*
• Mud 
• Now You See Me
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• The Great Gatsby 
• The Hangover 3
• The Internship
• The Purge
• This is the End* (Please let this title refer to Seth Rogen's career)
• What Maisie Knew

  My picks this week will be:

1. Man of Steel $100M
2. This is the End $28M 
3. The Purge $20M

You should be aware that "Man of Steel" is produced by Christopher Nolan, who helmed the Batman reboot.  So the bonus question for 375 points:  Will "Man of Steel" make MORE, LESS, or EXACTLY twice as much as "Batman Begins"'s opening of $49M?  (That's $98M if you do the math.)

Answer in the comments along with your picks.

And now for some extra credit.  I put together a little promo movie for my imprint, Planet 99 Publishing.

I'll give you 100 points if you Tweet the link to the video to your followers.  The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgpQMuoCcKM&feature=youtu.be
You can put @planet99publish, @affabulldog, or @ptdilloway in the Tweet so I'll be able to see it.  Make sure you do it by Sunday morning, since results will be posted that afternoon!

(And if you don't have Twitter then I guess you're out of luck this week.)