Movies! 7/31 + Comics Recap!

So last weekend stuff happened...

This week you get Tom Cruise hanging off airplanes and stuff in "Mission Impossible:  Rogue Nation."  I think I mentioned before that last year I wrote a first draft for a Girl Power universe novel I called Rogue State, which I think is a better title.  At some point I need to find my revised outline to rewrite that.  Or not.  Whatever.  Anyway, I was one of those rare people who really liked the first "Mission:  Impossible" but I never watched the second and third ones.  They've certainly squandered utilized a lot of directorial talent:  Brian de Palma, John Woo, JJ Abrams, and Brad Bird.  I guess this time Tom Cruise hired a guy whom he's familiar with since he directed "Jack Reacher" and wrote "Edge of Tomorrow" and "Valkyrie" in which Cruise starred.  Does that fill you with confidence or not?

Anyway, since I've been unemployed I haven't read as many comics as I used to but in the last couple of months there were some decent sales so I was able to catch up on some stuff.  Like this:

Batgirl Vol. 1 Batgirl of Burnside:  This is the much-anticipated "soft reboot" that moves Batgirl from Gotham to "Burnside" which is supposed to be hipper, like Seattle or something though conveniently across the bridge from Gotham so she can still do Batman stuff.  Anyway, she moves and all her Batgirl stuff gets burned so she has to make a new costume and recruit some new guy to make stuff for her and her doctoral thesis gets ruined, etc.  When it got to the part where she goes to see her doctoral thesis supervisor I finally realized what the writers had done:  they made Batgirl into Spider-Man!  You know how Spider-Man is always plagued by problems like keeping a job and a girlfriend and all that while also fighting crime?  That's what they're doing here.  So as much as people might have wanted to hail the writers for reinventing the wheel, they didn't.  They just added more social media references to pander to millenials.  Kind of disappointing really. (2.5/5)

Superman Doomed:  What happens when you put Greg Pak who wrote the famous Planet Hulk series and Charles Soule who wrote on She-Hulk on Superman titles?  They turn Superman into the Hulk!  That's basically what happens when Superman fights Doomsday (the dude who "killed" him in the 90s) and gets infected with a virus that turns Superman into Doomsday.  Like the Hulk, Doomsday is a mostly brainless monster who rampages around causing all sorts of destruction, except he also has Superman's powers to fly, shoot heat rays, etc.  This comes in handy when Brainiac shows up to destroy the world.  I thought it was mostly fun.  For $5 I got a hell of a deal because there were a bunch of comics packed into the one volume, which included a couple of Supergirl ones that were only slightly relevant.  This wasn't the biggest event in DC history but you get a lot of familiar characters like the Justice League, Martian Manhunter, Red Lanterns, and even Swamp Thing.  I think more could have been done with the "Superdoom" character (like a better name) but mostly it was good and you didn't need to be that up on goings on in the DC universe to get it. (3.5/5)

Forever Evil:  This was a bigger recent DC event.  The volume I read only covered the 7 main issues of the series but there were a bunch of spin-offs that would sort of help to understand the full picture, but I wasn't about to go spend like $100 for all that stuff.  Anyway, the Justice League is trapped inside Firestorm (except Batman because Batman) while their dopplegangers from an evil parallel universe (who don't all have goatees) take over Earth.  Lex Luthor and some other villains chafe at these bad guys getting on their turf and thus join forces with Batman to fight back.  Overall it was OK.  The relationship between Luthor and his Superman clone B-Zero (Bizarro) was cute.  BTW, I used the overall concept for my Girl Power novel League of Evil.  I'm just saying. (2.5/5)

Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern:  Like Superman: Doomed, this was a really good deal for $5 because it's like 14 comics from the various Lantern titles.  As the title suggests, the various colored Lanterns have to battle the "First Lantern" who sucks emotions like a vampire and uses the power to attempt to alter reality.  This was the end of Geoff Johns' lengthy run on the title and as such it wraps up a lot of what he had introduced along the way.  If you're not up on all the minutiae of the Green Lantern series of the last 10 years then you won't necessarily understand all of what's going on.  There probably could have been more done with the First Lantern concept, but this wasn't a bad sendoff.  (3/5)

DC:  The New Frontier:  This is supposed to be an homage to the "Silver Age" of comics in the 50s, except unlike those comics it throws in a lot of stuff about the Red scare and emerging civil rights movement.  A lot of it focuses on Hal Jordan, who survived Korea and has been struggling ever since.  Much of the rest focuses on John Jones, aka Martian Manhunter, a Martian who disguises himself as a police detective.  More familiar characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman make appearances.  And then all the heroes get together to destroy a big weird space monster.  Um, yeah.  That.  The monster didn't really make for an interesting villain, so that was kind of lacking.  Otherwise it was OK.  (2.5/5)

Batman Year 100:  I was a little confused by the title.  Was it set in the year 100?  No, actually it's 2039, which would be 100 years from when Batman debuted.  "The Batman" runs around fighting evil government guys...why?  And who is he?  There were really no satisfactory answers, which made this ultimately frustrating.  Plus the art wasn't very good.  It's the kind where everything is all out of proportion and kind of crude. (2/5)

Death of Wolverine:  They probably should have put quotes around the death part, though surprisingly they haven't really brought Wolverine back.  Anyway, this 4-issue limited series didn't really have the epic feel you would want for something like this.  Somehow Logan loses his ability to heal and so lots of bad guys try to kill him.  He eventually hunts down his creator for revenge or something.  It was the kind of ending where probably if they had wanted him to live he could have found a way to do so. (1/5)

Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1:  You might not have realized that for nearly 3 years Peter Parker had the brain of Dr. Octopus inside of him.  Eventually that came to an end and this is where it picks up.  Doc Ock has sort of made a mess of things so Peter Parker has to try to pick up the pieces.  Meanwhile a new threat looms on the horizon!  Remember what I said in the Batgirl review about Spider-Man?  There's a lot of that on display here.  Having read quite a bit of Dan Slott's Spider-Man run this is really a good continuation of the series with the same lighthearted fun and mayhem you would expect.  The only real problem is since this is Volume 1 the stakes aren't that high yet.  (3/5)  

Writing Wednesday: About the Author

A couple of months ago I read this book called Younger that I got for free from Amazon.  The premise is that a 57-year-old marketing person for a cosmetics company is laid off and volunteers to be a guinea pig for a new skin care product that makes her look 25.  An important distinction is that unlike my many ridiculous books like say Chance of a Lifetime, where a 50-year-old guy becomes an 18-year-old girl, she's only young-looking on the outside and only for a limited time.

Anyway, I get to the end of the book and then the About the Author screen comes up and wouldn't you know that the author just so happens to be a fifty-something-year-old woman who worked as a marketing person for a cosmetics company?  And gee, the picture of her looks very similar to how the character is described.

This isn't the first time I've seen that.  Like when I read The Time Traveler's Wife and gee, the author has red hair like the main character and is into some paper shaping or whatever like the main character.  What a coincidence!

Michael Offutt wrote a post and said that he writes to escape reality, which is why his characters are not like him.    To that I said, "Yeah, can you imagine if all my characters were fat, bald, unemployed accountants?"  Ugh.  No one would want to read them then.  I mean, even fewer.

I suppose the common thread of the two books I mentioned is that they were both by first-time authors.  If you've never written a book before then it's pretty easy to turn your story into wish-fulfillment instead of trying to imagine a different character.

Not that my characters are completely different from me.  A lot of my characters like Frost Devereaux or Emma Earl are pretty socially awkward.  They're just not as fat or bald and have more interesting jobs.

