About three weeks ago I saw this post and reading it made me kinda do a double-take:
The sentence reads like something in a paranormal story query. When I first read it, I thought the person mentioned was a witch or something like that who's centuries old. Because it says "After centuries..." and then the subject is this Andrea Campbell person. Obviously that's not the intent, but that is how it reads.
This is an issue that's pretty common in writing stories and also queries. It's something writers have to be careful about because it creates a meaning other than what's intended. At the very least your reader might have to stop to consider what you really meant and you don't want normal readers or especially agents/editors to do that.
I don't remember all the exact terms for stuff, but in cases like this, when you have an introductory clause then the first person or place you mention should be what that's referring to or else it won't read correctly. So...
"After centuries of not seeing someone who looks like her, Andrea Campbell is making history in the Massachusetts AG's office."
Should be more like:
"For centuries there's been no one who looks like Andrea Campbell in the Massachusetts AG's office. Now she's making history and tackling the issues that matter to most Americans."
Not to shame whoever wrote this, here's something I did that was sorta similar:
"The figure stumbles to land on the floor, but even with a blindfold and gag on, I can recognize Nat’s pink hair, piercings, and tattoos."
I changed it slightly to:
"The figure stumbles to land on the floor, but even with a blindfold and gag on the figure’s face, I can recognize Nat’s pink hair, piercings, and tattoos."
If I wasn't really paying attention I might not have even noticed this. The meaning is probably clear and yet if I say, "with a blindfold and gag on, I..." it might read to some people like the narrator is the one with a blindfold and gag on. So adding a reference to the actual subject (the figure) makes it more clear.
So there you go. Watch out for that kind of stuff in your own writing so you don't say something other than what you mean.
Maybe by now some doofus has said, "It's just social media, bruh" but really, it is someone's job to write this stuff; they probably should try to not make it confusing or weird. It was to me just a strange way to write that in the first place.
Monday begins the A to Z Challenge! I have already announced my topic; if you missed the announcement, you can go back and read it. Or just wait until Monday...if you dare.
I don't remember how long it's been since I did one of these. I don't take a lot of time to read comics, but sometimes I get around to it, like if I don't feel like doing anything else. So here we go:
I've been a fan of Azrael since the 90s but DC has never really been able to make the character stick. This doesn't change that. It's not as bad as Curse of the White Knight, but it's not really great. It gets bogged down too much in all the religious stuff and doesn't really focus on Jean-Paul Valley as a person.
Also, the art isn't very good. It's so crude that often it's hard to even tell what's happening. That certainly doesn't do this any favors.
They should just use my ideas for Azrael. Or they should let Tom King write the character. He'd actually get the character since so many of his stories focus on characters who have suffered trauma from war.
This series was basically DC's consolation present for Tom King and fans of his Batman run after cutting it from 100 issues to only 85. After the initial attempt to marry Batman and Catwoman was scuttled, this provides a do-over. It's sort of a "How It Should Have Ended" since it wasn't in continuity.
The story is mostly told from Catwoman's POV. It mixes past, present, and future. The past is during the first time Bat and Cat were together and trying to make things work. The Joker doesn't make this easy because Catwoman considers him a friend and doesn't like having to side between him and Batman. The present features the return of Phantasm from Mask of the Phantasm. She's come to Gotham to find the Joker, who killed her son, and starts killing a lot of people connected to Joker. Catwoman and Batman have married for real and yet she's still reluctant to turn on Joker. In the future, Bruce has died, his and Cat's daughter Helena is Batman, and Dick Grayson is the commissioner. When Catwoman tracks down the Joker and kills him, she becomes wanted for his murder by Dick and Helena.
It can be a little confusing sometimes to know which is present and past, but Catwoman's costume is mostly black in the past and gray in the present. The heart of the story is the conflict Catwoman feels between her criminal nature and her love for Bruce--and then Helena. As much as she wants to think she's still the independent alley cat who can't be trapped, her love does kinda trap her.
The main story is good though it feels a bit long. The "Tales" included afterwards are what really makes it worth reading. The short stories color in a lot of the details like how Bruce died, where/how the second wedding occurred, and Helena's childhood. A couple of the stories about older Bruce and Selina nearly brought a tear to my eye.
A lot of comics "fans" wouldn't like this because it's not slugfests, team-ups, and stuff like that. What King really does so well is to de-mythologize these characters so they seem human. Immature people who want simple characters, who want epic gods and goddesses, aren't going to like this--or most anything else King has done. But I love it because it is down-to-Earth and yet still entertaining.
