So far I haven't read that many comics recently. I've been busy reading and writing and stuff like that. But there are still a few:
Injustice Gods Among Us Vol 1: This is based on the hit(?) video game that I've never played because I don't own a PS4, PS3, XBox One or XBox 360 and fighting games annoy me anyway because I don't feel like exhausting mental space learning combos. I remember back in the 90s I rented a similar game for the SNES and I always liked playing the Flash because I could remember one of his combos. Anyway, I guess this comic is a prequel to the game. Basically the Joker decides that he's lost enough to Batman that he's going to move on to Superman. By creating a scenario where Superman accidentally kills Lois Lane (and her unborn child) the Joker plays perhaps his biggest joke on the whole world because this unleashes Superman, who decides that he will put a stop to crime everywhere. Which brings him into conflict with Batman. This is just the first 6 issues or so of a series that's been running for like 2 years now. Anyway, it's not exactly a new concept for Superman to decide to become more proactive, see Red Son and For Tomorrow for examples that I've read. Anyway, it's just a Marvel-ish way of getting the heroes to whale on each other, which is the point of the game. (2.5/5)
Captain America: Escape from Dimension Z: I reviewed the first part of this story probably around the start of the year. Fourth of July they put the rest of the series on sale so I finally got around to reading it. Basically in the first 5 issues Captain America was transported to "Dimension Z" a dimension ruled by the evil Zola. He adopted a baby as his son and like 10 years went by. And then these 5 issues are pretty much all one day. Most of it Cap is whining about how hurt he is. It's all pretty much, "I'm dying! But I've got to save my son!" Which he really doesn't. A major character is "killed" and really as it turns out this whole thing was a setup to get rid of Steve Rogers...again. Has any major superhero died or been retired, etc. than Steve Rogers? Yeesh. So...not so good. (2/5)
Superman: Last Son of Krypton: This was co-written by Richard Donner, the guy who made the 1978 movie and most of Superman II, so this isn't really an in-continuity story. Basically Superman finds a little kid who happens to be Kryptonian. And then General Zod shows up. Mayhem ensues. It was pretty good, though I will please Tony Laplume by saying it's not as good as Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman series, which this seems to share some DNA with in how they both try to work in a lot of different elements of the Superman mythology. Still it's probably better than Man of Steel. (3/5)
Batman & Son: The plot starts off largely the same as the recent animated movie. Talia al-Guhl, the daughter of the evil Ra's al-Guhl has made a "genetically perfect" son with Batman. She dumps the kid named Damian on Batman for a few days, during which Damian tries to kill current Robin Tim Drake and usurp his place. The end is vastly different than the movie and is somewhat unsatisfying. One thing to note is that the "new edition" I bought includes Batman: The Black Glove which I'd already read and was previously also a trade paperback. Which was kind of a gyp except I got it on sale for $2.99 so I suppose the 4 issues that make up the Batman & Son arc were worth that. (3/5)
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Comic Captions Returns!!!
I'll admit I've just about run through my stockpile of entries. It's summer and I'm busy and who really gives a shit about blogs right now, amIright? So here you go, the return of Comic Captions, where I post a panel from a comic book and you put in a funny caption--or at least try.
So here we go. This is one of the extras from last year I had lying around; I have no idea anymore what issue it's from.
Now it's your turn! Caption it in the comments.
So here we go. This is one of the extras from last year I had lying around; I have no idea anymore what issue it's from.
My caption: Go ahead, make the obvious joke.
Now it's your turn! Caption it in the comments.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Movie Round-Up 7/25/14: Sexy Time!
Here's what I watched since the last time:
Non-Stop: This was the yearly Liam Neeson winter action movie, following "Unknown," "The Grey," "Taken," and maybe some others I forgot. Anyway, in this one he's an air marshal who has to stop a plot involing a passenger who keeps threatening to kill people while all the time seeming to set up the air marshal for the crimes. In the end the bad guy was the one I pegged from the start but it's the kind of thing where it goes around enough you start doubting it and then are proven right. Anyway, another solid action movie but not spectacular. (2.5/5)
Nymphomaniac, Volume 1: What happens when an art film maker writes and directs a movie that sounds like a porno? A film about sex that is really not very sexy. Basically the old scientist guy from "Thor" and "The Avengers" finds a woman knocked out in an alley and takes her back to his place, where she starts telling him all about her sexual exploits. Alternately sex is compared to fly fishing, jungle cats, and classical music. Apparently the full movie is about 4 hours long as there is a volume II, the preview of which is in the credits for volume 1. I'll probably watch it just to see if there's a point to all this. I mean that and some occasional actual sex, right? (2/5)
Nymphomaniac, Volume 2: Thanks to a snafu in my queue I ended up getting this second part for this week. Much of the first third or so of the movie is the woman has gotten married and had a kid and now suffers from kind of like writer's block, only with sex. So she tries some unusual methods to get things kickstarted, first by meeting up with a couple of Africans thanks to an interpreter she hires and then with some guy who specializes in beating women up. Eventually she finds her calling by working for Willem Defoe as a hired goon who helps bully guys into repaying debts. Overall this second part felt like it had more of a cohesive story than the first. It makes a good point near the end about how if a man had done most of the things she had, no one would bad an eyelash. I mean we romanticize and revere men who sleep around like Casanova, Don Juan, or Hugh Hefner while a woman who sleeps around is a "whore" or "slut" and made to feel guilty about it. Unfortunately the last two minutes take a big dump on the whole thing, pretty much changing everything we know about a character for no good reason. It's like if you ever saw the original ending for "Clerks" where out of nowhere it takes this depressing, violent turn and pretty much leaves you saying, "WTF?!" Since the thing is like 4 hours long, maybe we could have done without those 2 minutes? (2.5/5)
Under the Skin: Scarlett Johannson is like an alien who goes around looking for guys to take back to her lair to turn into pink slime...or something. I don't know, it doesn't do a real good job explaining what the fuck is going on. There were these guys on motorcycles whose presence wasn't really explained either. I'm thinking they were other aliens? It's the kind of movie where a lot of it is just people staring at stuff. In fact for the credits it just lists the actors's names because there are no character names. But on the plus side you can see Scarlett Johannson naked, which is a point in its favor. (2/5)
Zack & Miri Make a Porno: I had pretty much stopped caring about anything Kevin Smith did after Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (I have vowed to never watch Clerks II and have stuck to that thusfar) so I didn't really care when this came out originally. Plus it features Seth Rogen, who is one of my least favorite leading men. As the title suggests, a dude named Zack and his friend Miri decide to make a porno to get money to pay their bills. They enlist people from their Pittsburgh neighborhood to help. But their first attempt called Star Whores (not an original title, BTW) literally gets demolished so they take up filming in the coffeehouse where Zack works. The rest is pretty predictable. Rogen is just about as annoying as possible, but the bigger misstep was Smith enlisting his old cronies Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson who are glaringly not as good as pretty much everyone else on the screen, including former porn queen Traci Lords. Dude, I know they're your buddies but it's like taking over a major league baseball team and adding a couple of buddies from your old company softball team. Anyway, be sure to watch the cookie scene in the credits to see how things turn out for everyone. (2.5/5)
The Road: This was one of those books in the 2000s everyone got talking about, like Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Corrections, Twilight, etc. I still haven't read it even though I once could have bought it for $1 from a library sale. I just don't like Cormac McCarthy. The movie version seems like Cormac McCarthy Lite; it's not as shockingly brutal as I assume the book is. The cannibalism is implied, not really shown. I thought in the book too the water was poisoned but in the movie that doesn't seem a problem. Anyway, after some unknown disaster Man and Boy go wandering the south towards the coast. I'm not sure what Man hoped to find there. Boy is obsessed with them being "the good guys," which is strained when Man starts doing some stuff that goes against this notion. It's kind of like The Walking Dead only with no zombies. As also part of the lack of brutality the end is somewhat happy; about as much as can be expected under the circumstances. I'm sure I hated this a lot less than I would the book. (3.5/5)
Small Time: This suffered from one of those times where I should have read a review or something. I thought this would be more of a workplace comedy of a car dealership, but really it's more of a family drama when a used car dealer's son comes to work for him. The problem for the car dealer is his son is a little too good at his job. Overall it was OK, but like I said I was looking for some laughs. There are a couple of funny parts in when they hustle people to sell cars, but those are momentary blips. (3/5)
Non-Stop: This was the yearly Liam Neeson winter action movie, following "Unknown," "The Grey," "Taken," and maybe some others I forgot. Anyway, in this one he's an air marshal who has to stop a plot involing a passenger who keeps threatening to kill people while all the time seeming to set up the air marshal for the crimes. In the end the bad guy was the one I pegged from the start but it's the kind of thing where it goes around enough you start doubting it and then are proven right. Anyway, another solid action movie but not spectacular. (2.5/5)
Nymphomaniac, Volume 1: What happens when an art film maker writes and directs a movie that sounds like a porno? A film about sex that is really not very sexy. Basically the old scientist guy from "Thor" and "The Avengers" finds a woman knocked out in an alley and takes her back to his place, where she starts telling him all about her sexual exploits. Alternately sex is compared to fly fishing, jungle cats, and classical music. Apparently the full movie is about 4 hours long as there is a volume II, the preview of which is in the credits for volume 1. I'll probably watch it just to see if there's a point to all this. I mean that and some occasional actual sex, right? (2/5)
Nymphomaniac, Volume 2: Thanks to a snafu in my queue I ended up getting this second part for this week. Much of the first third or so of the movie is the woman has gotten married and had a kid and now suffers from kind of like writer's block, only with sex. So she tries some unusual methods to get things kickstarted, first by meeting up with a couple of Africans thanks to an interpreter she hires and then with some guy who specializes in beating women up. Eventually she finds her calling by working for Willem Defoe as a hired goon who helps bully guys into repaying debts. Overall this second part felt like it had more of a cohesive story than the first. It makes a good point near the end about how if a man had done most of the things she had, no one would bad an eyelash. I mean we romanticize and revere men who sleep around like Casanova, Don Juan, or Hugh Hefner while a woman who sleeps around is a "whore" or "slut" and made to feel guilty about it. Unfortunately the last two minutes take a big dump on the whole thing, pretty much changing everything we know about a character for no good reason. It's like if you ever saw the original ending for "Clerks" where out of nowhere it takes this depressing, violent turn and pretty much leaves you saying, "WTF?!" Since the thing is like 4 hours long, maybe we could have done without those 2 minutes? (2.5/5)