Anyway, when I see that an author is using herself as the main character I do tend to groan.  Not only does it seem lazy, it seems really narcissistic too.  How self-centered do you have to be to make yourself the center of this whole little fantasy?  Self-centered enough to be marketing cosmetics.

I say try harder, authors!  Or at the very least give your heroine a different color hair.  Throw us off the scent that much.

Everyone Knows TV Obtained Perfection in 1995; It's a Scientific Fact!

Recently I was binge watching Seinfeld on Hulu since they had made a big deal about adding the whole series.  And it got me thinking how great TV was 20 years ago in 1995.

It was a time when the old guard from the 80s had either passed away or were on their last legs:  Cheers, The Cosby Show, Newhart, Murphy Brown, Roseanne, Married With Children, Full House, etc.  This in turn created space on the schedule and in people's brains for new shows.  Seinfeld, the quintessential "show about nothing" went from the verge of cancellation to being the show everyone talked about at the water cooler.  It would have been interesting if there had been Twitter and Facebook back then so people could have been as obsessive as Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad.

But of course Seinfeld wasn't the only great show around.  The Simpsons had survived its early success that could have left it tagged as a fad.  The 6th season in 1995 ended with the famous "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" that concluded at the start of the 7th season.  This was the beginning of the show's prime, something millenials can't really appreciate much as I can't really appreciate the Beatles the way people who were actually around in 1964 can.

Friends was in its second season and the whole Ross/Rachel will they/won't they thing hadn't become too annoying and all of the other characters weren't hooking up with each other yet.  So I guess you could consider that its prime.  Or at least I would.

Cheers had ended but you had Frasier, which was geared to a little smarter audience.  If you wanted dumber comedy there was Home Improvement with Tim Allen finding new ways to screw up any home improvement project.  I'm sure Law & Order was on, though it wasn't as popular as it would eventually be.

Will Smith was a year away from his breakthrough movie role in Independence Day but you could see him on the small screen in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  George Clooney was the McDreamy of the 90s in ER before moving to the big screen.

And for you sci-fi geeks you had two Star Trek series with Deep Space Nine and Voyager (on the pointless UPN network).  Plus you had Babylon 5 in syndication.

I think it was about this time that the local NBC affiliate in my area had to switch to CBS because its owners wanted like all their stations to be CBS.  So then the CBS affiliate switched to NBC.  At the time it seemed like they were getting a hell of a deal.  I mean most of the shows I mentioned were NBC shows.  Their Thursday lineup was pretty much unstoppable.  I honestly can't think of anything CBS was showing back then except 60 Minutes.  Of course by the 21st Century that had all turned around.

The biggest change from 20 years ago to today has been the rise of cable TV and now streaming.  Back in 1995 cable was still mostly a dumpster fire of old reruns and movies, but it was starting to find its way.  MTV had success with the original reality TV show The Real World and the original rude and crude animated series Beavis & Butt-head.   HBO was beginning to experiment with original series like Arli$$.  Comedy Central was about to introduce its most successful series, South Park.  FX was in its infancy but they used to have a fun morning talk show that featured a Muppet along with regular hosts.  The good thing was the History Channel still showed historical stuff and the Learning Channel still had educational stuff and SciFi Channel was spelled correctly.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane.  What was the best year of TV you can remember?

Movies! 7/24/15

Last week "Ant-Man" narrowly edged "Minions" to take #1.  Which if it hadn't would be a big embarrassment to Disney/Marvel since they have like 15 more Marvel movies scheduled.  It was pretty much the lowest Marvel opening of the Disney-produced ones.  Cause for concern?  Probably not for the sequels; it might be more worrying for other new characters they're planning to introduce like Black Panther and Captain Marvel.

I'm thinking it probably won't be number one this weekend.  The main competition is "Pixels" an Adam Sandler movie featuring 80s video game nostalgia as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong attack the world, which was actually the premise of a "Futurama" episode--or a third of one.  I don't think this will be that big, but maybe I'll be wrong.  Adam Sandler used to be a reliable box office draw but some of his last movies haven't done so well and the last time he was featured in the news was for Native Americans walking off the set of a Netflix movie he's making.

There's also "Paper Towns," which will be a lot more interesting to anyone 16-and-under.  The book was written by that "Fault In Our Stars" Guy, so I'm sure this is more pathetic, sappy, Nicholas Sparks-type drivel.  Enter at your own risk!

Next week you get "Mission:  Impossible 5" which is notable for Tom Cruise doing more death-defying stunts.  Since he's over 50 I'm not sure how many more of those he can do before something bad happens to him. 

Writing Wednesday: Secrets & Lies, Damned Lies!

A couple of months ago this new butthead showed up on writers.net because I guess he got kicked out of other groups he had been a part of.  Right away he started rubbing everyone the wrong way by talking down to every single person as if they were a newbie who didn't know shit about writing--even me.  What makes him such an expert in his own mind is that he has a couple of books published with small publishers (one with Offutt's publisher, which made me snicker), he once paid for a critique, and he read some how-to book from 1965.  Look, bub, I've published with small publishers, I once paid for a critique, and I've read newer how-to books but I don't run around telling everyone they have to be like me.  In fact I take great pains not to indicate I have any kind of method for people to follow.  If you wanted me to write a how-to book it would say simply this:  Do whatever the fuck you want, but you should probably write it in passable English--or whatever your home country's language is.

I think it was ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback that long ago suggested that the reason even otherwise intelligent people fall for Ponzi schemes and the like perpetrated by the Bernie Madoffs of the world is that people have this inherent need to believe there's a secret to success.  It's like in the 16th Century all those explorers knew there was a shortcut from England/Spain/Portugal to China/India.  Columbus tried Cuba and others South America or Virginia or Newfoundland or the St. Lawrence Seaway.  But no one ever found it because it doesn't fucking exist--or didn't until they dug the Panama Canal.  Or to put it another way, people like my dad will play their system for lottery numbers or other forms of gambling even when month after month, year after year, it never pays off.  Someday it could, right?

There are a lot of shady characters in the publishing world who will take advantage of authors like Butthead who think there's some secret code that can magically grant you success.  You have all the false agents and publishers who'll take your money and run.  You have all these literary journals that sustain themselves mostly because people are gullible enough to think if they read said journal they'll figure out how to write a story that will be published by said journal and then:  Profit.  Editing services, critique services, and of course how-to books and articles.  There's all manner of people out there willing to teach you their path to success.

You want to know my secret?  THERE IS NO FUCKING SECRET!!!  Take 10 different successful authors and you'll find 10 different ways to achieve success.  Not just by different genres they might write in but the paths they took.  Some people achieve success early on, some later.  Some get an MFA from a fancy school while others parlay an ordinary career into a writing career.  Some self-publish and then hit it big while others got in at Big Publishing right out of the gate.

What guys like Butthead try to sell you on is that there's a certain style to writing that will grant you success if only you can learn it.  It's like a secret handshake that'll let you into the writing fraternity.  But again you can pull 10 books by 10 different successful authors and they might have 10 different style to them.  I mean honestly, would you claim JK Rowling and Nicholas Sparks write the same?  Butthead would say, Well they each have characters and plots and blah blah blah a bunch of horseshit.  Every "rule" you can make, someone can find at least 1 if not 10 books that violated it and were still successful.

The problem for new authors is they'll buy into the bullshit the Buttheads spin because they don't know any better.  So they'll go try to master the secret handshake and guess what, it still won't do them any good.  Because if Butthead really knew what it took to be a successful author, wouldn't he be one?