The art is pretty typical DC stuff, which is better than typical Marvel stuff these days. My one nitpick is in the future parts they make Commissioner Grayson just look like his present day self with a beard. By this point he should be close to his 50s so he really should look older.
It's definitely worth reading to show us what could have been.
(Fun Fact: Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Huntress of Earth-2 was Helena Wayne, the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. While I think they got rid of that Post-Crisis, the concept was used again in the WB series Birds of Prey that ran for one season in 2002-2003.)
A mysterious McGuffin is stolen from Bruce Wayne's safe deposit box by the Riddler and Catwoman and then just about everyone--Penguin, Batman, the US government--are trying to get it. The history of the object and a Greek tragedy that has some relevance are also mixed into the narrative.
If you liked King's run on Batman and most of his other comics then you'll like this. If you're looking for lots of slugfests and team-ups and typical comic book stuff like that, then you'd be disappointed. Not an essential addition to the Batman mythos but it's still a good story.
The world is blacked out by aliens seeming to use Kryptonian tech and Superman is nowhere to be found, so Batman assembles a ragtag team to find the Fortress of Solitude and get inside. For the most part it's a fun Elseworlds story with decent characterization. Besides Batman there's D'Ayl the Green Lantern who looks like a squirrel, Jackson aka Aqualad, President Luthor, and Emiko the Green Arrow's sister...or something. Emiko gets probably the least setup but the other characters are done pretty well.
Getting into the Fortress is a labyrinth that reminds me of Galaxy Quest when they're trying to get to the core of the ship and there are all these elaborate traps that seem like they'd be pretty inconvenient for Superman whenever he wants to get inside.
My only beef is the end is kind of silly. Kind of wish the author had found a better way.
(Fun Fact: the aliens wanting to try Superman for crimes his planet committed is like something I did in my book Girl Power #3: League of Evil when the Supergirl character is abducted by the Green Lantern-type group to stand trial. That was about 10 years before this. So there. In my story the whole arrest and trial was just to get her off Earth so a Galactus-type thing could destroy the planet; there was no clever twist like that here. Really they should have done one more issue for the trial and ending.)
Not really a consequential volume since this was wiped out in a little while by the "New 52" reboot that let Barbara Gordon become Batgirl again but for a little while it got the band back together: Oracle, Black Canary, and Huntress plus Hawk, Dove, and Lady Blackhawk. When someone threatens to expose their secrets, they have to find who it is and take her and her co-conspirators down.
It's good for what it is. Plenty of action and some banter and a little love that some snowflakes might find unsettling. There's no Harley Quinn to mess things up either, unlike that movie a few years ago. The art is normal stuff for that time period so it looks fine but nothing really spectacular--good or bad. Not recommended reading but if you're looking for something to while away an hour or two and catch up on this period of DC history then it's a good time.
The original "Blue & Gold" came together in the late 80s in Justice League International. The new character of Booster Gold and the second Blue Beetle (recently acquired from the defunct Charlton Comics) became a great comedy duo that has appeared on-and-off for about 35 years, though sometimes they've been split apart or been "killed" or disappeared or whatever.
This lets Dan Jurgens (creator of Booster) bring them back together for a fun series. Having not been accepted in the Justice League, they decide to form their own "hero for hire" business. But it gets complicated when an alien princess lays claim to Earth and Black Beetle shows up. There are cameos by the Justice League, Guy Gardner, Rip Hunter, and Batman.
For anyone who wants a fun superhero comic, this is good reading. It's funny and light without being stupid. I'd read more if that was possible. The art is mostly pretty standard DC though it's lower quality (more like Marvel) for issue 7. I'm not sure why.
This is I guess the re-re-re-(however many times) reboot. After Dick got shot in the head during Tom King's Batman run and had amnesia where he thought he was someone named Ric or something like that. But of course now he's back to normal--only now he inherits billions from Alfred's will--again see Tom King's Batman run.
This volume really just starts laying the groundwork for Dick's new status quo. He meets a new relative, there's a new villain called "Heartless" who takes hearts to keep in jars, and Blockbuster (basically Kingpin with hair) is still around. Plus Barbara Gordon is around. Dick sets out to embark on a socialist plan that even Bernie Sanders might think is too ambitious. And he gets a dog.
Overall it's pretty fun. A little heaviness in the story of his new relative and people's hearts being ripped out, but not enough to weigh it down. Tim Drake Robin, Titans, Superman, and of course Batman have cameos. The art is pretty typical DC stuff so it's not crude sketches like a lot of Marvel junk. Overall it's decent and a good foundation for the future that I think is new enough it hasn't been rebooted yet.