Under the Skin: Scarlett Johannson is like an alien who goes around looking for guys to take back to her lair to turn into pink slime...or something. I don't know, it doesn't do a real good job explaining what the fuck is going on. There were these guys on motorcycles whose presence wasn't really explained either. I'm thinking they were other aliens? It's the kind of movie where a lot of it is just people staring at stuff. In fact for the credits it just lists the actors's names because there are no character names. But on the plus side you can see Scarlett Johannson naked, which is a point in its favor. (2/5)
Zack & Miri Make a Porno: I had pretty much stopped caring about anything Kevin Smith did after Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (I have vowed to never watch Clerks II and have stuck to that thusfar) so I didn't really care when this came out originally. Plus it features Seth Rogen, who is one of my least favorite leading men. As the title suggests, a dude named Zack and his friend Miri decide to make a porno to get money to pay their bills. They enlist people from their Pittsburgh neighborhood to help. But their first attempt called Star Whores (not an original title, BTW) literally gets demolished so they take up filming in the coffeehouse where Zack works. The rest is pretty predictable. Rogen is just about as annoying as possible, but the bigger misstep was Smith enlisting his old cronies Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson who are glaringly not as good as pretty much everyone else on the screen, including former porn queen Traci Lords. Dude, I know they're your buddies but it's like taking over a major league baseball team and adding a couple of buddies from your old company softball team. Anyway, be sure to watch the cookie scene in the credits to see how things turn out for everyone. (2.5/5)
The Road: This was one of those books in the 2000s everyone got talking about, like Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Corrections, Twilight, etc. I still haven't read it even though I once could have bought it for $1 from a library sale. I just don't like Cormac McCarthy. The movie version seems like Cormac McCarthy Lite; it's not as shockingly brutal as I assume the book is. The cannibalism is implied, not really shown. I thought in the book too the water was poisoned but in the movie that doesn't seem a problem. Anyway, after some unknown disaster Man and Boy go wandering the south towards the coast. I'm not sure what Man hoped to find there. Boy is obsessed with them being "the good guys," which is strained when Man starts doing some stuff that goes against this notion. It's kind of like The Walking Dead only with no zombies. As also part of the lack of brutality the end is somewhat happy; about as much as can be expected under the circumstances. I'm sure I hated this a lot less than I would the book. (3.5/5)
Small Time: This suffered from one of those times where I should have read a review or something. I thought this would be more of a workplace comedy of a car dealership, but really it's more of a family drama when a used car dealer's son comes to work for him. The problem for the car dealer is his son is a little too good at his job. Overall it was OK, but like I said I was looking for some laughs. There are a couple of funny parts in when they hustle people to sell cars, but those are momentary blips. (3/5)
Thursday, July 24, 2014
For Romance Readers and Writers, This is a Thing
Until yesterday when they sent me an email saying Forever Young was fairly popular on the site (far more so than Amazon or Goodreads) and if I wanted to submit anything else. At first I thought "whatever" but then reading some of the comments on the site I decided to put up the whole series because people were complaining about the first one doesn't wrap things up neatly, not seeming to realize it's a series.
Anyway, those should be up eventually but for right now you can see Forever Young on the front page under Romance Suspense and read the whole thing for free. Though of course you have to read it off the screen of your computer or tablet or whatever; it's not an ebook. Which really the ebook is free on Smashwords. Or you can read other romance books there. If you have a romance book, you can even submit it there. I guess they don't pay you anymore, which is too bad, because I like money.
Incidentally, Forever Young is a YA book not a romance. I guess they changed their format since 2008, but whatever. Here are some testimonials from the site:
I feel like I'm the only one who reads this books i am right
Owsum
goin gud so far...
The alibity to think like that is always a joy to behold
Dis book is inspirational
Nice suspence but will come to know early in the story.
I love that book howthe people drink the water and live for ever I read it in school for literature
(I weep for the future of literacy.)
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Death Knocks By Miranda Hardy & Jay Noel
Death Knocks:
Who knew a knock at the door could rupture your entire world? They don’t demand money or possessions…they want much more than that, they want your life.
Maverick is preparing for senior year: he’s no longer stuck in the “friend-zone” with the girl of his dreams, he’s looking forward to choosing the right college and being on his own, and he plans to have a blast along the way.
But a knock on the door changes all of that forever.
Maverick begins a mind-altering, life-changing journey to discover the truth—a truth that certain individuals will do anything to keep hidden.
Death Knocks is a Young Adult paranormal thriller about the strange global phenomenon known as the Black-Eyed Kids. Take a creepy and exciting ride in a world where myth meets reality.
Death Knocks is scheduled for publication on September 26, 2014 by Quixotic Publishing.
Death Knocks Book Trailer YouTube Embedded Link:
Quixotic Publishing
Miranda Hardy
Jay Noel
While I'm announcing books, now you can get my Chances Are and Girl Power series all in one convenient omnibus for a mere $4.99!
Monday, July 21, 2014
Why is My Girl Power Series Better Than Marvel and DC? Permanence!
Recently Marvel announced two "shocking" changes. The first is that there will be a new, female Thor replacing the male character. And Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, will be taking over as Captain America for Steve Rogers. And for many comic book fans--and those like me who are only somewhat interested in comic books--there was a large collective yawn. Why? Because they've pulled these gimmicks so many times before.
You see the pattern, right? They make these big changes, get people all excited and whipped into a frenzy and then after six months or a year or so they go back to the status quo. There was even a hilarious parody on Robot Chicken's second DC Comics Special where Batman is eulogizing Green Arrow and then stops and says, "I can't do this anymore! We all know he's going to come back!"
I'm sure some, like Tony Laplume, would point out there are a few instances where a character has died and actually stayed dead--so far. Like the original Captain Marvel (Marvel version) and Peter Parker in the "Ultimate" universe. (I think.) But mostly there's always a correction back to the status quo because the status quo is at heart what people want, even when they claim they don't. Remember that old Simpsons episode where people are bored with Itchy & Scratchy and so they introduce "Poochy" but everyone hates Poochy so they kill him off? (Incidentally he didn't stay dead.) That pretty much summarizes the comic book universe in general. We claim to get bored with Superman or Batman or Captain America, but if they get "killed" or "replaced" then we get all pissed off about it until the status quo returns...and then we get bored again after a while. Since the comic book companies like money, they love to milk this and so what better way than going on popular shows like "The View" and "Colbert Report" and advertising massive (temporary) changes? But these changes won't stick, which may be good or bad depending on how well-done the titles actually are.
Contrast that to my Girl Power universe, where there are actual consequences. Spoiler alert: of the four male superheroes who get turned into female superheroes, only 1 ever becomes a man again. There's no lame reset button where everything just goes back to the status quo. No one travels back in time. Clones do appear in the second book, but they're male clones. No magic amulets or any of that. Even the one who becomes a man again is not the exact same, and things are kind of different for the rest of his family too.
I guess the luxury when you're only writing 3 books (plus some short stories) is that you don't have to feed that cycle where you need 12 issues (or more) a year. Thus it's hard for people to get bored. And it's easy to keep the changes you make permanent. Will they be permanent? Yes! Why? Because that's what the characters want. After going through all they go through, they don't want the status quo. I mean the one gets married to a man and has a child; you think she wants to go back to being a man again? And another also ends up getting married to a man and thus sees little reason to going back to how things used to be. And even the one who seems she would most want to go back decides her new status quo is a lot better than her old status quo.
Wouldn't it be nice if we, the comic book buyers, voted with our dollars that way to decide we want to keep the new status quo for once? But we won't, so when the "real" Thor and Captain America return we will of course go out and fuel the gimmick cycle once more.
'Nuff said.
- Like remember in the early 90s when Superman "died" at the hands of Doomsday? And then he came back to life.
- Or remember a year or two later when Bruce Wayne was "crippled" by Bane and replaced by Jean-Paul Valley? And then Bruce Wayne came back.
- Or hey, remember when Bruce Wayne "died" like 15 years later and Dick Grayson became Batman? And then Bruce Wayne came back.
- Or remember when Jason Todd's Robin "died" in the '80s? Or when Damian Wayne's Robin "died" last year? One came back years ago and the other just now came back from the dead, at least temporarily.
- Or remember when Hal Jordan went crazy and stopped being a Green Lantern? And then he came back, though it took a while.
- Or remember in "Crisis on Infinite Earths" when Barry Allen's Flash "died"? And then he came back, though it took a while.
- Or remember when Steve Rogers "died" thanks to an assassin and Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) took over as Captain America? And then Steve Rogers came back.
- Or remember when Dr. Octopus switched brains with Peter Parker and became Spider-Man? And then Peter Parker came back.
- Or remember when Hercules took up being Thor? (I didn't but Rusty Webb read that recently and I read his Goodreads review.) And Thor eventually came back--I assume.
- Or remember that "Thor" started out as just some dude named Dr. Donald Blake who found a magic hammer in Norway? Many people do not, but it's true!
- Or remember when Wolverine "died"? Well no because it won't happen for like 2 months. But then he'll come back!
You see the pattern, right? They make these big changes, get people all excited and whipped into a frenzy and then after six months or a year or so they go back to the status quo. There was even a hilarious parody on Robot Chicken's second DC Comics Special where Batman is eulogizing Green Arrow and then stops and says, "I can't do this anymore! We all know he's going to come back!"
I'm sure some, like Tony Laplume, would point out there are a few instances where a character has died and actually stayed dead--so far. Like the original Captain Marvel (Marvel version) and Peter Parker in the "Ultimate" universe. (I think.) But mostly there's always a correction back to the status quo because the status quo is at heart what people want, even when they claim they don't. Remember that old Simpsons episode where people are bored with Itchy & Scratchy and so they introduce "Poochy" but everyone hates Poochy so they kill him off? (Incidentally he didn't stay dead.) That pretty much summarizes the comic book universe in general. We claim to get bored with Superman or Batman or Captain America, but if they get "killed" or "replaced" then we get all pissed off about it until the status quo returns...and then we get bored again after a while. Since the comic book companies like money, they love to milk this and so what better way than going on popular shows like "The View" and "Colbert Report" and advertising massive (temporary) changes? But these changes won't stick, which may be good or bad depending on how well-done the titles actually are.