Which last Friday he tried to call me out by saying, "I'd take your crap a lot more seriously if your writing was selling."  That was pretty funny because when I did a little digging, I found out his last 4 books have a combined 0 sales on Amazon.  The only book he had ranked better than 600,000 was the one he was giving away for free.  So it was like, um, yeah, who are you to throw stones?  And more to the point, who are you to tell people they should write the way you do?  Your method obviously isn't working out for you.

Last month I watched a M*A*S*H episode where Radar the company clerk spends $50 to enroll in the Las Vegas Writing School he saw advertised on the back of a Superman comic.  He starts following their how-to advice by using and misusing a lot of big words.  And then some words he just makes up like, "The corporal bragadeered the jeep."  In the end Colonel Potter gives him some decent advice:  Be yourself.  Don't take how-to books to heart to the point that you lose yourself.  You think Hemingway or Faulkner or Dickens followed some formula from a school advertised in a comic book?  Very unlikely.

But you should probably take what I say with a grain of salt because if I were a successful author wouldn't I have a blog that gets more than 30 hits a day?

Better Not Call Saul: Another Case of Prequelitis

As a fan of AMC's Breaking Bad (eventually) I was stoked when I heard there would be a show focusing on Walt's sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman.  Then I heard the show would be a prequel and I was a little less stoked, though they still could have pulled it out.

After episode 6 I no longer had access to AMC so it took a while to watch the last few episodes.  Not that I really missed the show.  It never really struck a cord with me.  To me this was another case of prequelitis like the Star Wars prequels or X-Men Origins:  Wolverine.  The problem in those cases was fundamentally this:  I didn't give a shit how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and I didn't give a shit how Logan became Wolverine.  And I didn't give a shit about how Jimmy McGill became Saul Goodman.

The basic problem inherent with prequels is that it always seems to end up lessening a great character.  I didn't want to see Darth Vader as some whiny kid.  I didn't want to see Wolverine all introspective.  And I didn't want to see Saul Goodman all whiny and mopey.  Really I referred to the show as "Sadsack Jimmy" most of the time because that's what it was.  Jimmy McGill is a down-on-his luck lawyer with a tiny office in a nail salon and a shitty Nissan.  His brother is "allergic to electricity" (um, what?) but worked for this big law firm in Albuquerque where Jimmy once worked in the mail room.  Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, who gives a fuck?!  Where's the funny, sleazy lawyer the show is supposed to be about?  Who's this asshole gazing at his navel because he's not a bigshot lawyer?

The show teased us in the first couple of episodes by bringing in Tuco, a drug kingpin Walter White tangled with years later.  So you think, OK, maybe this is where Jimmy starts working for the scummy drug dealers.  Nope.  Nothing came of that plot.  Then later Jimmy, with help from his future PI Mike, tracks down some dope who embezzled some money.  That plot never really wound up going anywhere either.

The whole first season then concludes in the worst way possible:  Jimmy has an epiphany on the way to a job interview and decides that he's going to be evil...or something.  It's like, really?  Ten episodes and in the last five minutes he just suddenly realizes he should have kept the money from the embezzler?  Weak.

I realized how much I didn't like the show with the last episode before I lost AMC. That episode almost exclusively featured Mike, who was a cop in Philly until his son was killed and he took revenge on the dirty cops responsible.  That was the best episode of the season and it didn't even feature the main character!  Something is really fucked up with your show when I'd rather not see the main character.  If they were going to do a prequel show they should have made Better Call Mike; it would have been a lot more interesting.

Maybe it can get better in Season 2 but I doubt it.  One of the best things about Breaking Bad was you never knew what was going to happen.  I mean you suspected that Walter was going to die at the end either from cancer or drug dealing, but you didn't know what was going to happen along the way.  Whereas with a prequel show we already know that Jimmy becomes Saul Goodman (one thing the show did do was make me realize that Saul Goodman can be translated as "'s all good, man") a sleazy ambulance chaser who eventually takes on Walter White and inadvertently destroys himself until he has to live in Omaha as a manager of a Cinnabon.  Sure we don't know what will happen with his brother or his sorta girlfriend but really who the fuck cares?  The whole brother plot was just so lame.  I want to see Jimmy working his magic in the courtroom, not delivering ice to his dipshit brother!

Do as I say, not as I do!

Anyway, the message for writers is simple:  avoid the prequel!  Though actually I have written a prequel.  Really there are two prequels to the Tales of the Scarlet Knight series:  Dark Origins that details Merlin and Marlin creating the Scarlet Knight's armor and Sisterhood that chronicles the lives of witches Agnes and Sylvia.  To some extent those suffer from prequelitis too, though I would argue not as much--because I want you to buy my books.  Buy my books!

Movies! (And Ones I Watched) 7/17/15

The "big" movie this week is Marvel's Ant-Man.  (Not just Ant-Man, MARVEL'S Ant-Man.)  This was a troubled production that started almost 10 years ago and lost its original writer/director Edgar Wright along the way when his vision didn't necessarily gel with MARVEL's in part because he started writing the movie before there was a "cinematic universe."  So Marvel went out and hired a yes man as in the director of "Yes Man."

Anyway, it seems like the revised plot is largely using the same one as "Iron Man" and to a lesser extent "The Incredible Hulk."  A guy who's not necessarily a "good guy" gets technology to shrink down and do cool shit and then a bad guy steals that technology to unleash mayhem.  I think if Edgar Wright were still involved I'd be more interested in seeing it because I love "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."

It's going to have it's work cut out for it to be #1 this weekend as last week "Minions" grossed over $100 million.  Kids movies usually hold over better so "Ant-Man" will need a big weekend to be #1.  Between "Minions" and "Jurassic World" Universal seems poised to take this summer from Disney/Marvel.

Other than that, here's some stuff I watched:

Jurassic World:  This is a "soft reboot" in that it basically ignores "The Lost World" and "Jurassic Park III."  You've probably already seen it so let me just say I thought it was OK but not the greatest movie ever.  With improved CGI and all that from 1993 the dinosaur fights were a lot better.  It's neat how they make you actually root for velociraptors.  The humans, not as much.  I think they should have made Claire finding some real shoes part of the plot, like in "Die Hard" with him going around barefoot all the time.  I'm sure if my brother and I had been lost in a jungle of dinosaurs when we were teenagers we'd have been inside a dino's stomach in about three minutes.  Anyway, this has made a shitload of money so I'm sure there will be a sequel, though I'm not sure how they'll do it since the park is fucked.  Maybe there will be a problem at EuroJurassic World. (2.5/5)

Kingsman The Secret Service:  I know Michael Offutt raved about this movie but I never got a chance to see it in theaters.  It was really good.  Though since it's based on a Mark Millar comic and directed by Matthew Vaughn (the same guys behind the "Kick-Ass" comic book and movie) there is some gratuitous violence.  A couple of big surprise deaths.  My biggest complaint is at the end Sam Jackson's ultimate weapon requires him to have his hand on a table the whole time, which just seemed like a plot device to make it easy to disarm.  I mean couldn't a tech genius just make it so you turn it on with your biometrics and it keeps running? (4/5)

Maggie:  If I told you this movie features Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger and zombies you think it'd be a nonstop action thrill ride, right?  But this is actually a really slow, contemplative movie about the eponymous girl (Abigail Breslin) who is slowly turning into a zombie after being bitten.    Her father (Ahh-nold) stays to see her through her last days, all the while worrying about having to inevitably put her out of her misery.  It occurred to me while watching that the zombie thing is really just a metaphor for the right to die argument.  Arnold takes Maggie from the hospital and cares for her so she can die with dignity, not being shoved into "quarantine" which is like a demolition derby where the infected are all thrown together to either be eaten or put down.  While Arnold is decent in his role (and let's face it the script minimizes how much he really has to do) Abigail Breslin is the one who really makes the movie as she slowly loses her grip on her humanity.  It's hard to believe "Little Miss Sunshine" was 9 years ago, isn't it?  There is a flaw in the ending in that it's not entirely plausible.  (Spoiler) the fall she takes at the end would not be enough to kill her, though that's what we're led to believe. (3.5/5)