Fun Fact: In "The Hazards of Love" (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #3) back in 2009 I had a killer cutting out hearts though for a more specific reason. So there. Though I think "Heartless" is a better name than mine. So there.
If you read the original origin of Jaime Reyes's Blue Beetle in the 2000s then this "reboot" for the New 52 is pretty redundant. It's mostly the same story, only the way he finds the "scarab" is a little different and there's more about the aliens known as "the Reach" who use the Scarabs sort of the way Galactus uses the Silver Surfer. Otherwise pretty much the same thing as Jaime is a high school kid in El Paso who likes a girl named Brenda, whose aunt is a crime lord who collects artifacts and can do magic--like real magic. Jaime is bonded to the Beetle, which has some alien name, and has to escape from the aunt and some low-level supervillains and also battle another scarab that he used to save his best friend.
It's OK for the most part but like I said it feels mostly redundant if you already read the original. Both are still better than the movie though.
My literary hero John Irving has often talked about "writing as therapy" and suggested authors not do it, though he has not taken that advice several times himself. When you read the background of the making of "The Crow" you can very clearly see that this is writing as therapy. O'Barr's girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver and there was probably very little he could do to get revenge, so he created this elaborate fantasy where a man comes back from the dead to kill the killers. It's a story that since this was first created has been used many times in Hollywood for movies like Robocop and Darkman and even been used by me in my novel "Chance of a Lifetime." So it's almost become a trope by now where some innocent person is somehow revived to get revenge. I wouldn't say this is where it began, but it put a new spin on it.
This was the first time I'd ever read the comics but I've been a big fan of the movie since its release. I watch it every Devil's Night because that's when most of the story takes place. The movie and comic are very, very different. In some ways the movie is better as it defines a lot of things better like who Eric and Shelly are and the rules for the crow bringing Eric back to life. It's a lot murkier in the comics and without having seen the movie about 50 times I really wouldn't have known much about Eric except he can apparently fix cars or about Shelly except that she's pretty. The crow is just kind of around (and talks!) but there's not really any definition of its power. Even the scenario of how they die is a little murkier in the comics. Their car breaks down and these bad guys happen to drive by and murder them. Strangely it says this happened on I-75, which is a major highway, not some little country backroad. You'd think in the late 70s there'd be enough traffic that someone else would have passed by.
So I definitely think the movie is stronger for the most part, which then gives me a sinking feeling for a reboot that's based more on the book--supposedly. But you really have to admire O'Barr's passion poured into this therapy project. I think it's on the 10th anniversary DVD that I have of the movie where there's an interview with him and in talking about the background of the comics, O'Barr just seemed so sad that I wanted to give him a hug. Anyway, I hope he's doing better by now.
This seemed like a pretty obvious move for DC, especially after the success of DCeased, which was essentially a zombie story set in the DC Universe. From the company that had two "I, Vampire" series and three Batman: Vampire Elseworlds stories is this out-of-continuity story where superheroes and villains are turned into vampires.
Overall it's pretty...blah. I mean I didn't hate it because it gives you pretty much what you expect. But a lot of stuff seems rigged so the bad guys can win and justify a second volume. Early on is like a less competent "Watchmen" where a couple of heroes die and that sets Batman and others into motion trying to figure out what's going on. The beginning features Andrew Bennett of "I, Vampire" delivering a dire warning. But he's basically too late.
Anyway, there are superheroes and villains and people being turned into vampires and others just being turned into corpses. If that's what you want, it's what you get and not really any more than that.
Like the story, the art is pretty basic. Most of it is on the more cartoony side, except the parts featuring the Suicide Squad. For some reason those are drawn and colored with much better quality. I don't know why that is.
One thing I don't get: if Hal Jordan or another Green Lantern turns into a vampire, wouldn't the ring notify the Guardians? You'd think they wouldn't want their Lanterns turning into bloodsucking fiends murdering innocent people. I suppose Tynion would handwave this by saying their will overrode it or whatever but it seems like a plot hole--one of several.
And it's probably just me but since it's out of continuity, couldn't they have used a better Batgirl costume? I hate that gray one with the tiny mask. Just saying.
The first volume of this was pretty meh. It basically set up the idea that superheroes and villains were becoming vampires and taking over the world. This volume takes place years after that with vampires in total charge of the world. There are still heroes like Green Arrow, Black Canary, Constantine, Batgirl, and a lot of the Bat-Family un-turned.