Contrast that to my Girl Power universe, where there are actual consequences. Spoiler alert: of the four male superheroes who get turned into female superheroes, only 1 ever becomes a man again. There's no lame reset button where everything just goes back to the status quo. No one travels back in time. Clones do appear in the second book, but they're male clones. No magic amulets or any of that. Even the one who becomes a man again is not the exact same, and things are kind of different for the rest of his family too.
I guess the luxury when you're only writing 3 books (plus some short stories) is that you don't have to feed that cycle where you need 12 issues (or more) a year. Thus it's hard for people to get bored. And it's easy to keep the changes you make permanent. Will they be permanent? Yes! Why? Because that's what the characters want. After going through all they go through, they don't want the status quo. I mean the one gets married to a man and has a child; you think she wants to go back to being a man again? And another also ends up getting married to a man and thus sees little reason to going back to how things used to be. And even the one who seems she would most want to go back decides her new status quo is a lot better than her old status quo.
Wouldn't it be nice if we, the comic book buyers, voted with our dollars that way to decide we want to keep the new status quo for once? But we won't, so when the "real" Thor and Captain America return we will of course go out and fuel the gimmick cycle once more.
'Nuff said.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Movie Round-Up 7/18/14
And here's what I watched in the last week:
Snowpiercer: Michael Offutt reviewed this and then I saw a Comcast commercial saying you could get it On Demand while it's still in theaters, so why not pay $1-$2 more than a matinee to be able to watch it in your home without annoying other people or obscene movie theater snack prices? Anyway, as I Tweeted to Mr. Offutt, it's very strange, but mostly in a good way. Like "Elysium" last year, this is a fairly obvious attempt at depicting class struggle. Basically the Earth has frozen thanks to a chemical that stopped global warming a little too well and the only people left are on this big train called the Rattling Ark, which was intended by its John Galt-ish designer as a luxury train that would circle the world indefinitely. So that's what it's been doing for almost 18 years now. Curtis Everett (Chris Evans, ie Captain America) is one of the steerage passengers in the back of the train, eking out an existence eating protein Jell-O made from something really gross. But Curtis has a plan for revolution--and this time it'll work! So much of the movie is them trying to move from car-to-car, battling the evil goons, including this chunky balding guy who had a Michael Myers-ish quality of hardly saying anything and not dying. The leader of the goons is a woman played by Tilda Swinton, who seems under the impression she's still in a Wes Anderson movie, which I found a little too hammy. Along the way there are some surreal moments as they go through the upscale cars of the first class passengers. There's a car with sea life inside and one with gardens and one with saunas. The most surreal part is when they enter the schoolhouse car, where a teacher is indoctrinating young children on how awesome the train is. I could share Curtis's look of WTF is this shit!? Eventually you start to realize this is a lot like the second Matrix movie, only the video game-ish organization (find this guy, get this thing, go here, etc) seems far less artificial given the environment. Overall it's a sometimes wacky and sometimes poignant concoction that is kind of that old school apocalyptic sci-fi like Planet of the Apes (the original) or Logan's Run, etc. It's the kind of movie I'd probably like to watch again just to see if I get more out of it a second time. (4/5)
Grand Budapest Hotel: I'd been wanting to see this for a while, but never got around to seeing it in theaters. Anyway, it's probably Wes Anderson's best movie in years. Not that I didn't like his last couple, but they were more YA-flavored, whereas this is a movie for grown-ups. It starts off with essentially 3 framing elements: a girl going to the grave of an author who wrote a book about the hotel; that author doing a TV interview in 1985; and then when he visits the hotel in 1968 and meets the owner. Then we get to the actual story in 1932 where the concierge of the hotel M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is breaking in a new lobby boy named Zero. And then one of his elderly lovers (Tilda Swinton, who this time is actually in a Wes Anderson movie) dies and he goes to her funeral. There he finds out he's to inherit a valuable painting and when her son Dimitri (Adrien Brody) disputes this, Gustave steals the painting. Mayhem ensues! I'm sure for a lot of people they either really like Anderson's movies or they really hate them. Obviously I've been in the former for a few years since I started watching them. What's always great is that while on the surface they can seem silly or goofy or perhaps too precious from the brightly colored sets, the deliberately unspecial effects, the way none of the actors try to conceal their various accents so you have Americans, Brits, Irish, etc. all inhabiting what's supposed to be an Eastern European country, this is only a surface coating over serious issues. In this case it's the start of WWII and the oppression that followed as well as really Gustave is kind of a pathetic figure, even if on the surface he seems so grand as the practically omniscient concierge; we see that he lives in a tiny room and hooks up only with old ladies to get their money. So while it's a charming movie, it's also got a brain. (5/5)
Free Ride: The title sounds like a road trip movie and while there's a road trip involved it's not that kind of movie. In 1977 an abused wife (Anna Paquin) goes to Florida thinking a friend got her a job cleaning houses. Except the job is really as a drug smuggler. Breaking bad ensues. It's a little uneven in that she claims to love her daughters so much and freaks out when the younger one gets attacked by ants, but she lets them live on a farm being used for storing pot and parties with some druggy friends while her kids are sleeping, so it's a little hard to feel sympathetic for her plight. (2.5/5)
Flyboys: It took me four tries to actually get through this thanks to my crappy Internet connection. Anyway, it was OK. Basically in 1917-ish a group of Americans join a French unit of fighter pilots. You had to pretty much be nuts back then since planes were pretty much balsa wood and canvas, you didn't have an ejector seat or even a parachute, and there weren't any goodies like radar. If your plane caught on fire your best option was to shoot yourself in the head because it was that, dive out of it to plummet to your death, or burn up. The movie was pretty predictable. I mean you know what's going to happen to the evil Black Falcon guy so that wasn't a surprise. It's a little depressing when at the end it gets to the text of what happened to people afterwards. The one black guy in the unit joined the US forces when they entered the war but of course they wouldn't let a black guy fly even if he'd already been doing that and had several kills to his credit. And the James Franco character apparently never flew again after the war. Yeah, I can see why. (2.5/5)
Legion: I put this in my queue after Michael Offutt mentioned the Syfy show based on this and I remember this existed. It was sort of like the Terminator/Terminator 2 only with angels and no time travel. Paul Bettany is the good Terminator/Kyle Reese who has to find Sarah Connor carrying the leader of the future. Unfortunately she's in a crappy little diner at the edge of the Mojave desert, where the occupants barricade themselves to fend off the invasion. It was OK, but apparently there's no way to kill an angel except for another angel, which led to like 3 different characters heroically sacrificing themselves for no reason. (2/5)
JLA: Adventures in Time: This was apparently not one of those intended for grown-ups. It was basically a retread of an old Superfriends episode where the Legion of Doom goes back in time to prevent Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman existing. Only in this Lex Luthor thanks to "the Time Trapper" (nice name...not) has his minions stop Superman from existing. No thought is given to what happens to anyone else. Pretty sad when Superfriends does it better in like 1978. There was a neat Easter egg where they show Wendy, Marvin, and their dog from the first two seasons of Superfriends walking down the street. (1.5/5)
A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy: During the opening credits I realized that I would not want to see any of these people in an orgy setting. I mean seriously I never want to see Jason Sudekis, Nick Kroll, and Tyler Labine naked. Ever. So it's good it was boring and I fell asleep like 1/3 of the way through. From what I gathered, those immature 30-somethings were bummed their Hamptons hangout was about to be sold and they'd have nowhere to go. Boo hoo. (Inc.)
8MM 2: Was there anyone in the known universe who thought, "We really need a sequel to 8MM!" But if they had waited they could have gotten Nic Cage back to star in it. Anyway, there was a decent manage au trois at the beginning. Though it was not interesting enough to keep me awake long after. (Inc.)