Focus:  Finally, a movie about my car!  Wait, it's not?  Actually it's a good movie about a con artist (Will Smith) who schools and falls in love with another con artist (Margot Robbie).  The good thing about this movie is you could never quite figure it out, especially the Big Game con, which was awesome.  When Smith and Robbie meet up in Buenos Aires thanks to a race car team owner I worried it was going to turn into "Duplicity" (which sucked) but fortunately the plot took some other turns to keep me guessing.  After the Big Game scam I found myself checking out a little; I suppose that was such a good climax that after that was a little downer.  One thing that confused me in the previews and early in the movie is the outside of the Superdome has the Roman numerals XVII on it, so I was like, "Wait, Super Bowl 17, that was like in the early 80s."  But everything in the movie was modern day.  Finally I realized it wasn't Super Bowl 17; they didn't get the NFL rights so it was some other made-up league.  I guess the NFL is happy to do movies that are glorified commercials like "Draft Day" and they're happy to sponsor fantasy football, but they're not as happy when you're focusing on the ludicrous gambling that goes on during "The Big Game."  That or Warner Bros was just being cheap.  It's a small imperfection in an otherwise good movie.  BTW, if you like Smith and Robbie in this movie next year they're also in Suicide Squad, also from Warner Bros.  Coincidence?  Maybe. (3/5)

Slow West:  I had read about this movie but it's one you couldn't really see in theaters except maybe in New York or LA.  It's a Western with Michael Fassbender as a bounty hunter who falls in with a heartsick Scottish kid (Kodie Smit-McPhee) wandering the west in search of his girlfriend.  Except (kinda spoiler) what Fassbender really wants is for the kid to lead him to the girlfriend and then turn her in for a $2,000 reward.  But of course as they wander around they start to get sympathy for each other.  But there is a surprise twist in the ending to help make it not too predictable. Even if you're not a big Western fan (I'm not) it's pretty comparable with the Coen Bros remake of "True Grit."  It's free on Amazon if you have Amazon Prime.  BTW, if you like Fassbender and Smit-McPhee in this movie I think they're both in the next X-Men movie.  Coincidence?  Probably.  (3/5)

A Most Violent Year:  This had a "Godfather II" feel to it although the main character Abel (Oscar Isaac) I don't think was really a criminal.  But like Michael Corleone as he's trying to make a big splash for his business by buying some waterfront property, he's beset by obstacles on all sides that threaten not just him and his business, but his family as well.  Things work out a little better for him than Michael Corleone.  There is some action, but it's not a nonstop action fest, nor is it ever too brooding.  I would have liked to know a little more about Abel's past, but otherwise it was a taut drama.  Plus you get to see Jessica Chastain shoot an injured deer, which is not as awesome as when Geena Davis snapped a deer's neck in "The Long Kiss Goodnight."  I'm just saying. (3.5/5)

The Loft:  When I saw previews of this I thought, "This looks like something to rent on DVD."  And lo and behold at the end of June I rented it from Redbox.  I was a little disappointed.  The movie is about 4 yuppies and 1 screw-up brother who decide to share a fancy loft and turn it into the ultimate man cave.  From this you'd think there would be some decent sex and nudity, but no.  The women pretty much get as naked as Jennifer Aniston--see below.  The mystery is fairly interesting, with a few twists and turns, but it was definitely a rental. (2/5)

Blackhat:  Here's a poll question for you:  Who's a more implausible super computer hacker:  Richard Pryor in "Superman III" or Chris Hemsworth in "Blackhat?" Can anyone really buy the God of Thunder as a computer hacker?  A computer hacker who can go beat up a bunch of dudes?  At least Hugh Jackman in "Swordfish" wasn't slashing people up like Wolverine.  Anyway, if you can get past that...it's pretty boring.  Not that they don't try but still it's hard to care about all this technobabble about IP addresses and RATs and malware.  When you come down to it, low-tech still works better for thrillers. By the end of the movie I'm not even sure who the bad guy was, just some dude who wanted to make some money or something.  Whatever.  (1/5)

American Sniper:  This was the "highest grossing movie of 2014" despite that it made most of its money in January.  I finally got around to watching it and wasn't that impressed.  It got to be kind of boring really.  I guess because everything happens in these little snippets so it became hard to see it as a cohesive narrative.  A lot of the time I didn't know when stuff was happening; one minute 9/11 is happening and the next he's in Iraq shooting a kid.  Then I think for legal reasons they couldn't really go into much about he died since I think that case was ongoing.  (2/5)

Life of Crime:  This was based on an Elmore Leonard novel and probably the last movie he worked on before he died.  Basically some low-level hoods decide to kidnap Jennifer Aniston, the wife of a sleazy slum lord (Tim Robbins).  The problem becomes that Tim Robbins doesn't want his wife back.  Not as much mayhem ensues as you'd think.  It's not nearly as good as say "Get Shorty" or "Out of Sight." And for some reason even though Jennifer Aniston is getting naked at some point we have to change the camera angle to not see anything; if she's that afraid of getting nude, why keep taking roles where she's supposed to strip?  (2/5)

A Most Wanted Man:  This was one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last roles, and as such it would have been nice if it had been a good movie.  It really wasn't.  It's supposed to be an espionage thriller, but it was not that thrilling.  It's the kind of movie where eventually I got more interested in reading my Twitter and Facebook.  The plot involves German spies and radical Muslims in and around Hamburg with Robin Wright as the ugly American who interferes with everything.  It's really too slow to develop; maybe they should have thrown in a car chase or something to wake viewers up. (2/5)

Black Snake Moan:  Pop quiz:  if you find the town whore lying beaten up on a dirt road would you A) Take her to a hospital B) Call the Police or C) Take her to your shack, dump her on the couch to go buy stuff at the pharmacy (and beat up a guy in a pool hall) and then chain her to a radiator in your shack?  C is what Samuel L Jackson does, which makes no sense because as far as I could tell he wasn't supposed to be a weird evil stalker type.  Even in the rural South they still have telephones and ambulances, right?  So why go to all that trouble?  Makes no sense to me. (1/5)

Walk of Shame:  I guess the moral of this story is that just because a hot blond is wearing a tiny dress and heels doesn't mean she's a slut.  Basically the plot of the movie is that this female reporter (Elizabeth Banks) dressed in a tiny yellow dress and heels after a night of drinking has her car towed and is locked out of the apartment she was screwing James Marsden in thanks to a cat so she ends up wandering around LA all night and most of the next day while everyone she meets thinks she's a hooker or crack whore.  The movie features some crude humor and while being misogynistic, also has negative portrayals of black people and Elizabeth Banks does a racist impersonation of an Asian masseuse.  It's not nearly as good as similar movies like "Adventures in Babysitting" or "Trojan War" which feature a character on a similar urban odyssey but are more funny and less crude.  Just saying. (1.5/5)

Loser:  Starring Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari and with music by Everclear, Blink-182, Fastball, etc. this movie is like a time capsule of the year 2000.  It's by the same director as "Clueless" but is far less funny or memorable as Jason Biggs is the small town kid who goes to New York and finds everyone is a bunch of assholes, except eventually Mena Suvari comes around.  I guess the idea was it was supposed to be like a Woody Allen movie for the Gen X set.  But the name of the movie sums it up pretty well. (2/5)