These six issues focus on three plans: one to rescue humans on a "farm" in Smallville, one to get Supergirl her powers back after vampires blotted out the sun, and one to get into Gotham to kill the "king." And some stuff happens and then...there's no satisfying conclusion at all. Is there more to this? Maybe an upcoming sequel? Not that I desperately want one but this ended with not much actual resolution. And while Batgirl has a better costume this time, her role in this stinks.
For whatever reason, Superman barely gets used after being turned into a vampire in the first book. Seems like you'd want to use him more if you're the vampire "king," but what do I know?
The art this time is pretty meh. It's still as cartoony and middling as the first volume only there's no better style stuck in there for...reasons like the first time. Some stuff that happened was hard to understand with how weak the artwork was. Almost as weak as the story.
DCeased was a lot better because it did more with the characters. This doesn't really do a lot except turn some into vampires and kill others. It was nice that some lesser-used characters like Frankenstein and the Wonder Twins got into it. Overall though a pretty mediocre "event" for DC.
I liked the first two volumes of DCeased a lot more than I thought I would. It was even better than similar events like Marvel Zombies or Blackest Night. What I really liked was the new "Trinity" of Batman (Damian Wayne), Superman (Jon Kent), and Wonder Woman (Cassie...something). In the first book they're just young sidekicks but in the second book they grow up.
Unfortunately until the end this doesn't give them a lot to do. Instead because the disease has spread throughout the galaxy thanks to Darkseid there's a lot going on with "New Gods" and Darkseid destroying planets and adding those to their numbers. There's also the revival of Kal-El from the sun so he comes back and is involved a lot along with Green Arrow, Green Lantern Canary (formerly Black Canary), and Guy Gardner. Really I wanted the new Trinity to take charge, which they don't do until the final issue. There's also a lot of Alfred, who gains a new identity.
Still, it's an action-packed book and the story mostly makes sense, especially if you're more familiar than me with all the New Gods and cosmic stuff. The art is pretty standard for DC but it's clean and neat so you can tell what's happening and who's who, unlike some other comics.
The only thing that really ruined it for me was killing the greatest Green Lantern of all. Stupid poozers. While it says "the end" I'm sure they could do more, though I don't know how it could get any bigger than this. I'd just like to see more of what happens to this new universe as it tries to recover. That's always a sign of a good story when you don't want it to end.
When Batman finds a mother and father dead and a child who's catatonic, he tries to find out who did it, which leads to a lot of red herrings involving another case. Azzarello worked on Dark Knight Returns III with Frank Miller and you can see Miller's influence in his Batman. There's no Alfred, Robin, the rest of the "family," or even Commissioner Gordon, just one detective. There are also some of the traditional villains like Killer Croc, Penguin, Scarface, and Penguin.
Overall it's fine if you like that Miller-inspired Dark Knight. A lot of punching and blood and tough guy talk like it wants to be a film noir. I didn't really love it and the art didn't help for me. It's that more primitive stuff I don't really like that much. The story and art aren't really bad either. Just didn't work that much for me. You might feel differently.
This entry is sure to be as popular as a sweater made out of pubic hair. First it's about writing. Second it involves a movie I watched on Rifftrax. Third I'm going to use some sports metaphors. And fourth I led with a tasteless joke. But I need one more entry before the A to Z Challenge so I'm just gonna do it anyway.
So I bought one of the newer Rifftrax movies, this 1995 kung-fu disasterpiece called For Life or Death. The basic premise was actually pretty marketable. This kung-fu master is in LA and after fighting bad guys, transfers his consciousness into a white homeless guy. So you think the movie is going to be like Robocop, Darkman, The Crow, or Chance of a Lifetime where there's a guy who dies (or almost so) and miraculously comes back to life to take revenge with his new power--or her new power in the case of the last one. It's kind of a cliché at this point but it's a solid cliché, especially for a low-budget kung-fu movie in the 90s.
Unfortunately the movie makes a couple of bad decisions to steer away from the standard tropes. A bad guy kills the homeless guy for...reasons and then the good guy transfers his consciousness into the homeless guy for...reasons. At first I thought the kung-fu guy did it because the bad guys had sort of a psychic link with him and transferring to the homeless guy might break that. Then he can come back and kill them all without them suspecting anything, right? Well, no, because somehow the bad guys know he's in the homeless guy. And then a lot of confusing bullshit happens and the whole thing becomes a mess when it could have been pretty straightforward if they'd just tried to be a little less original.