Snowpiercer: Michael Offutt reviewed this and then I saw a Comcast commercial saying you could get it On Demand while it's still in theaters, so why not pay $1-$2 more than a matinee to be able to watch it in your home without annoying other people or obscene movie theater snack prices? Anyway, as I Tweeted to Mr. Offutt, it's very strange, but mostly in a good way. Like "Elysium" last year, this is a fairly obvious attempt at depicting class struggle. Basically the Earth has frozen thanks to a chemical that stopped global warming a little too well and the only people left are on this big train called the Rattling Ark, which was intended by its John Galt-ish designer as a luxury train that would circle the world indefinitely. So that's what it's been doing for almost 18 years now. Curtis Everett (Chris Evans, ie Captain America) is one of the steerage passengers in the back of the train, eking out an existence eating protein Jell-O made from something really gross. But Curtis has a plan for revolution--and this time it'll work! So much of the movie is them trying to move from car-to-car, battling the evil goons, including this chunky balding guy who had a Michael Myers-ish quality of hardly saying anything and not dying. The leader of the goons is a woman played by Tilda Swinton, who seems under the impression she's still in a Wes Anderson movie, which I found a little too hammy. Along the way there are some surreal moments as they go through the upscale cars of the first class passengers. There's a car with sea life inside and one with gardens and one with saunas. The most surreal part is when they enter the schoolhouse car, where a teacher is indoctrinating young children on how awesome the train is. I could share Curtis's look of WTF is this shit!? Eventually you start to realize this is a lot like the second Matrix movie, only the video game-ish organization (find this guy, get this thing, go here, etc) seems far less artificial given the environment. Overall it's a sometimes wacky and sometimes poignant concoction that is kind of that old school apocalyptic sci-fi like Planet of the Apes (the original) or Logan's Run, etc. It's the kind of movie I'd probably like to watch again just to see if I get more out of it a second time. (4/5)
Grand Budapest Hotel: I'd been wanting to see this for a while, but never got around to seeing it in theaters. Anyway, it's probably Wes Anderson's best movie in years. Not that I didn't like his last couple, but they were more YA-flavored, whereas this is a movie for grown-ups. It starts off with essentially 3 framing elements: a girl going to the grave of an author who wrote a book about the hotel; that author doing a TV interview in 1985; and then when he visits the hotel in 1968 and meets the owner. Then we get to the actual story in 1932 where the concierge of the hotel M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is breaking in a new lobby boy named Zero. And then one of his elderly lovers (Tilda Swinton, who this time is actually in a Wes Anderson movie) dies and he goes to her funeral. There he finds out he's to inherit a valuable painting and when her son Dimitri (Adrien Brody) disputes this, Gustave steals the painting. Mayhem ensues! I'm sure for a lot of people they either really like Anderson's movies or they really hate them. Obviously I've been in the former for a few years since I started watching them. What's always great is that while on the surface they can seem silly or goofy or perhaps too precious from the brightly colored sets, the deliberately unspecial effects, the way none of the actors try to conceal their various accents so you have Americans, Brits, Irish, etc. all inhabiting what's supposed to be an Eastern European country, this is only a surface coating over serious issues. In this case it's the start of WWII and the oppression that followed as well as really Gustave is kind of a pathetic figure, even if on the surface he seems so grand as the practically omniscient concierge; we see that he lives in a tiny room and hooks up only with old ladies to get their money. So while it's a charming movie, it's also got a brain. (5/5)
Free Ride: The title sounds like a road trip movie and while there's a road trip involved it's not that kind of movie. In 1977 an abused wife (Anna Paquin) goes to Florida thinking a friend got her a job cleaning houses. Except the job is really as a drug smuggler. Breaking bad ensues. It's a little uneven in that she claims to love her daughters so much and freaks out when the younger one gets attacked by ants, but she lets them live on a farm being used for storing pot and parties with some druggy friends while her kids are sleeping, so it's a little hard to feel sympathetic for her plight. (2.5/5)
Flyboys: It took me four tries to actually get through this thanks to my crappy Internet connection. Anyway, it was OK. Basically in 1917-ish a group of Americans join a French unit of fighter pilots. You had to pretty much be nuts back then since planes were pretty much balsa wood and canvas, you didn't have an ejector seat or even a parachute, and there weren't any goodies like radar. If your plane caught on fire your best option was to shoot yourself in the head because it was that, dive out of it to plummet to your death, or burn up. The movie was pretty predictable. I mean you know what's going to happen to the evil Black Falcon guy so that wasn't a surprise. It's a little depressing when at the end it gets to the text of what happened to people afterwards. The one black guy in the unit joined the US forces when they entered the war but of course they wouldn't let a black guy fly even if he'd already been doing that and had several kills to his credit. And the James Franco character apparently never flew again after the war. Yeah, I can see why. (2.5/5)
Legion: I put this in my queue after Michael Offutt mentioned the Syfy show based on this and I remember this existed. It was sort of like the Terminator/Terminator 2 only with angels and no time travel. Paul Bettany is the good Terminator/Kyle Reese who has to find Sarah Connor carrying the leader of the future. Unfortunately she's in a crappy little diner at the edge of the Mojave desert, where the occupants barricade themselves to fend off the invasion. It was OK, but apparently there's no way to kill an angel except for another angel, which led to like 3 different characters heroically sacrificing themselves for no reason. (2/5)
JLA: Adventures in Time: This was apparently not one of those intended for grown-ups. It was basically a retread of an old Superfriends episode where the Legion of Doom goes back in time to prevent Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman existing. Only in this Lex Luthor thanks to "the Time Trapper" (nice name...not) has his minions stop Superman from existing. No thought is given to what happens to anyone else. Pretty sad when Superfriends does it better in like 1978. There was a neat Easter egg where they show Wendy, Marvin, and their dog from the first two seasons of Superfriends walking down the street. (1.5/5)
A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy: During the opening credits I realized that I would not want to see any of these people in an orgy setting. I mean seriously I never want to see Jason Sudekis, Nick Kroll, and Tyler Labine naked. Ever. So it's good it was boring and I fell asleep like 1/3 of the way through. From what I gathered, those immature 30-somethings were bummed their Hamptons hangout was about to be sold and they'd have nowhere to go. Boo hoo. (Inc.)
8MM 2: Was there anyone in the known universe who thought, "We really need a sequel to 8MM!" But if they had waited they could have gotten Nic Cage back to star in it. Anyway, there was a decent manage au trois at the beginning. Though it was not interesting enough to keep me awake long after. (Inc.)
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Big Girls Don't Cry...Apparently
Probably about 2 years ago when Michael Offutt read A Hero's Journey (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #1, which is FREE on Amazon and Smashwords) he commented that the hero, Dr. Emma Earl, cries too much. So I went in and took out a few instances of her crying. Because I'm proactive like that.
Well fast-forward to 2014 and someone complained about Chance of a Lifetime that Stacey Chance cries too much. They claim she cries at the end of every chapter, which I sincerely doubt is true. And then someone (or someones) on Goodreads complained that the male-to-female heroes in Girl Power cry too much. And so OK I get the point. I'll probably go back in and change a few instances. When I get around to it. One reason is because I like to be proactive about these things. For another I like reading my own books, so any flimsy excuse to indulge in that, right?
Though with the latter two books I would grumpily say that I think people are wrong. I mean if you're a guy and especially a superhero who's all full of male testosterone and all the sudden you become a woman filled with estrogen (and very little testosterone) it's going to fuck you up. Why the hell do you think pregnant women get emotional? Or guys (and gals) who take steroids go into rages? Hormonal imbalances can screw you up, especially when you aren't used to dealing with them. So thinking that Stacey or Apex Girl, Midnight Spectre, Velocity Girl, and Queen Neptune are just going to roll with it all stoic like is completely unrealistic.
According to So, You've Been Transformed into a Woman?!: A Guide to New Boobs for the Formerly Boobless by Tom Tame here's some reasons why women cry more than men:
Your new feminized / girlified body has a ton of reasons to cry more, and here are some of them:
But at the same time I suppose I can look for ways to limit the number of times it happens. Maybe. And then you can be grateful. I mean you think Stephen King would do that for you? Ha. Don't make me cry--with laughter.
And here's the appropriate song:
Well fast-forward to 2014 and someone complained about Chance of a Lifetime that Stacey Chance cries too much. They claim she cries at the end of every chapter, which I sincerely doubt is true. And then someone (or someones) on Goodreads complained that the male-to-female heroes in Girl Power cry too much. And so OK I get the point. I'll probably go back in and change a few instances. When I get around to it. One reason is because I like to be proactive about these things. For another I like reading my own books, so any flimsy excuse to indulge in that, right?
Though with the latter two books I would grumpily say that I think people are wrong. I mean if you're a guy and especially a superhero who's all full of male testosterone and all the sudden you become a woman filled with estrogen (and very little testosterone) it's going to fuck you up. Why the hell do you think pregnant women get emotional? Or guys (and gals) who take steroids go into rages? Hormonal imbalances can screw you up, especially when you aren't used to dealing with them. So thinking that Stacey or Apex Girl, Midnight Spectre, Velocity Girl, and Queen Neptune are just going to roll with it all stoic like is completely unrealistic.
According to So, You've Been Transformed into a Woman?!: A Guide to New Boobs for the Formerly Boobless by Tom Tame here's some reasons why women cry more than men:
Your new feminized / girlified body has a ton of reasons to cry more, and here are some of them:
- High levels of hormones such as prolactin and progesterone can build up and become toxic. Such hormones are released in significant volumes through--what? You guessed it! Tears. Oh, and also in that puddle you make on the bed in which you will find yourself inevitably sleeping because he's on top and he rolls to the side, leaving you to stew in your combined sex juice.
- You now sweat less than men. Men can release a lot of their toxins through sweat. Yours now leak out your eyes. (Warning: Do NOT go taking whiffs of male sweat to remind yourself of what you used to smell like. While you might find the bulk of it stale and stinky, it's also rich in pheromones which do strange things to your girly brain (i.e. sexy time).
- Your female body has larger tear ducts, therefore when you do cry (are you sniffling again?!), you gush like a broken hydrant rather than just leak a little like the man you used to be.
- Stress hormones such as cortisol are released through tears. Considering your current predicament, you probably have a lot of reasons to be stressed, such as the deep and overwhelming loss of your dick (and/ or control thereof).
- It elicits sympathy even from the person( s) responsible for your transformation. It also connects them to you and creates a powerful sense of intimacy. Use it. Use it wisely. Use it well. You might just be able to work your way out of this.
Tame, Tom (2014-06-21). So, You've Been Transformed into a Woman?!: A Guide to New Boobs for the Formerly Boobless (Kindle Locations 1030-1044). . Kindle Edition.The fact that 3/4 of the people who complained about this are male is telling, at least to me. I mean to guys crying is taboo. It's not something you do because crying makes you a wuss. Which is something I subscribe to, so I guess there's some irony involved.
But at the same time I suppose I can look for ways to limit the number of times it happens. Maybe. And then you can be grateful. I mean you think Stephen King would do that for you? Ha. Don't make me cry--with laughter.
And here's the appropriate song:
Apparently this was featured in that Jersey Boys movie no one watched.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Pro Tips From Authors Anonymous
This post is being simulcast today on the Indie Writers Monthly blog.
Recently I watched an indie mockumentary called "Authors Anonymous" that follows a writing critique group. When it comes to writing a lot of movies still get it wrong, which is surprising because movies are written by, you know, writers who should know better than to have a character mailing their 2,000-page opus in a box to a publisher and getting a big contract. This movie gets the writing game far righter than most. Here are some tips on what to do and what not to do gleaned from the movie:
1. Actually Finish Something: Chris Klein plays Henry, the literary writer of the group who worships Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc. (A popular writing movie trope is that everyone always worships Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and pretty much everyone else before 1950. What about Updike or Vonnegut or the many authors since then?) For most of the movie he's suffering from writer's block in finishing his great opus Pizza to Go. It's only after some tumultuous events with the group that he finally gets the gumption to finish the book. And this being a movie of course it succeeds.
2. Don't Flog One Thing Forever: Collette is another member of the group, who's been working on her steamy romance novel Nyet, Not Yet forever, despite that no one wants to publish it. She finally barges into a literary agent's office with her guru, who's taken a vow of silence. But instead of getting her book published, she becomes co-author of a book featuring the guru. So hey she'll be a published author! (Sort of.)