Deadbeat:  This is a series exclusive to Hulu that I watched during a preview of Hulu.  Basically a fat slacker named Kevin (Tyler Labine of "Reaper" and "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil") can see dead people.  His drug dealer friend Roofie (Brandon T. Jackson) helps him to set up a medium business in an old newsstand where people come to ask him to help ghosts cross over to the afterlife.  He frequently crosses paths with a hot fake medium named Camomile White who somehow manages to convince people Kevin is the fake not her.  Meanwhile her assistant Sue (Lucy DeVito, whose father has a guest appearance in one episode) falls in love with Kevin but there's just one problem as (spoiler) she dies and becomes a ghost at the end of season 1.  Overall the show was pretty funny if you like crude slacker humor involving sex and drugs.  I totally do so I enjoyed it.  Sometimes it could have used better production values and actors, but oh well.  If you have Hulu you should check it out. I do wonder though what the show's obsession with James McAvoy is; every time they need to reference a celebrity they reference James McAvoy.  Makes me wonder if someone on the show really likes him or really hates him or knows him but in Season 3 it would be awesome for him to have a cameo.  (3/5)

American Movie:  This is a documentary about a mulleted guy in Wisconsin back in the mid-90s who wants to make his magna opus called "Northwestern" but since this is before Kickstarter he decides to raise money by making a short horror movie called "Coven" that he pronounces as "Coh-ven" not "Cuh-ven"  I thought it was supposed to be a mockumentary and the guy's goofy "Napoleon Dynamite"-esque appearance would lend itself to that but really it's just a regular documentary that isn't terribly interesting.  Long story short the guy eventually finishes the short but I have no idea if he finished his magna opus or if "Coh-ven" sold any copies.  I could probably find out if I cared, which I don't. (1/5)

Writing Wednesday: Grey and Go Set a Watchman Show the Worst of the Publishing Industry

So, have you heard about the books I mentioned in the title?  Let's start with Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, the "sequel" to the classic To Kill a Mockingbird.  First off, this is not a real sequel; this is a first draft that was rejected by publishers in the 1950s.  Lee then on the advice of some people (since this was when they would offer writers advice) focused on the main character's childhood.  Recently this manuscript was "discovered" and is now being published.

Well it came out that a main difference with this book is that the Atticus Finch in this book is basically Bizarro World Atticus from the character in To Kill a Mockingbird better known as Gregory Peck in the movie version.  Instead of the wise, caring man who stood up against racism in Alabama in the 30s, this guy is a bitter racist asshole who helps get off other racist assholes.

Now if the $16.99 price tag for the Kindle version hadn't already been scaring me away, those reports certainly would have.  Like a lot of people I read the original book in school and loved it.  The movie too.  Atticus was a guy we could all aspire to be.  And now...not so much.  It's like taking say, Batman, and turning him into a brooding psychopath who murders people...wait, Frank Miller did that and we all lauded him for it to the point of basing a whole cinematic universe on it.  So, bad example.

You have to think, gee didn't anyone at the publisher stop to think, "Hey, this is a terrible idea to ruin an iconic character."  If someone did, I'm sure the powers that be said, "Shut up, there's money to be made here!"  Millions and millions from this phony "sequel" which let's face it is just trash the author had lying around.  Usually an author has to be dead for old manuscripts to be "discovered" but Harper Lee is still alive and apparently either too senile to care or too desperate for money to put up a fight.

Meanwhile in terrible publisher news, EL James came out with Grey, which retells her Twilight fanfic from the perspective of Edward Christian Grey instead of Bella whoever the girl was.  So no, this isn't really a new book; it's the same fucking story only told slightly different.  Because apparently the author has absolutely no other ideas.  Again, usually the author has to be dead for this to happen, ala all those Jane Austen retellings, but in this case the author is the perpetrator!  And again, does the publisher stop to think what a terrible idea it is?  Nah, because there's money to be made!

This is why the publishing industry has zero credibility anymore.  First they publishing EL James' fanfic in the first place because it was popular.  Now they're beating the dead horse by releasing the exact same story!  And hey, let's piss all over perhaps the definitive novel of the 20th Century because $$$$$.  Tell poor ol' self-publishing me again how my books aren't real books because they don't have the stamp of approval from Big Publishing, the self-appointed arbiters of literary quality.

Big Publishing has become nothing more than a bunch of pimps.  They don't care what they're selling so long as they get their cut.  Meanwhile they try to sell the rest of us on these lies that if they don't want your book it's because it's not good enough.  What Grey and Go Set a Watchman definitively prove is that it's not the quality of your writing; it's the quantity of the money they think they can make off it.  Another example is someone Offutt and I know in the blogosphere whose novel got picked up by Big Publishing after a scandal that received a lot of media attention.  I'm sure it's a great book, but do you think Big Publishing bought it because it was good or because of the attention it had received?  Think real hard about that one.

If I can belabor the point I've made again and again, it's another example of being sold crap because we buy crap.  When you, the reading public, allow yourself to be exploited with shitty first drafts or reheated books, how can you expect them to care about putting out good books?  If you want good books and good movies and good TV the only way to make it happen is to vote with your dollar.  If you bought one of those two books, return them!  If Amazon got 3 million returns of Grey I'm sure it would send Big Publishing a message, more so than trolling EL James' Reddit chat.

In the meantime, Big Publishing should be ashamed of itself for allowing these disgraceful books out the door, but then this is the same industry that thought sequels to Gone With the Wind and The Godfather and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy not written by the original authors was a good idea.  Because $$$$$$.  And who approve every celebrity children's book.  Does Caitlyn Jenner have a book out yet?  I'm sure she's a hell of a writer.  You know, because it's all about quality, not just being popular, right?  Right?

Halloween Comes Early: Binge-Watching the 80s Super Killers

When I came into a little bit of money, as a treat I bought the Ultimate Halloween Collection that had been on my Amazon Wish List for a while.  It includes all 10 of the Halloween movies:  the original 6, H20, Resurrection, and the two reboot movies.

The original Halloween is still the best.  Sure by today's standards it doesn't have a lot of blood and gore and not much nudity either, but it really set the standard.  And really I always think it's better when a movie can be scary without being gross; that's real suspense.  Anyone can throw buckets of blood around and such, but it takes real craftsmanship to scare people without a lot of gore.  Plus it has that awesome theme song that's right up there with anything John Williams ever made.

The second movie was just really boring.  The mistake was setting it on the same night in a hospital that for some reason only has like four people inside of it.  So the main character is hobbled the whole movie from injuries sustained in the last movie, which limits how much they could do.  And again, what hospital has no one inside it especially on Halloween?  You think there'd be a few people who cut themselves carving jack o' lanterns or something.

The third movie is the only one of the ten to not feature Michael Myers.  Instead it's a nonsensical plot about an evil corporation that makes killer Halloween masks with pieces of a stone from Stonehenge.  Their whole elaborate scheme makes no practical sense.  They have 3 (wow, 3!) masks and for some reason every kid wants them and then at 9PM PST (which, hello, is midnight EST and thus not even Halloween) they're going to trigger some stupid computer graphic that will melt all the faces of the kids wearing the masks.  And only Tom Atkins can stop them!  The whole thing was completely ridiculous.

The fourth movie is better in that it gets back to the original formula.  In this case Jamie Lee Curtis is dead (supposedly) and her 8-year-old daughter is living in her old neighborhood, when of course Michael Myers shows up.  It's not as good as the first one but after the dumpster fire that was the third movie it looks a lot better.

In the fifth one Michael Myers returns to kill his niece (again) but this time they threw in some guy in black cowboy boots and a weird rune that was supposed to explain where he gets his power from.  It's got a lot of cheesy 80s stuff in it but it's passable.