Writers are of course told to avoid clichés, and yet that's not strictly true. Cliché phrases can be especially annoying if overused. Cliché plots are often less so to most people. I mean look how many times the one I've referenced has been used. Or how many Marvel movies have the same basic Iron Man-type plot. But hey, we've seen with more recent Marvel movies what happens when they get away from that, right? Just like that crappy kung-fu movie they end up making a mess; a much more expensive mess.
In sports there's the idea of "take what they give you." In football, if a defense is jamming up the line of scrimmage to stop the run then you throw the ball. If the defense is focused on defending the deep pass then you throw the ball short or run. If all the receivers are covered but no one is watching the quarterback, he might decide to take off running.
It's true in other sports as well. If a pitcher is throwing inside then the batter might adjust his stance and swing. Or the same if the pitcher is working the outside corner. If the pitcher throws mostly fastballs then you look to hit one of those. In basketball the defense might be protecting the 3-point shot or trying to keep the offense from going inside for a layup or dunk. Even in golf there's the idea that you don't necessarily want to just hit the ball as hard as you can all the time; sometimes the golfer will hit it a lot softer to avoid a sand or water trap. Or instead of trying a really long putt, the golfer might just try to get the ball somewhat close to the hole to make it easy to get in two shots.
And no one but an idiot would criticize a team or athlete in any of those situations. It would just be dumb to keep running the ball if the other team is defending that--unless you're just trying to run out the clock. It'd be dumb for a golfer to mash the ball right into the water instead of hitting it a little softer to stay on the green.
Sometimes writers (and filmmakers) need to just take what the story gives you. I can appreciate creativity or at least trying to be less like a cliché. Like how Batman v Superman tried not to be a Marvel movie. The result was not great but I appreciated the attempt. Most of the time, though, it just winds up a mess that would have been better off with less attempting to be original. Not that original is necessarily bad; it's just a lot harder to do properly.
Next time you worry about your plot being cliché, just tell yourself that you're taking what the story is giving you. As long as you're not directly plagiarizing like "AI" then the story will still be your story. I mean Chance of a Lifetime uses the same basic story as those movies I mentioned and yet it is definitely its own thing and most people liked it. So what if it uses a cliché plot?
Playing it safe isn't always such a bad idea--especially when you're trying to sell books. I suppose I could mention that sometimes when I've gotten away from the usual gender swap-type story it most of the time doesn't go that well. The audience wants what it wants and they vote with their dollars. You want those dollars then give them what they want. Now wait for the comments to not come rolling in.
Recently for no real reason I rewatched the first 4 seasons of Earth Final Conflict on Tubi. The overall premise for the show is in the near future an alien race called the Taelons show up and make contact with Earth. The aliens seem benevolent, but really they're hiding secrets, like that they're losing a war against another race called the Jaridians. A human liberation resistance tries to uncover their secrets and expose them.
It basically follows the pattern of shows like V, Dark Skies, Invasion, and of course the classic War of the Worlds where aliens show up and try to enslave humanity. Movies like Arrival, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Contact the aliens are benign and almost unknowable. And then in movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Plan 9 From Outer Space, the aliens try to destroy us as sort of a preemptive strike.
Anyway, I was thinking of a different spin on the old tropes that far better reflects our current world. The premise is: what if the aliens really are benign, but humans refuse to believe it? Like in EFC or some of those others, an alien race shows up and offers to help cure diseases and feed people and solve climate change and all that. Instead of being welcomed with open arms, they're met with hostility by fascists, religious extremists, and rich assholes who want to hold on to their power. And also the conspiracy nuts and other whackos who wouldn't wear masks or get vaccinations and cling to their guns.
So even though the aliens don't have a hidden agenda, they're met with hostility and their attempts to help us are rebuffed or sabotaged. The "resistance" would actually be people trying to help the aliens, people like scientists who think the aliens can solve a lot of our problems and move humanity forward. Maybe some anti-alien group stages a bombing or something to make it look like the aliens did it and the resistance has to find proof that they didn't--not that people believe them.
I haven't really thought it out in terms of characters and such. I don't really have time to actually write it, and no people like Offutt I'm not going to try getting "AI" to write it either. Maybe someone else could run with the idea. Just give me a cut is what I always say; don't be like "AI" and just steal from me.
One day someone "reskeeted" this meme. While the writing isn't great, I got the point of it.
When the Internet started, there was this naive belief that your posts could last forever, long after you. Of course that was when "the Internet" was pretty much universities and government entities. So most of it was public. But that didn't last long once the World Wide Web took over and all these Internet Service Providers began selling access to the Internet. Instead of schools and government departments, most of the server space was owned by companies.