3. How to Not Net an Agent by Creative Means: Collette's husband is an optometrist, who considers himself the leader of the group. When a literary agent (Mike from "Breaking Bad") comes in to get his eyes checked, the optometrist replaces the traditional eye test with a page of his wife's manuscript. Instead of piquing the agent's interest, he just gets annoyed and leaves.
4. How to Net an Agent by Creative Means: By contrast Henry gets his novel in the hands of the same agent through a different method. When he goes to clean the agent's carpets for his day job, he offers the agent 10% off if he'll read the first ten pages. The agent agrees and likes what he sees, so he asks for more. The difference between 3 & 4 is one is just pushing something the agent doesn't want on them while the other offers a reward. Pro Tip: Agents like money. So really the optometrist should have offered free glasses if the agent would read his wife's book.
5. Don't Revise Indefinitely: One character worships Charles Bukowski (as do I) and wants to be a great writer like him. The problem is he's only written 3 pages in like 3 years! At one group session he turns in the same pages but claims it's completely different because he's changed one word. Revision is great, but 3 years is a bit too much. And I definitely don't think Bukowski put that much effort into it.
6. Be Discreet When Researching: Bukowski boy also has this habit of eavesdropping on people's conversations to write down interesting stuff. The problem is he's completely not subtle about it. This leads to trouble with a couple of women he's been spying on. So if you're going to do that, be more subtle. Or be like the NSA and just listen to phone conversations from thousands of miles away.
7. Avoid Vanity Presses: Dennis Farina plays an older guy who worships Tom Clancy. He finally decides to self-publish his novel Roaring Lion with a vanity press called "U R the Publisher." Except the books he gets back are formatted terribly. The front cover features a tiny dog instead of a lion and the back text is in Chinese! Of course if you do it yourself through CreateSpace or Lulu you avoid those problems.
8. Know Your Audience: After getting his books, Dennis Farina sets up a book signing at his girlfriend's hardware store. This of course does not go well. Watching it I shook my head and thought, "Why doesn't he sell them at like a VFW?" I mean he was a Marine and he's selling a military-themed book, so why not go to where other like-minded individuals will be located? It's like how if I were not such a Grumpy Bulldog I'd try to have book signings for my superhero books at comic book stores and try to sell them at sci-fi conventions. If you're going to sell books in person, try to sell them where people who might be interested in them might actually be.
9. Keep a Recording Device Handy: An annoying habit the optometrist has is keeping a tape recorder around for ideas of stories or characters. The problem is that he never actually writes any of these ideas into books, which kind of goes back to my first tip. Still, it's a good idea if you're forgetful because there's nothing worse than thinking of a story or title or something and then forgetting it later, because then it will haunt you for hours. Or you can use a blog. Idea for a novel: a secret agent who's a bulldog mascot! I'll call it Agent Double-Oh K9!
10. Hook Up With a Famous Author:
There's one famous author who's Henry's idol, but at a book signing the
author ends up hooking up with ditzy blond Hannah, who also has a book
being published. When it comes time for her book signing, the famous
author has a lot of his friends show up, so it's far more successful
than Dennis Farina's. Of course it might be difficult for you to hook
up with JK Rowling or Stephen King or someone like that, but keep your
options open!
11. Be Super Cute: As mentioned in #10, Hannah is a ditzy blond in the group. Throughout the movie she's challenged to think of a famous author and it's pretty clear the closest to a book she's probably read is TV Guide. But she's the one who gets the big publishing deal for her novel Sleeping on the Moon. Jealous group members suggest she got the deal because she's hot. Whether this is true or not is debatable, but I will say not many people who look like me get mega book deals. Now of course if you're like me it's kind of hard to actually apply this tip, but do your best. I mean, what could it hurt?
For more tips, you can watch the movie on Netflix, Redbox, or On Demand or whatever.
Recently I watched an indie mockumentary called "Authors Anonymous" that follows a writing critique group. When it comes to writing a lot of movies still get it wrong, which is surprising because movies are written by, you know, writers who should know better than to have a character mailing their 2,000-page opus in a box to a publisher and getting a big contract. This movie gets the writing game far righter than most. Here are some tips on what to do and what not to do gleaned from the movie:
1. Actually Finish Something: Chris Klein plays Henry, the literary writer of the group who worships Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc. (A popular writing movie trope is that everyone always worships Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and pretty much everyone else before 1950. What about Updike or Vonnegut or the many authors since then?) For most of the movie he's suffering from writer's block in finishing his great opus Pizza to Go. It's only after some tumultuous events with the group that he finally gets the gumption to finish the book. And this being a movie of course it succeeds.
2. Don't Flog One Thing Forever: Collette is another member of the group, who's been working on her steamy romance novel Nyet, Not Yet forever, despite that no one wants to publish it. She finally barges into a literary agent's office with her guru, who's taken a vow of silence. But instead of getting her book published, she becomes co-author of a book featuring the guru. So hey she'll be a published author! (Sort of.)
3. How to Not Net an Agent by Creative Means: Collette's husband is an optometrist, who considers himself the leader of the group. When a literary agent (Mike from "Breaking Bad") comes in to get his eyes checked, the optometrist replaces the traditional eye test with a page of his wife's manuscript. Instead of piquing the agent's interest, he just gets annoyed and leaves.
4. How to Net an Agent by Creative Means: By contrast Henry gets his novel in the hands of the same agent through a different method. When he goes to clean the agent's carpets for his day job, he offers the agent 10% off if he'll read the first ten pages. The agent agrees and likes what he sees, so he asks for more. The difference between 3 & 4 is one is just pushing something the agent doesn't want on them while the other offers a reward. Pro Tip: Agents like money. So really the optometrist should have offered free glasses if the agent would read his wife's book.
5. Don't Revise Indefinitely: One character worships Charles Bukowski (as do I) and wants to be a great writer like him. The problem is he's only written 3 pages in like 3 years! At one group session he turns in the same pages but claims it's completely different because he's changed one word. Revision is great, but 3 years is a bit too much. And I definitely don't think Bukowski put that much effort into it.
6. Be Discreet When Researching: Bukowski boy also has this habit of eavesdropping on people's conversations to write down interesting stuff. The problem is he's completely not subtle about it. This leads to trouble with a couple of women he's been spying on. So if you're going to do that, be more subtle. Or be like the NSA and just listen to phone conversations from thousands of miles away.
7. Avoid Vanity Presses: Dennis Farina plays an older guy who worships Tom Clancy. He finally decides to self-publish his novel Roaring Lion with a vanity press called "U R the Publisher." Except the books he gets back are formatted terribly. The front cover features a tiny dog instead of a lion and the back text is in Chinese! Of course if you do it yourself through CreateSpace or Lulu you avoid those problems.
8. Know Your Audience: After getting his books, Dennis Farina sets up a book signing at his girlfriend's hardware store. This of course does not go well. Watching it I shook my head and thought, "Why doesn't he sell them at like a VFW?" I mean he was a Marine and he's selling a military-themed book, so why not go to where other like-minded individuals will be located? It's like how if I were not such a Grumpy Bulldog I'd try to have book signings for my superhero books at comic book stores and try to sell them at sci-fi conventions. If you're going to sell books in person, try to sell them where people who might be interested in them might actually be.
9. Keep a Recording Device Handy: An annoying habit the optometrist has is keeping a tape recorder around for ideas of stories or characters. The problem is that he never actually writes any of these ideas into books, which kind of goes back to my first tip. Still, it's a good idea if you're forgetful because there's nothing worse than thinking of a story or title or something and then forgetting it later, because then it will haunt you for hours. Or you can use a blog. Idea for a novel: a secret agent who's a bulldog mascot! I'll call it Agent Double-Oh K9!
 |
| I like my wet food shaken, not stirred. |
11. Be Super Cute: As mentioned in #10, Hannah is a ditzy blond in the group. Throughout the movie she's challenged to think of a famous author and it's pretty clear the closest to a book she's probably read is TV Guide. But she's the one who gets the big publishing deal for her novel Sleeping on the Moon. Jealous group members suggest she got the deal because she's hot. Whether this is true or not is debatable, but I will say not many people who look like me get mega book deals. Now of course if you're like me it's kind of hard to actually apply this tip, but do your best. I mean, what could it hurt?
For more tips, you can watch the movie on Netflix, Redbox, or On Demand or whatever.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Movie Round-Up 7/11/14
Here's what I watched since last Thursday:
Authors Anonymous: I will talk more about this movie Monday on this blog and Indie Writers Monthly. Basically it's a mockumentary about a group of would-be authors who meet in person. When a ditzy blond named Hannah actually gets published, the ensuing jealousy and rivalry shatters the group. While a lot of movies that involve writing and books get it wrong, this one gets a lot right, though it still has kind of a snobby legacy author view of self-publishing and ebooks. Definitely a great movie for the struggling writer in your life, which if you're reading this is probably you. (4/5)
Lone Survivor: Non-spoiler alert, Marky Mark survives a mission gone wrong in Afghanistan. (It is called Lone Survivor.) Basically him and 3 other SEALs are supposed to kill some evil Taliban guy, but when some goat herders stumble on their position, all Hell breaks loose. A good thing is that the four guys don't look that much alike, so you can actually tell them apart during the fighting, unlike when I watched Blackhawk Down and I couldn't keep track of who was who. And then it turns into Saving Private Ryan as we send in a bunch of guys to get the guy, which means like a dozen people dying trying to save one. Which on one hand you admire the courage of these brave heroes and on the other it seems pretty reckless. But if I'm the lone survivor then by all means send all the Marines, Army, Navy, and Coast Guard to get me. Anyway, it's nice this shows a somewhat nuanced picture of the situation. Though the SEALs are all really good and the Taliban guys are all really bad, they do at least show that not all Afghans are evil and at the same time they're not all sitting around hoping for us to "liberate" them. (3/5)
That Awkward Moment: This is the kind of movie that you think from the commercials/previews is going to be funny. And then...it's really not. The bloopers in the credits were pretty much funnier than anything going on in this. It's basically Sex and the City only with dudes. Zac Efron is the confirmed playa, some guy who looks like young John Cusack is his confirmed wingman, and then Michael B. Jordan is a married doctor who finds his wife is cheating on him. Then Zac Efron meets some girl who ends up working at the firm where he makes book covers. And young John Cusack starts hooking up with a girl affiliated with their circle. And Michael B. Jordan tries to work it out with his wife. After a while I found myself drifting away from this. It was just cliche upon cliche and very predictable. And then everything gets all heavy and maudlin before the cliche Big Romantic Gesture. Yawn. (1.5/5) But this does explain why so many book covers feature shoes--it's because when women see shoes, it stimulates their brains.