If you ever watch Halloween 6 you have to watch "the Producer's Cut."  It's the version that actually makes sense.  The theatrical version they took out pretty much everything about the magic runes at the cost of pretty much making the plot nonsensical.  One of the reasons I wanted the box set in the first place is it has the Producer's Cut, which is really the one I wish they'd show on AMC and such instead of the crap version.  I think a lot of the changes were so they could add a big action sequence at the end instead of Paul Rudd using magic rocks to stop Michael Myers.  BTW, this is the secret origin of Paul Rudd!  Though really I think it came out the same year as Clueless.

H20 was a soft reboot in that you basically have to forget movies 3-6, which isn't really hard.  This is (unfortunately) the secret origin of Josh Hartnett and one of Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's first big screen roles.  Anyway, it returns Jamie Lee Curtis, who is running a remote boarding school in California until Michael Myers drives from Illinois to California in like a day to come kill her and her son.  Mayhem ensues!

Resurrection features an interesting concept in that it's about some college kids exploring the old Myers house while it's being broadcast on the Web.  Of course as they explore the house Michael Myers shows up to kill them one by one.  It's a concept that would have worked better now than in 2002, before there was YouTube, iPhones, Twitter, and all that stuff.  Though first you have a 20-minute prologue where Michael Myers finally kills Jamie Lee Curtis.  After that it's kind of fun and has a little nudity.  Plus a black guy survives, which is pretty rare for horror movies.

The first Rob Zombie reboot is weighed down by an almost hour-long prologue giving the needless origin story of Michael Myers, which in the original movies took maybe 10 minutes.  After that it's not quite a shot-for-shot remake but close to it until the last act, where there's a lot of running around the old Myers house and screaming.  It's OK but it's not as good.

The second Rob Zombie reboot starts out in a hospital to evoke the original Halloween 2, but that's all an extremely lucid dream and then it skips to 2 years later where Laurie Strode is an annoying Goth-wannabe fake tough girl who spends most of the movie screaming "fuck you" at everyone.  Dr. Loomis is an equally annoying prick who goes around pimping his book on Michael Myers.  It really makes you root for Michael Myers to kill them all just to spare us the whining and dickery. There's a lot of weird mystical bullshit featuring Michael's mommy and a white horse that I think was just an excuse to put Rob Zombie's wife in the movie again.

I think the problem with the reboots is like in prequels it doesn't really help to try to explain someone as evil as Michael Myers.  The audience doesn't really want to feel sympathy for him; he's supposed to be a badass killer!  Trying to give him this whole sorry origin story just wastes a lot of time.


On this Roku app called TubiTV they dumped a bunch of old Paramount movies that included Friday the 13th 1,2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 but for some reason not 3, 4, 9, or Jason X.  (And not the remake either.)   It was pretty fucking lame.

As you know if you watched Scream, the real killer in the 1st one was Jason's mother, who only did the movie because she needed money for a car.  It's pretty decent though with more blood than Halloween.

In the second one somehow not only is Jason alive, he's an adult now, who for whatever reason never went to find the mommy he loves so much all that time.  He doesn't have his hockey mask, relying instead on a bag over his head most of the time.

In the 5th one Jason again isn't the real killer; it's just some dude dressing like Jason.  But what the 5th one has going for it is a pretty decent collection of boob shots--if that's your thing.

The 6th one ignores the 5th one and begins with this guy digging up Jason for no reason and then despite that Jason is all decomposed and worm-eaten, getting struck by lightning somehow brings him to life and makes him super strong.

In the 7th one some kid with telekinesis accidentally reawakens Jason (who is even more decomposed but somehow still alive and super strong) and then takes him on.  If you ever wanted to see Carrie v Jason:  Dawn of Lame Crossovers, there you go.

The 8th one is supposed to be Jason Takes Manhattan but really should have been called Jason Kills Morons on a Boat That Eventually Gets to Vancouver Posing as Manhattan.  I mean it takes like 2/3 of the movie for him to get there and since they weren't actually filming in New York it's confined to mostly a dock and the sewers, where somehow toxic waste regenerates Jason into a little boy--or something.

Really none of it past the first movie made any fucking sense, but of course the only reason people watched was to see Jason kill people, not that you really see it most of the time.  You just see the lead up and maybe later the aftermath.  Besides the first one I really like Jason X which is kind of like if Syfy produced a Friday the 13th movie as it takes place on a starship in the future and has at least a plausible explanation when Jason regenerates into a killing machine.  The rest are just trash.


Nightmare on Elm Street 2:  Since I had watched Friday the 13th I sought out Nightmare on Elm Street for another 80s super killer.  (I already watched the Halloween movies in October on AMC.)  You can tell Wes Craven had no hand in this movie's production as it was so fucking boring.  For some stupid reason Freddy is trying to possess some wimpy guy who moves into the house where the chick from the first movie lived.  And well, mayhem doesn't really ensue.  For some reason in one part the kid's gym teacher is all dressed up in S&M gear and takes him to the school showers, which is about as scary as the movie gets. (1/5)

Unfortunately the rest of those are not on Netflix or anything so I haven't watched them.  Nor do I feel like buying them.  Here's a bonus 80s super killer you might not have heard of:

 Sleepaway Camp 2:  You have to wonder why anyone opened a camp for teens in the 80s as they always seem to be a magnet for serial killers.  The highlight of the first Sleepaway Camp is what a twist it had at the end--think The Crying Game.  Well in the second one psychotic teen killer Angela Baker is all grown up and working as a counselor at a different camp under an assumed name.  As the bratty campers start to piss her off, she disposes of them in various creative ways, like drowning one in an old outhouse.  Some of them I can't really blame her.  I couldn't help thinking her Ned Flanders-ish attitude about camp would have played better with little kids and not obnoxious teens, but then what fun would we have?  If you don't want to watch for the killing, there are plenty of gratuitous shots of female breasts.  If you want yet another reason, the killer is played by Bruce Springsteen's sister--and yet he doesn't contribute any songs to the soundtrack. Awkward.  (2.5/5)

Sleepaway Camp 3:  Second verse, same as the first!  I mean it's pretty much the exact same movie as the second one only this time the campers are divided between rich snobs and ethnic stereotypes.  Somehow Angela Baker passes herself off as a 17-year-old girl to enjoy another year of camp--and killing campers.  It's pretty much been here, done that, but hey, there are still plenty of gratuitous shots of female breasts, so that's something. (2/5)

Sims 4 Ever

I've had the Sims 4 for a couple of months now, which is long enough to start getting a little better at it.  Maybe at some point I should read a manual.  Since Maxis/EA is usually so cheap and shoddy with what they give you, I've spent a lot of time downloading mods to add better stuff to the game.  At this point I probably have close to 2000.  And if you're wondering mods are not illegal.  I'm sure Maxis/EA doesn't like them because they'd rather you pay for their shit, but I think they had to accept that people were going to do it.

There are some things I don't like about the game, such as not being able to as easily clone people (though I did figure out how to do it) or to recolor clothes or hair like you could in the Sims 3.  You can't make toddlers anymore either, which is pretty lame.  If they had to cut out a class of people I'd have rather it was the old people; I don't think I use that as much.  It's neat you can more easily adjust features--even the size of their asses!  I had to download the mod that lets you make enormous breasts like this:

I mean that's just freaking hilarious. The background is another mod too.  Better than boring turquoise, right?

Anyway, one of my fun little projects was to design a character from the first 14 Transformed books.  So here they are, in order:

Little Girl

Schoolgirl

Whore

Geek Girl

Dominatrix

Goth Girl (my fave)

Fat Girl

MILF

Bimbo

Cougar

Bride

Pregnant Girl (just a fat girl really)

Maid

Asian Girl (in Baby Doll outfit from Sucker Punch)

Plus here are a couple from Another Chance, Vinaya Gupta in half-assed uniform (there isn't a real army uniform yet) and in fugitive disguise.