And it's only gotten worse since then. If you think about it, pretty much everything you access online is owned by a big tech company, media conglomerate, some other company, or a private firm. This blog, your Facebook/X/BlueSky/Instagram/etc, and everything in "the Cloud" is on servers owned by someone else. And that means it only exists as long as they want it to.
My first websites were through AOL's hosting. When AOL decided to eliminate free website space, my sites were gone. The only way any of it survives is that I saved it on my computer and have it backed up. People with Geocities sites pretty much faced the same thing in the 2000s when the sites they created in the 90s vanished. Some have been preserved elsewhere, but most have been eliminated--including mine! Whatever mine was.
What the meme refers to is first how WB chose to destroy Batgirl and Coyote v Acme for a tax break instead of putting them on streaming or in theaters. Those movies were pretty much complete but now they've disappeared--probably forever.
I'm not sure what the second part refers to but think of Elon Musk buying Twitter a couple years ago and taking it private. And then making a bunch of boneheaded changes to it. Which he can do without answering to anyone because he bought it so it's his toy to play with.
And of course I talked about how Amazon deleted all of my reviews for no real reason and then did it to Ethan Cooper--and probably others--as well. Over 20 years of reviews gone in a flash. In the same way I've had lots of books blocked, which means they just disappeared without even a tax break for me.
Streaming services like Netflix, MAX, and Disney+ have pulled shows and movies--possibly never to return. And of course some movies and shows jump from one service to another like a shell game so you might be able to watch them one month and not the next. Even my beloved Rifftrax app has pulled some movies because of licensing issues so favorites like Megaforce, Nightmare at Noon, and McBain have all but vanished.
While we all labor under the delusion we own our blog posts, social media posts, videos, books, movies, and whatever else, in reality they're really only allowed to exist at some company's discretion. If tomorrow someone at "Alphabet" decides to nuke my blog, there's nothing I can do about it. And neither can you if you have a blog. Like Amazon they can cover themselves with nebulous "Terms of Service" that no one actually reads before agreeing to. Basically it's their world and you're just living in it. We're all playing in an amusement park that's owned by some rich dude who could decide to shut it down at any time.
So you might think that if you put something online, especially in "the Cloud," it'll live on long after you, but in reality what you put online could be destroyed in a second if someone decides to pull the plug. It's basically like putting it in a bank's safe deposit box; it can last a long, long time there but if the bank fails, you can end up high-and-dry. You could buy your own server, but that would last only as long as you can pay the bills.
If you want something to really last, you're still probably better off keeping a physical copy somewhere. Maybe bury it somewhere. It's really about as safe as the Internet in the long run.
Here's more writing advice I probably shared before but recently I was reminded why I said it in the first place. With my Eric Filler stories I usually don't do a lot of planning. I have a vague idea and then I launch into it and sorta figure everything out as I go. The Swapping Mall Holiday Special was a good example of that where I just started in and after about 5000 words figured out where I wanted to go.
But recently I had this idea to do a heist story--with a twist. The idea is there's a thief who gets caught by a character from a previous story. She uses a magic watch to turn him into a teenage girl to infiltrate an all-girls school to steal a valuable painting. But to do the job, the thief needs to recruit a crew.
Easy, right? Not at all! Because you can't really just launch into a heist story like that. A story like that there needs to be a plan so you can figure out all the steps of the heist and all the characters you need. In particular since this was an art heist, I got bogged down in trying to figure out how to get the painting out. It got to the point where I was making it so complicated that I stopped for a week or two to work on a Valentine's Day story. (Which I did more or less just half ass and pick my way through.)
The thief character is actually based on Donald Westlake's Dortmunder character and his name (Porter Rumsey) is actually the alias of Westlake's Parker character (called Porter in the Mel Gibson movie Payback) and Rumsey was the last name of an alternate universe Dortmunder in a short story Westlake wrote. So while I was working on that other story, one day I went through one of the Dortmunder books that involved an art heist and took some mental notes. That helped to clear some things up so I could get back to work.
The point though is I should have done the work ahead of time. I should have done my research and figured out who Porter would need and what they'd need to do. With something intricate like a heist you really need to plan things out ahead of time--like Dortmunder or Parker would do in pulling off a heist. And with most stories that is a good idea.
It's like the old saying goes: fail to plan, plan to fail.
For the past few years, I usually have my A to Z topic thought of well in advance. As the 2023 Challenge approached, I had my entries for that year done, but I hadn't really thought of anything for the next year--ie, this year now.