Superman: Unbound: In the "Silver Age" back in the 50s/60s there was this goofy notion that a Kryptonian city called Kandor had been shrunk down and stored in a bottle. Later this was tied to Superman's nemesis Brainiac, who basically goes around like the Borg, only instead of assimilating people, he just puts a representative city in a bottle in his ship. And when he shows up on Earth, mayhem ensues, with Superman and Supergirl having to fight the evil robot horde. Though it turns out that Brainiac is a bit like Howard Hughes. It's kind of weird to think a sophisticated alien lifeform can be defeated by mud. But there you go. (3/5)
D.E.B.S: Did you ever think it would really be awesome if Charlie's Angels went around in schoolgirl uniforms all the time? That's essentially the premise of this movie. A group of four schoolgirls try to apprehend the evil Lucy Diamond...except one falls in love with her. Overall the hammy acting, clunky dialog, and sub-Sharknado-level production values made McG's movies look like Spielberg. And I still have no idea what the fuck DEBS stands for or why anyone would think that girls in schoolgirl outfits would make good spies. I mean, is there anything more conspicuous outside of a strip club than a hot young girl in a schoolgirl outfit? And how would a multiple-choice test show you're good at lying? I mean do you answer the questions wrong? Then how do you differentiate between good liars and idiots...wait, that explains some things. But I'm sure Sterling Archer would love to work for an agency with that dress code for female agents. Anyway, I'm sure this never made any Michael Clarke Duncan retrospectives after he died. With good reason. (1/5)
Authors Anonymous: I will talk more about this movie Monday on this blog and Indie Writers Monthly. Basically it's a mockumentary about a group of would-be authors who meet in person. When a ditzy blond named Hannah actually gets published, the ensuing jealousy and rivalry shatters the group. While a lot of movies that involve writing and books get it wrong, this one gets a lot right, though it still has kind of a snobby legacy author view of self-publishing and ebooks. Definitely a great movie for the struggling writer in your life, which if you're reading this is probably you. (4/5)
Lone Survivor: Non-spoiler alert, Marky Mark survives a mission gone wrong in Afghanistan. (It is called Lone Survivor.) Basically him and 3 other SEALs are supposed to kill some evil Taliban guy, but when some goat herders stumble on their position, all Hell breaks loose. A good thing is that the four guys don't look that much alike, so you can actually tell them apart during the fighting, unlike when I watched Blackhawk Down and I couldn't keep track of who was who. And then it turns into Saving Private Ryan as we send in a bunch of guys to get the guy, which means like a dozen people dying trying to save one. Which on one hand you admire the courage of these brave heroes and on the other it seems pretty reckless. But if I'm the lone survivor then by all means send all the Marines, Army, Navy, and Coast Guard to get me. Anyway, it's nice this shows a somewhat nuanced picture of the situation. Though the SEALs are all really good and the Taliban guys are all really bad, they do at least show that not all Afghans are evil and at the same time they're not all sitting around hoping for us to "liberate" them. (3/5)
That Awkward Moment: This is the kind of movie that you think from the commercials/previews is going to be funny. And then...it's really not. The bloopers in the credits were pretty much funnier than anything going on in this. It's basically Sex and the City only with dudes. Zac Efron is the confirmed playa, some guy who looks like young John Cusack is his confirmed wingman, and then Michael B. Jordan is a married doctor who finds his wife is cheating on him. Then Zac Efron meets some girl who ends up working at the firm where he makes book covers. And young John Cusack starts hooking up with a girl affiliated with their circle. And Michael B. Jordan tries to work it out with his wife. After a while I found myself drifting away from this. It was just cliche upon cliche and very predictable. And then everything gets all heavy and maudlin before the cliche Big Romantic Gesture. Yawn. (1.5/5) But this does explain why so many book covers feature shoes--it's because when women see shoes, it stimulates their brains.
Superman: Unbound: In the "Silver Age" back in the 50s/60s there was this goofy notion that a Kryptonian city called Kandor had been shrunk down and stored in a bottle. Later this was tied to Superman's nemesis Brainiac, who basically goes around like the Borg, only instead of assimilating people, he just puts a representative city in a bottle in his ship. And when he shows up on Earth, mayhem ensues, with Superman and Supergirl having to fight the evil robot horde. Though it turns out that Brainiac is a bit like Howard Hughes. It's kind of weird to think a sophisticated alien lifeform can be defeated by mud. But there you go. (3/5)
D.E.B.S: Did you ever think it would really be awesome if Charlie's Angels went around in schoolgirl uniforms all the time? That's essentially the premise of this movie. A group of four schoolgirls try to apprehend the evil Lucy Diamond...except one falls in love with her. Overall the hammy acting, clunky dialog, and sub-Sharknado-level production values made McG's movies look like Spielberg. And I still have no idea what the fuck DEBS stands for or why anyone would think that girls in schoolgirl outfits would make good spies. I mean, is there anything more conspicuous outside of a strip club than a hot young girl in a schoolgirl outfit? And how would a multiple-choice test show you're good at lying? I mean do you answer the questions wrong? Then how do you differentiate between good liars and idiots...wait, that explains some things. But I'm sure Sterling Archer would love to work for an agency with that dress code for female agents. Anyway, I'm sure this never made any Michael Clarke Duncan retrospectives after he died. With good reason. (1/5)
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
There's More Than Michael Bay & Shakespeare
Like a week ago there was an article about the 10 greatest (of many) problems with the latest Transformers movie. To which I commented that it would be nice if society would stop rewarding people for making crap. To which someone said, "Well tell us the next time you go to watch Shakespeare, K?"
Because clearly the only two options in the known universe are Michael Bay and William Shakespeare, right? And word to the wise, I don't really like Shakespeare. Unless it's Bill Shatner doing it and then I appreciate it ironically. I mean I watched that Joss Whedon version of "Much Ado About Nothing" last year and spent most of the movie wondering what the fuck they were talking about. I mean let's face it there's so much of Shakespeare that's dated these days. In many cases even the core concepts are dated like "A Merchant in Venice" which is basically a lot of anti-Semitism.
OK, so I'm not going out to watch Shakespeare anytime soon if I can help it. But again that doesn't mean Michael Bay is my only other option. That's the problem with the world today. People support crap, complain it's crap, and yet don't seem to realize there's an alternative that doesn't involve the Immortal Bard. By that I mean there's a difference between say X-Men Days of Future Past, which has a story (even if it's not entirely logical) and Transformers 4, that's just 3 hours of blowing shit up. The point being: action movies don't have to be dumb!
The problem is those people who don't care about the distinction. "It's an action movie, not Shakespeare!" That doesn't mean it can't have a mostly coherent plot. Or characters who are more than cardboard cutouts or racist stereotypes. Or women who do more than run around in their underwear.
This kind of stereotyping is a problem for those who write genre fiction. There's the idea that every sci-fi story has to involve spaceships or robots. Or every fantasy story has to involve dragons and magic. Or that every superhero story should be like the campy Batman show from the 60s and aimed at kids.
Anyway, don't just settle for the lowest common denominator--demand better! That's the only way you get better movies. I mean if Batman & Robin hadn't been such a dismal failure we'd probably still think superhero movies are just cheesy 2-hour toy commercials.
And here's your Shakespeare:
Because clearly the only two options in the known universe are Michael Bay and William Shakespeare, right? And word to the wise, I don't really like Shakespeare. Unless it's Bill Shatner doing it and then I appreciate it ironically. I mean I watched that Joss Whedon version of "Much Ado About Nothing" last year and spent most of the movie wondering what the fuck they were talking about. I mean let's face it there's so much of Shakespeare that's dated these days. In many cases even the core concepts are dated like "A Merchant in Venice" which is basically a lot of anti-Semitism.
OK, so I'm not going out to watch Shakespeare anytime soon if I can help it. But again that doesn't mean Michael Bay is my only other option. That's the problem with the world today. People support crap, complain it's crap, and yet don't seem to realize there's an alternative that doesn't involve the Immortal Bard. By that I mean there's a difference between say X-Men Days of Future Past, which has a story (even if it's not entirely logical) and Transformers 4, that's just 3 hours of blowing shit up. The point being: action movies don't have to be dumb!
The problem is those people who don't care about the distinction. "It's an action movie, not Shakespeare!" That doesn't mean it can't have a mostly coherent plot. Or characters who are more than cardboard cutouts or racist stereotypes. Or women who do more than run around in their underwear.
This kind of stereotyping is a problem for those who write genre fiction. There's the idea that every sci-fi story has to involve spaceships or robots. Or every fantasy story has to involve dragons and magic. Or that every superhero story should be like the campy Batman show from the 60s and aimed at kids.
Anyway, don't just settle for the lowest common denominator--demand better! That's the only way you get better movies. I mean if Batman & Robin hadn't been such a dismal failure we'd probably still think superhero movies are just cheesy 2-hour toy commercials.
And here's your Shakespeare:
Monday, July 7, 2014
Fargo the TV Series Shows Us the Real Face of Evil
Contains spoilers. Read at your own peril.
Last month on the Movie Round-Up post at the bottom I talked about FX's "Fargo" TV series which was based on the 1996 movie. There are a number of bad people in the show, but the plot revolves mostly around two especially bad characters. The first is Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) a ruthless hitman who has absolutely no problem killing anyone at any time or just for the heck of it creeping little kids out by telling them the house they moved into was the site of a murder and may be haunted. The other is Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) who starts out as a mild-mannered, hen-pecked insurance salesman. And as the show went on I started to think that despite all the atrocities Malvo commits, it's Nygaard who's more evil.