I think it's time to make another calendar!

Writing Wednesday: Making Peace With It or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Write the Ending

A couple of months ago I was writing my Chances Are spinoff Another Chance and I kept running into a problem with the ending.  I had sketched out one ending in my notes.  Then I changed my notes.  Then as I got up to that point in the actual writing I started an ending but didn't like it.

At that point I do what I often do:  I took a drive to clear my head and think the problem through.  Really it all boiled down to thinking, What exactly was the problem?  In the end I realized the problem was that I knew pretty much what I should do but I kept not wanting to do it.

The story revolves around a con man who gets turned into a woman thanks to a drug he was trying to steal.  He's then employed and trained by a covert government agency to steal a very special research project.  Since the main character is a con artist I really didn't think I should have a big actiony ending with a shootout and explosions and such.  The reason then I kept having problems with the ending is I kept trying to think of scenarios where he (she) wouldn't have to really fight the bad guys, usually involving some double-crosses.  But at the end I wanted him (her) to be badly wounded to set up something for the future.

Eventually I just thought to myself, why the hell not do the big actiony ending?  In a way it makes sense since it finally gives him (her) a chance to use a lot of the soldier-type skills the government instructed him (her) on.  Plus it gave me a way to badly injure him (her) to set up something for the sequel.  And who doesn't love a good gunfight and explosion?

So I just sat down and wrote it that way and it pretty much worked out.  Whether readers will like it or not is a whole other thing.  Anyway, the point is sometimes you just have to embrace something you're skeptical about; it might just turn out to work out better than you thought.

Killer Legends: Where Do Stories Come From?

Have you ever heard urban legends like about a guy with a hook with a hand who assaults kids on "Lover's Lane?"  Or a madman who hands out poisoned candy at Halloween?  Or a babysitter who gets a call from a psycho inside the house?  Some of those have been made into movies and the like so you might remember them more from the silver screen than around the campfire.

Back in May I watched a documentary on Netflix called Killer Legends.  In it two hipsters from New York hit the road to investigate the legends mentioned above to try to find the source for these stories.  Whether they find the actual source or not is probably debatable, but it is pretty interesting.

The hook hand myth takes them to Texarkana, Texas and the case of "The Phantom" who murdered several young couples back in the mid 1940s.  He didn't use a hook but in one really gross instance he raped a girl with the barrel of a pistol.  Nasty.  The movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown is based on the case; ironically there's a remake of it also on Netflix.  Besides the raping a girl with a pistol thing, what's scary is that the guy responsible was never caught.  It's some small relief to think that after nearly 70 years he's probably dead or at least not murdering anyone anymore, but still that means all these years he has still been out there.

Which really begs the question why killers like this or Jack the Ripper or so forth just stop killing.  They go on a rampage for a while and then just quit.  Is it because they get bored?  They drop over in the street from a heart attack or choke on a piece of shrimp?  Or do they simply decide not to press their luck?  The latter seems weird since you'd think it'd be the kind of addiction one simply can't turn on and off like a switch.  It does make for an unsatisfying conclusion.

The poisoned candy thing is something you probably heard about when you were a kid.  Your mom and dad probably limited how many pieces of candy you could eat and didn't let you eat any homemade treats from someone you didn't know.  Maybe you've even done that with your kids.  Anyway, it turns out to be kind of sad because research in the movie indicates the whole poisoned candy thing is pretty much a myth.

But there was one instance of poisoned candy, also in Texas, only in the 70s.  Basically this guy poisoned his own kids for the insurance money.  How fucked up is that?  I mean to give your own kids cyanide so you can make some money?  Oh and a couple of neighbor kids too who were apparently just collateral damage.  Unlike "The Phantom" this guy got a lethal injection.  Yay, Texas!

Still, isn't it funny to think every Halloween you hear about this shit and yet there's really not much to back up the actual story?  One researcher suggested that any stories you hear about are probably just kids who want to get attention.  Not that I'd want my nieces to eat the Rice Krispy treats baked by some creepy looking dude they don't know, but we can probably stop X-raying the candy.

Another story with almost no factual basis is the idea of a killer calling to terrorize a babysitter from inside the house.  As the movie points out, movies have long used that for fodder.  Yet about the only story the hipster detectives could find was in Missouri back in 1946 and 1950 when a babysitter was raped and murdered by some dude--who again was never caught.  The sad thing is this being Missouri in the 40s and 50s they just accused some random black guy each time and threw him in jail.  Round up the usual suspects!

Why then do we have so many babysitters terrorized in movies?  I guess because it's a pretty dramatic scenario.  I mean you have some pretty young girl (who for some reason despite being hot doesn't have a boyfriend to go screw on Lover's Lane where they'd be terrorized by Hook Hand guy) virtually alone in a house and then you have the bump in the night when the phone rings and some jerk starts calling.  It pretty much just writes itself.

Anyway, the larger point is that these stories like the crazy shit in the Bible and a lot of the old fairy tales have some slight basis in reality but also serve the larger purpose of providing moral lessons:   Don't screw out on Lover's Lane!  Don't Take Candy From Strangers!  Let Parents Watch Their Own Fucking Kids! (or alternately:  Make Sure You Have Caller ID!)

But really you can kind of see an evolution of a story with these examples.  There's some real-life incident and then details start to get embellished as people pass the story on.  You remember that old Telephone game, right?  One person whispers something to another and eventually you get to the end of the line to come up with some warped version of what you started with.  But that's how a lot of stories are created.  In part as I said because of the need for moral lessons, but also because people like to feel important and so when they tell a story they add stuff to make it seem more interesting.

Even today with all the social media and such this still happens.  About the same time I watched that documentary, I read about some guy who took a selfie with a Darth Vader cutout and was then accused of being a pedophile by some lady and it all snowballed into a big, nasty thing.  Thanks to Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and all that shit now the game of Telephone can be a lot bigger, to pretty much cover the whole freaking world!  And it goes a lot faster too.  Eventually the lady who accused the guy of being a pedophile wised up, but there are probably still a lot of people who believe it, just like there are still a lot of people who worried about poisoned Halloween candy or a killer lurking inside a babysitter's house.

The documentary features a fourth subject:  killer clowns.  Like the others there's really no basis for why people in some cities suspect clowns of kidnapping and murdering children.  A tenuous connection is made then to the Dark Knight Rises shooting in Colorado.  This was really the weakest of the four segments.

I found this documentary a lot scarier than most of horror movies out there.  I guess because so much of it is real.  It's basically like "Unsolved Mysteries" crossed with one of those ghost hunting shows.  I could have done without the unnecessary nighttime crime scene explorations.  You could say they were trying to recreate the same ambiance, but I think it's just they thought it'd be more dramatic than going to those places in the daytime.  Anyway, if this is still on Netflix at this point you should watch it.

The #ReplaceaWordWithBulldog Game!

Bulldogs love freedom!

If you're traveling this Fourth of July weekend, here's a fun game you can play in the car--or on Twitter.  On Twitter sometimes people have these games where you replace a word of a movie title or something with another word.  One day I was listening to a CD in my car and thought of replacing a word in the song title with "bulldog" to see what sorts of funny titles I could come up with.  I've kept doing it and sometimes it makes for some pretty interesting new titles.