In 2021 I just threw something together with Star Wars Black Series figures. So then in 2022 I did Marvel Legends figures, which were also by Hasbro. Then for 2023 I figured since I did Marvel, why not do DC Multiverse figures? So I did.
But that was pretty much as far as I could go with that because there wasn't another line of action figures I collected that would be broad enough to do 26 entries. It was time for something new!
What else could I do? I did stuff for some of my books in at least 3 different years. I did books turned into movies one year. I did Transformers, Robotech, and GI Joe in three other years. I prattled endlessly about Rifftrax/MST3K movies in the the first pandemic year. What else could I do?
I thought of music, but I doubt anyone listens to anything I listen to. Which maybe wouldn't matter, but it just seemed kind of pointless to talk about stuff no one will want to listen to. For me, music is something personal; everyone has their own likes and dislikes.
And as a practical matter, it's hard to share music on here. I mean I could write entries and put YouTube video links to stuff and by the time the entries post those videos might get taken down. Then I'm kinda screwed. So it just didn't seem like a great idea to me.
Then I thought of something else: video games! At first I thought of just doing just old Atari games. Then I decided to open it up a little more to other games I like from NES, SNES, PS2, and PC. By the time this posts, maybe I'll throw phone apps in there. (Actually I know at least one I played on my phone but it's also on other platforms.)
So there you go, that's the theme. Unlike the last couple of years where it was sort of annoying that I wrote my entries long in advance and then Hasbro/McFarlane would come out with new figures to add to my entries, this is pretty static so I can do it long in advance and not worry. Set it and forget it!
One night I found this Retro Games site that lets you play a lot of old NES, 7800, SNES, PS1, etc games in your browser. It was pretty neat and let me play some of the older games I mention and get screenshots.
One game that didn't make the cut is Tecmo Super Bowl III. Lots of people remember the original Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES (there were even car commercials parodying it a few years ago) but this last sequel for the SNES was my favorite. The 49ers had won the Super Bowl the year before so I played them a lot to use their good defense. Then I made my own offensive players (except the offensive line) who were pretty awesome. And I found that in the first and fourth quarters it was really easy to do an onside kick that would usually let you keep the ball and run up the score. I had a few go-to plays in the passing game though the running game was never quite as good as it could have been with Barry Sanders or Emmett Smith.
One night on that Retro Games site I played an exhibition between the Lions and Packers. Barry Sanders ran for 239 yards and 3 touchdowns--including the winner in OT--while Scott Mitchell threw for 0 yards and 3 sacks. And the Lions blew a 14-0 lead in the final 2 minutes, which included giving up a 2-point conversion. Only a missed field goal by the Packers in OT let the Lions come back to win. So it was pretty true to the usual Lions experience.
That's the caliber of story you can expect. So...see you in May?
A month ago on the Insecure Writers Support Group blog there was a post misleadingly titled, "If I Knew Then What I Know Now." The thing is, that's not really what it was about. It was actually about how technology has changed the writing world. Knowing back in the 70s or early 80s about MS Word, the World Wide Web, Kindles, etc wouldn't have done you any good--except maybe you could have bought stock in Microsoft or Apple or Amazon in the late 90s. The example I used is it'd be like going back in time to the Middle Ages or even the Old West. You'd know about cars, radios, TV, and all that but you'd have no way to reproduce them yourself because you wouldn't have the technical expertise and in many cases the processes to create even the components wouldn't exist yet. (This was actually a Twilight Zone episode where a guy sells his soul to the devil to go back to when he was young, thinking he'll make a lot of money. Except the minerals he knows about can't be mined with the time period's equipment and he doesn't have the technical knowledge or blueprints to make radios or TV or anything like that. Knowing the future doesn't mean it would actually benefit you in the past.)
Despite the misleading title, there were some good points. A lot of people want to think things were so much better in the old days, but really in the writing world they weren't that great. As the author points out, you had to use typewriters or notebooks (and then probably a typewriter) and if you made a mistake you'd have to correct it with Wite-Out. If you decided to change something you'd have to retype pages and pages. You couldn't just hit Control-H and Replace All if you decided to change a character's name.
And then after you finish the story, you had to go to the public library (or local bookstore) to find a copy of Writer's Market to look up places to mail queries to. Mail as in snail mail. With paper and stamps. In most cases besides the envelope to mail your stuff you'd also include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for a response. And if you got lucky and they didn't just send you a form rejection by snail mail (or ignore you entirely) you'd have to Xerox a copy of your manuscript (which hopefully hadn't been damaged or gotten out of order or anything) and mail it to the agent. Again, snail mail. Maybe in a year or two the agent might sell it to a publisher and you could do some promotional interviews in newspapers or magazines.