As I said he doesn't start out evil. Then in the first episode after getting his nose broken by his childhood bully (which leads to him meeting Malvo in the hospital) Lester snaps and kills his wife with a hammer. In a panic he calls Malvo who shows up to help him clean it up and in the process kills the sheriff.
It's the calling Malvo where Lester's journey to the dark side begins. The right thing to do would have been to call 911 and confess after he hit his wife with the hammer--or of course not hit her with the hammer to start with. Instead he calls Malvo to try to cover it up. Then the sheriff dies and over the next few episodes Lester has to tell one lie after another to the cops, friends, and family. As they say once you start lying it's really hard to stop because they just keep piling up.
But it's not until after a near-deadly encounter with two hitmen looking for Malvo that Lester completes his journey to the dark side. After that he realizes that he needs a patsy. And who better than his own brother? The brother who's been kind of a dick to him for years and also happens to have a safe full of weapons. So Lester plants the hammer he killed his wife with in the safe, along with a pair of his wife's panties and a racy picture of her. When the cops find all that and interview him, Lester tearfully explains he had to lie before to cover for his brother. Since the new sheriff's an idiot he believes this.
Seeing that he's getting away with it, Lester throws out all his wife's things, replaces the washer that prompted the argument that killed her, gets some better clothes, and hooks up with the hot Asian chick in his office. When the show skips a year we see he's married her and started his own insurance company and moved into a big new house. All seems great for him.
He even wins an insurance award in Las Vegas. There he happens to see Malvo posing as a dentist and foolishly decides to confront the hitman. What he hoped to gain by this I have no idea. But having apparently having gotten away with murder--and profited from it--his hubris I guess made him think he was a badass now. He forces his way onto an elevator with Malvo and 3 other people and when Malvo asks if he really wants to do this, he ultimately says yes. Which prompts Malvo to kill all 3 bystanders right then and there. More blood on Lester's hands. But he's able to escape from the elevator and make it back home.
You might think this guy couldn't possibly go any lower, but yes he can. In the ultimate despicable moment he and his new wife are outside his office to get their passports so they can take off to Mexico for a "vacation." Seeing a light on inside, Lester asks his wife to go inside to fetch the passports. As if that's not bad enough, he gives his jacket to her. Which of course leads to her getting shot by Malvo while Lester watches safely from outside.
And it's then I realized the really evil person wasn't so much Malvo as Lester. OK yeah Malvo kills tons of people and he is certainly evil, but he's been a professional hitman for years so obviously he was not a good dude to start with. Whereas Lester was an otherwise normal guy who does horrible things--killing his wife, setting up his brother, sacrificing his new wife--all to save his own ass. You might not agree but to me all that lying and betrayal is a lot worse, especially because it is from someone normal. It goes to show how any of us in the right situation might find ourselves doing the wrong thing and turning to the dark side. It is frightening to think that any of us--you, me, your neighbors--could become an agent of evil all starting with one moment of rage. As the Joker said in The Dark Knight: "Madness is like gravity; all you need is a push." The same is true for evil.
If you remember my Clone Wars post I chastised the prequels for not really setting up Anakin Skywalker's transition to Darth Vader very well. By contrast I think "Fargo" did a great job of demonstrating how his fear of getting caught drives Lester down the dark path and how getting away with his initial misdeeds leads to even worse behavior.
In case you're wondering, Lester never repents. While trying to evade the cops he ends up in the middle of a frozen lake and falls through the ice. Which he might end up in a much warmer place to thaw after that, eh?
Last month on the Movie Round-Up post at the bottom I talked about FX's "Fargo" TV series which was based on the 1996 movie. There are a number of bad people in the show, but the plot revolves mostly around two especially bad characters. The first is Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) a ruthless hitman who has absolutely no problem killing anyone at any time or just for the heck of it creeping little kids out by telling them the house they moved into was the site of a murder and may be haunted. The other is Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) who starts out as a mild-mannered, hen-pecked insurance salesman. And as the show went on I started to think that despite all the atrocities Malvo commits, it's Nygaard who's more evil.
As I said he doesn't start out evil. Then in the first episode after getting his nose broken by his childhood bully (which leads to him meeting Malvo in the hospital) Lester snaps and kills his wife with a hammer. In a panic he calls Malvo who shows up to help him clean it up and in the process kills the sheriff.
It's the calling Malvo where Lester's journey to the dark side begins. The right thing to do would have been to call 911 and confess after he hit his wife with the hammer--or of course not hit her with the hammer to start with. Instead he calls Malvo to try to cover it up. Then the sheriff dies and over the next few episodes Lester has to tell one lie after another to the cops, friends, and family. As they say once you start lying it's really hard to stop because they just keep piling up.
But it's not until after a near-deadly encounter with two hitmen looking for Malvo that Lester completes his journey to the dark side. After that he realizes that he needs a patsy. And who better than his own brother? The brother who's been kind of a dick to him for years and also happens to have a safe full of weapons. So Lester plants the hammer he killed his wife with in the safe, along with a pair of his wife's panties and a racy picture of her. When the cops find all that and interview him, Lester tearfully explains he had to lie before to cover for his brother. Since the new sheriff's an idiot he believes this.
Seeing that he's getting away with it, Lester throws out all his wife's things, replaces the washer that prompted the argument that killed her, gets some better clothes, and hooks up with the hot Asian chick in his office. When the show skips a year we see he's married her and started his own insurance company and moved into a big new house. All seems great for him.
He even wins an insurance award in Las Vegas. There he happens to see Malvo posing as a dentist and foolishly decides to confront the hitman. What he hoped to gain by this I have no idea. But having apparently having gotten away with murder--and profited from it--his hubris I guess made him think he was a badass now. He forces his way onto an elevator with Malvo and 3 other people and when Malvo asks if he really wants to do this, he ultimately says yes. Which prompts Malvo to kill all 3 bystanders right then and there. More blood on Lester's hands. But he's able to escape from the elevator and make it back home.
You might think this guy couldn't possibly go any lower, but yes he can. In the ultimate despicable moment he and his new wife are outside his office to get their passports so they can take off to Mexico for a "vacation." Seeing a light on inside, Lester asks his wife to go inside to fetch the passports. As if that's not bad enough, he gives his jacket to her. Which of course leads to her getting shot by Malvo while Lester watches safely from outside.
And it's then I realized the really evil person wasn't so much Malvo as Lester. OK yeah Malvo kills tons of people and he is certainly evil, but he's been a professional hitman for years so obviously he was not a good dude to start with. Whereas Lester was an otherwise normal guy who does horrible things--killing his wife, setting up his brother, sacrificing his new wife--all to save his own ass. You might not agree but to me all that lying and betrayal is a lot worse, especially because it is from someone normal. It goes to show how any of us in the right situation might find ourselves doing the wrong thing and turning to the dark side. It is frightening to think that any of us--you, me, your neighbors--could become an agent of evil all starting with one moment of rage. As the Joker said in The Dark Knight: "Madness is like gravity; all you need is a push." The same is true for evil.
If you remember my Clone Wars post I chastised the prequels for not really setting up Anakin Skywalker's transition to Darth Vader very well. By contrast I think "Fargo" did a great job of demonstrating how his fear of getting caught drives Lester down the dark path and how getting away with his initial misdeeds leads to even worse behavior.
In case you're wondering, Lester never repents. While trying to evade the cops he ends up in the middle of a frozen lake and falls through the ice. Which he might end up in a much warmer place to thaw after that, eh?
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Movie Round-Up 7/3/14: Revenge of the Has-Beens
I decided that doing mini movie reviews monthly might create entries that are too daunting for some people. Plus I end up talking about like 30 movies and people will only comment about one or two and so it seems like kind of a waste. So I'm just going to do it every Friday. Though with the holiday this week it's on Thursday. So there.