It's a pretty simple game to play.   For example let's take an easy one:  "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John.  You can change it to:

Tiny Bulldog

OR

Bulldog Dancer

Here's another fun one:  "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" by the Beatles can become "Bulldog in the Sky With Diamonds" or "Lucy in the Bulldog With Diamonds" or "Lucy in the Sky With Bulldogs."  All of them make as much sense as the original.

Obviously you want titles that are more than one word.  And you don't want a title that's like "The Rose" because all you can get is "The Bulldog" and what fun is that?  I allow myself to pluralize "bulldog" for some, but that's it.  You can only change ONE WORD to Bulldog(s); all the rest of the words have to remain the same or else it would be too easy.

Here are some others:

• Midnight at the Movies = Bulldog at the Movies
• Little Greenies = Little Bulldogs
• Anna Begins = Bulldog Begins
• Rain King = Bulldog King
• Losing My Religion = Losing My Bulldog (oh no!)
• The Singer Addresses His Audience = The Bulldog Addresses His Audience/The Singer Addresses His Bulldog
• Better Not Wake the Baby = Better Not Wake the Bulldog (seriously, they get grumpy)
• Rhythm of the Night = Rhythm of the Bulldog
• Never ending Show = Never ending Bulldog
• Everybody's Got a Story = Everybody's Got a Bulldog (I wish)
• Red Magic Marker = Red Magic Bulldog
• In My Place = In My Bulldog (gross!)
• Awkward Annie = Awkward Bulldog
• High On a Hill = Bulldog On a Hill (must've carried him)
• Carry Me Ohio = Carry Me Bulldog
• Gentle Moon = Bulldog Moon
• Hope On Fire = Bulldog on Fire (Nooooo!)
• Everybody Wants to Rule the World = Everybody Wants to Rule the Bulldog
• Suspicious Minds = Suspicious Bulldogs
• Man in Black = Bulldog in Black
• Boy Named Sue = Bulldog Named Sue 
• Solitary Man = Solitary Bulldog
• This House is Not for Sale = This Bulldog is Not for Sale
• The Gambler = Bulldog Gambler
• The Scientist = Bulldog Scientist 
• Kiss From a Rose = Kiss From a Bulldog (gross)
• Hold On to the Night = Hold on to the Bulldog
• High Hopes = High Bulldogs
• Hunter of Invisible Game = Hunter of Invisible Bulldogs
• Dream Baby Dream = Dream Bulldog Dream (of bones and cardboard boxes)
• Land Down Under = Bulldog Down Under (G'day mate!)
• Wicked Game = Wicked Bulldog 
• Giant of Illinois = Bulldog of Illinois
• Show Me the Way = Show Me the Bulldog
• Big Empty = Bulldog Empty (feed me!) 
• Such Great Heights = Such Great Bulldogs
• Last Night of the World = Last Bulldog of the World/Last Night of the Bulldog (both kinda morbid)
• Wondering Where the Lions Are = Wondering Where the Bulldogs Are
• Gentle Hour = Gentle Bulldog
• I'm on Fire = Bulldog on Fire/I'm on Bulldog
• Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog = Jeremiah Was a Bulldog 
• Janie's Got a Gun = Bulldog's Got a Gun/Janie's Got a Bulldog (the latter is a lot more benign)
• All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You = All I Wanna Do is Make Love to...not that.

U2 songs with those really long titles can be fun like:
Where the Streets Have No Name = Where the Bulldogs Have No Name/Where the Streets Have No Bulldogs
City of Blinding Lights = City of Blinding Bulldogs/Bulldog of Blinding Lights/City of Bulldog Lights
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb = How to Dismantle an Atomic Bulldog/How to Dismantle a Bulldog Bomb

Though we're a couple of months from when radio stations start playing Xmas music, this does work pretty good on XMas songs too:
Joy to the World = Joy to the Bulldogs
Angels We Have Heard on High = Bulldogs We Have Heard on High
Silent Night = Silent Bulldog (yeah right)/Bulldog Night
Silver Bells = Silver Bulldogs
Away in a Manger = Bulldog in a Manger
We Three Kings = We Three Bulldogs
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer =  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Bulldog
Blue Christmas = Blue Bulldogs
Happy XMas (War is Over) = Happy Bulldogs (War is Over) (Bulldogs hate war; it interrupts their naps)
Little Drummer Boy = Little Drummer Bulldog
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year =  It's the Most Wonderful Bulldog of the Year
Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer =  Grandma Got Run Over By a Bulldog

If you're so inclined you could do this for movies too like:
Star Wars = Bulldog Wars
Star Trek = Bulldog Trek
Wrath of Khan = Wrath of Bulldogs!
Age of Exinction = Age of Bulldogs
The Dark Knight = The Dark Bulldog/The Bulldog Knight
Jurassic World = Jurassic Bulldog
Iron Man = Iron Bulldog
The Wizard of Oz = The Bulldog of Oz
Gone With the Wind = Gone With the Bulldog
The Third Man = The Third Bulldog


I think you get the point.  Go ahead and see what funny and interesting titles you can come up with!

Writing Wednesday: Cool Kids Don't Always Cash In

Happy Canada Day!  Today should be when Alex Cavanaugh and his minions whine on their blogs about their securities.  Which makes it appropriate to post this today.  During the Andrew Leon Debacle(TM), people on his blog would comment about me, "I'd never buy one of his books because he's a meanie!"  To which at one point I said, "You didn't buy my books before this, you aren't buying them now, and you won't buy them in the future."  Which is true so far as I know.  The people reading his blog weren't my target audience, so it's not like they were buying my books before they thought I was a meanie.

Anyway, it got me to realize that in many cases being a popular blogger doesn't make you a popular author.  I'm not naming names, but there are several authors I follow who get dozens of comments on their blog entries and have way more followers than me and yet their books hardly sell at all.  Whereas my alter ego who has no blog, no Twitter, no Facebook, no social media presence at all, has sold lots of books.

In an entry a while back I think I mentioned how I don't really care about doing blog tours, cover reveals, etc for my books anymore.  It's the same thing where I never really saw any benefit from doing those and books where I haven't done that have actually performed better.  Which really book blogging in general is probably pretty useless unless you're someone who's famous already.

The point isn't to say that you should be a dick to everyone, but I'm just saying that it's probably not going to matter that much.  In my unscientific opinion there's no correlation between being a popular blogger and being a popular author.  So if you're worried you're not blogging enough, just relax.

Someone once asked me if you're not going to go around to hundreds of blogs to make inane comments to make "friends" then why blog at all?  I don't know.  At this point I suppose I just figure I should have some kind of online presence.  And what the hell, it gives me a soapbox to rant from on occasion.  As with many things I'm just going to try to not take it too seriously.

Recently I read this Reader Magnets book Cindy Borgne pointed me to and basically in it the guy says that social media (including blogs) is pretty much useless.  He uses Wordpress for his site but pretty much just to get Email addresses for his mailing list.  That's where (supposedly) the money is made.  With that in mind I decided to start a Wordpress site for my alter-ego, so now you can go to www.ericfiller.com and find...pretty much nothing yet.  According to this book it's important to have some books for free, which I have to wait a few days until some of my Transformed books come off KDP Select so I can put them on Draft2Digital.  By the end of the month I should have the first six off KDP Select.  (That would be Transformed Into a Little Girl, Schoolgirl, Whore, Geek Girl, Dominatrix, and Goth Girl.  The others don't expire on KDP until late August or early September.)  They don't get that many downloads from Amazon anymore, so it's not much of a gamble to offer a couple for free.  But anyway, it helps substantiate what I'm saying, that it's not all that important how popular your blog is when it comes to selling books.

BTW, today should be the last day to get Where You Belong for free.  Amazon has price-matched Chance of a Lifetime for free now, so if you never downloaded that, it's free again!