We Are the Night: I probably wouldn't have rented this if I'd known it was in German. I swear the preview I saw was in English. Not that I'm opposed to watching movies with subtitles. I've watched movies in Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, and Danish, but still it's nice to know that ahead of time. Anyway it starts out like "The Craft" only with vampires as a group of vampire chicks in Berlin (hence all the German) adopt an urchin named Lena. While soaking in a tub after being bitten Lena magically transforms from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo into German Kate Mara, which was an upgrade in my book. At first it's kind of cool being a vampire because they have a lot of money after centuries and they drive around Lamborghinis and the like at breakneck speed because they're already undead. But then of course she gets up to the part that sucks--literally and figuratively. Some mayhem ensues. It was decent for a vampire movie, though I would have preferred a little more skin. (2.5/5)
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: If you don't know, Jack Ryan is the guy from the series of Tom Clancy books that began with The Hunt for Red October, when he was a nerdy CIA analyst who convinces American officials a Soviet sub is trying to defect. Later he went on to be president or something. In the movies he was played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and then Ben Affleck. This movie is a reboot of all that and who better for Paramount to star in it than Chris Pine, the star of their Star Trek reboot, right? In a couple early scenes we see Jack Ryan drops out of school after 9/11, joins the Marines, gets shot down and badly wounded, meets his future girlfriend Cathy at Walter Reed, and then is recruited by Kevin Costner of the CIA. That's all a prologue to 10 years later when he has to prevent an evil Russian scheme dreamed up by Kenneth Branagh, who also directs. It was surprising how few real surprises there were in this. (The biggest for me was the woman who looks like Keira Knightley actually is Keira Knightley!) I mean there's no real attempt at a big twist. You think maybe Kevin Costner will be evil (he did play a turncoat Russian agent in No Way Out) or maybe Cathy will be a turncoat like Total Recall or something. Nah. It's all pretty straightforward. I suppose a warning flag was when a movie with known actors like this was released in January, the typical cesspool for Hollywood movies. (2/5)
The Art of the Steal: This movie reminds us that Kurt Russell still exists. he plays a has-been Evel Kineval type who on the side steals art until his weasel brother Matt Dillon (who also still exists) turns him in and he does 5 1/2 years in a Polish jail. When he gets out his brother seems to have one big score for him involving a book called the Gospel According to James. The scam in part reminds me of a Lawrence Block book I read recently. But like Matchstick Men there's a scam within the scam. All-in-all it was decent with a twist you don't really see coming. (3/5)
Wrecked: Also, Adrien Brody still exists. (There's kind of a theme to these last 3.) Remember when he won that Oscar? And then like 10 years later he was doing razor commercials and straight-to-video crap. This was probably straight-to-video but it wasn't crap. About half the movie is him trying to get out of an old crappy Chevy that's wrecked in the British Columbia forest. When he does get out then the latter half of the movie is pretty much him crawling around the forest while he's haunted by Caroline Dhavernas, who is...what? Actually we never do really find out how she's related to him. It gets a little boring at times, but there was a great surprise twist at the end. (3/5)
Joe: Hey speaking of former Oscar winners who are now down to making straight-to-video crap, this is yet another Nicolas Cage movie. He plays the titular character who lives way in the Deep South or somewhere and runs a crew of guys who illegally poison trees so they can later be cut down. Then he meets a 15-year-old named Gary who has an old drunk father that can't keep a job. Then it becomes kind of complicated as Joe is not exactly Mr. Nice Guy. I mean at one point he goes all Michael Vick and sics his American bulldog on another dog that hates him--I can't imagine why a dog would hate him! But he also helps out the kid and other poor people. There's also a mortal enemy (for some reason that isn't really explained) who at one point shoots Joe in the shoulder but this being a movie Joe can patch it up himself and in a couple days be right as rain. Overall it's kind of slow, though I suppose it's good in a way that it doesn't try to paint Joe one way or another because life is complicated. (2.5/5)
The Lego Movie: I finally got around to watching this. It was as fun as advertised. There are enough references to other stuff in it to keep older viewers like me entertained while it's not so adult that the kids can't watch it. And there's a great message about creativity and also for those nerds who glue Legos together and only build stuff to specifications. Alas I wish there hadn't been so much Will Farrell in it. (4/5)
In Her Skin: This is one of those "based on a true story" movies. It took place in Australia in 1999 so I have no idea how true it actually is. A 15-year-old girl goes missing and her distraught parents search for her and attempt to get the police off their asses to do something. (Sadly no one says, "A dingo ate your baby!") Then we jump to the woman who abducted the girl in a scheme that doesn't make much sense; I suspect it made more sense to her. A random thought is that it must be nice for Guy Pearce to do a movie in Australia where he doesn't have to fake an American accent. I'm sure it's the same for Brits when they can play Brits. It's probably like a kind of vacation. (2/5)
We Are the Night: I probably wouldn't have rented this if I'd known it was in German. I swear the preview I saw was in English. Not that I'm opposed to watching movies with subtitles. I've watched movies in Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, and Danish, but still it's nice to know that ahead of time. Anyway it starts out like "The Craft" only with vampires as a group of vampire chicks in Berlin (hence all the German) adopt an urchin named Lena. While soaking in a tub after being bitten Lena magically transforms from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo into German Kate Mara, which was an upgrade in my book. At first it's kind of cool being a vampire because they have a lot of money after centuries and they drive around Lamborghinis and the like at breakneck speed because they're already undead. But then of course she gets up to the part that sucks--literally and figuratively. Some mayhem ensues. It was decent for a vampire movie, though I would have preferred a little more skin. (2.5/5)
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: If you don't know, Jack Ryan is the guy from the series of Tom Clancy books that began with The Hunt for Red October, when he was a nerdy CIA analyst who convinces American officials a Soviet sub is trying to defect. Later he went on to be president or something. In the movies he was played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and then Ben Affleck. This movie is a reboot of all that and who better for Paramount to star in it than Chris Pine, the star of their Star Trek reboot, right? In a couple early scenes we see Jack Ryan drops out of school after 9/11, joins the Marines, gets shot down and badly wounded, meets his future girlfriend Cathy at Walter Reed, and then is recruited by Kevin Costner of the CIA. That's all a prologue to 10 years later when he has to prevent an evil Russian scheme dreamed up by Kenneth Branagh, who also directs. It was surprising how few real surprises there were in this. (The biggest for me was the woman who looks like Keira Knightley actually is Keira Knightley!) I mean there's no real attempt at a big twist. You think maybe Kevin Costner will be evil (he did play a turncoat Russian agent in No Way Out) or maybe Cathy will be a turncoat like Total Recall or something. Nah. It's all pretty straightforward. I suppose a warning flag was when a movie with known actors like this was released in January, the typical cesspool for Hollywood movies. (2/5)
The Art of the Steal: This movie reminds us that Kurt Russell still exists. he plays a has-been Evel Kineval type who on the side steals art until his weasel brother Matt Dillon (who also still exists) turns him in and he does 5 1/2 years in a Polish jail. When he gets out his brother seems to have one big score for him involving a book called the Gospel According to James. The scam in part reminds me of a Lawrence Block book I read recently. But like Matchstick Men there's a scam within the scam. All-in-all it was decent with a twist you don't really see coming. (3/5)
Wrecked: Also, Adrien Brody still exists. (There's kind of a theme to these last 3.) Remember when he won that Oscar? And then like 10 years later he was doing razor commercials and straight-to-video crap. This was probably straight-to-video but it wasn't crap. About half the movie is him trying to get out of an old crappy Chevy that's wrecked in the British Columbia forest. When he does get out then the latter half of the movie is pretty much him crawling around the forest while he's haunted by Caroline Dhavernas, who is...what? Actually we never do really find out how she's related to him. It gets a little boring at times, but there was a great surprise twist at the end. (3/5)
Joe: Hey speaking of former Oscar winners who are now down to making straight-to-video crap, this is yet another Nicolas Cage movie. He plays the titular character who lives way in the Deep South or somewhere and runs a crew of guys who illegally poison trees so they can later be cut down. Then he meets a 15-year-old named Gary who has an old drunk father that can't keep a job. Then it becomes kind of complicated as Joe is not exactly Mr. Nice Guy. I mean at one point he goes all Michael Vick and sics his American bulldog on another dog that hates him--I can't imagine why a dog would hate him! But he also helps out the kid and other poor people. There's also a mortal enemy (for some reason that isn't really explained) who at one point shoots Joe in the shoulder but this being a movie Joe can patch it up himself and in a couple days be right as rain. Overall it's kind of slow, though I suppose it's good in a way that it doesn't try to paint Joe one way or another because life is complicated. (2.5/5)
The Lego Movie: I finally got around to watching this. It was as fun as advertised. There are enough references to other stuff in it to keep older viewers like me entertained while it's not so adult that the kids can't watch it. And there's a great message about creativity and also for those nerds who glue Legos together and only build stuff to specifications. Alas I wish there hadn't been so much Will Farrell in it. (4/5)
In Her Skin: This is one of those "based on a true story" movies. It took place in Australia in 1999 so I have no idea how true it actually is. A 15-year-old girl goes missing and her distraught parents search for her and attempt to get the police off their asses to do something. (Sadly no one says, "A dingo ate your baby!") Then we jump to the woman who abducted the girl in a scheme that doesn't make much sense; I suspect it made more sense to her. A random thought is that it must be nice for Guy Pearce to do a movie in Australia where he doesn't have to fake an American accent. I'm sure it's the same for Brits when they can play Brits. It's probably like a kind of vacation. (2/5)
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
News & Notes
Are people doing the Insecure Whiners Support Group today? I figure not that many people will be reading blogs with the holiday this week and all--at least for Canadians (yesterday) and Americans (Friday). Then again not that many people read my blog anyway, though I've found a solution for how to fix the problem created by the site address change.
When the address changed you probably didn't get updates in your Blogger feed anymore. Here's how to change that, which you probably already know if you're reading this.
It's a pretty simple 4-step process:
I think I tried to just change the address and that didn't work, which is why I recommend just deleting and putting it in fresh. Blogger is stupid like that. Then the blog entries should start to appear in your feed again!
You can also use Steps 1 & 4 to add other Blogger blogs that don't have the Google Friend Connect or whatever. I did that with Nigel Mitchell and David Walston's blogs so I don't (in theory) have to go to a bookmark of their feed anymore, which should make it easier.
In other news I finally got around to consolidating all of my books into just 3 names. Now there is only P.T. Dilloway, Patrick Dilloway, and Eric Filler. And the middle one it would make sense to change it but I haven't felt like going to the trouble of it yet. Anyway, so every other author you see out there except for those 3 is not me. Unless this is some weird schizo fantasy where it turns out everyone is really me and I'm imagining this whole thing. Or you're imagining me. Or I'm imagining you imagining me...take that M Night Shaymalan!
Mostly the last 10 days or so I've been working on some short stories to be published by my pseudonym. I'm going to try something a little different and see how it works out. Probably not much better than most things, but whatever. It's something to do. If you want to know what my pseudonym is up to, periodically check out my kick ass publisher website: http://www.planet99-publishing.com/
(Update on that last paragraph: it sold 2 copies in the US and 2 in the UK in its first day which was enough to make it an International Best Seller on Amazon. Which I'm sure won't last but is pretty cool.)
And hey, how about that World Cup, right?
When the address changed you probably didn't get updates in your Blogger feed anymore. Here's how to change that, which you probably already know if you're reading this.
It's a pretty simple 4-step process:
You can also use Steps 1 & 4 to add other Blogger blogs that don't have the Google Friend Connect or whatever. I did that with Nigel Mitchell and David Walston's blogs so I don't (in theory) have to go to a bookmark of their feed anymore, which should make it easier.
In other news I finally got around to consolidating all of my books into just 3 names. Now there is only P.T. Dilloway, Patrick Dilloway, and Eric Filler. And the middle one it would make sense to change it but I haven't felt like going to the trouble of it yet. Anyway, so every other author you see out there except for those 3 is not me. Unless this is some weird schizo fantasy where it turns out everyone is really me and I'm imagining this whole thing. Or you're imagining me. Or I'm imagining you imagining me...take that M Night Shaymalan!
Mostly the last 10 days or so I've been working on some short stories to be published by my pseudonym. I'm going to try something a little different and see how it works out. Probably not much better than most things, but whatever. It's something to do. If you want to know what my pseudonym is up to, periodically check out my kick ass publisher website: http://www.planet99-publishing.com/
(Update on that last paragraph: it sold 2 copies in the US and 2 in the UK in its first day which was enough to make it an International Best Seller on Amazon. Which I'm sure won't last but is pretty cool.)
And hey, how about that World Cup, right?
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