It was a bulkier system to be sure. I wasn't really around until it was almost over since by the time I came of age the Web was in its infancy and personal computers and word processors were much easier to get. I wrote some stuff in notebooks and sent some queries by snail mail and stuff. It was pretty annoying.
There were some good things about the old days, mostly from what I've read from older authors like Lawrence Block and Robert Silverberg. There were a lot more legitimate markets then, magazines and such that would take amateur work and give you a little something for it. None of that "exposure" bullshit on an online journal only three people will ever see. Guys like Block, Silverberg, or even Raymond Chandler got their start in magazines (in Chandler's day especially they had "the pulps" that predated comic books) getting some credits and working on their craft. There were also "the paperbacks" that were cheaper, oftentimes smuttier books.
A good thing back then was authors could actually work with editors. Editors actually, you know, edited your book instead of expecting you to make it perfect yourself while they just basically sell it to the publisher. An editor could actually make you a better writer instead of just existing as a middleman.
Something Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware could probably attest to, you had fewer scams in the old days. There were of course vanity publishers and scam agents and stuff, but not nearly as many. Email and websites and now social media have made it so easy to create scams (often multiples by the same person(s)) and recruit victims. In the old days the only way a scammer could reach you is by snail mail or phone (or an ad in Writer's Digest or something) but now it's really easy for them to hit you up on email or Facebook, X, TikTok, or wherever. And so easy to get money through PayPal or Venmo, whereas in the old days they'd have to get you to send a paper check or money order.
And obviously you didn't have "AI" generating a glut of short, incoherent crap to dump onto the market.
So there were definitely some good things. Personally I think it was better for me about 10 years ago when I was just getting the Eric Filler thing started. Back when there weren't so many authors in the market that I could make 2-3 times what I make now. If I knew then what I know now...it still wouldn't have mattered. Really I just wish I'd gotten into the Eric Filler thing a few years earlier when I might have made even more money. That's the real disappointment.
What do you think is better now than the old days about writing? What's worse?
I've probably talked about this before, but a blog entry I read recently reminded me of it again. And no one probably read it the last time I talked about it anyway, so why not repeat it?
This blog entry was talking about a recent issue of Action Comics. Writer Jason Aaron recently took over the classic Superman comic after working on a lot of Marvel comics, especially their Star Wars series. The latest story arc is about a more dangerous Bizarro who finds that he can use magic to turn all of Metropolis into a Bizarro world. This includes Superman and his family and friends. But then in this latest issue, Superman is able to get rid of the Bizarro influence, sometimes. Meanwhile, the Bizarro spell starts spreading throughout the world.
The author of the blog did not like this and from the sound of it, I didn't really either. It's a problem that I'm actually familiar with from stories I've written like Girl Power: League of Evil and the Gender Swap Outbreak. The bigger you make the problem to solve in your story, the messier it gets.
It's really kind of a basic math: the bigger the problem to solve, the more variables you end up with and thus the more complicated it gets. The first Girl Power mostly just focused on four superheroes who are changed into women. Then the second one focused on clones of the male versions of those heroes who end up turning evil. The third story then, bad guys use the device from the first story on a global scale.
Expanding it to the whole world then brought up a bunch of questions like: what happens to women? What happens to people who are underwater? Stuff like that. It started to make the story kinda messy. Though of course I still like it, maybe I could have localized the problem more to make things easier on myself.
I had the same problem about six years later with the Gender Swap Outbreak series. That's about a virus that gender swaps guys. (Kinda prescient in 2019.) But then once it infected a whole town and then the whole world, I had to start wondering: what happens to women? To kids? Stuff like that. In both cases I didn't really want nothing to happen to some people or it'd be kinda boring. But it makes the story a lot more complicated and as things get more complicated, it can be harder to cover everything without leaving holes.
In that blog entry the author hopes that since a bunch of people have been killed and the world devastated this is one of those things where at the end everything goes back to the way it was beforehand because otherwise the consequences are pretty grim. It's a reminder that when your problems get too messy, it can cause an author to fall back on deus-ex-machinas to solve things. Like in League of Evil, the Flash character is transported to the future and winds up merging with the evil clone of the Batgirl character and then with the added brainpower (and a couple of decades to putter around) finds a way to make a machine that can change people back--those who want to anyway--and brings it back to the present day. I don't think it's exactly a deus-ex-machina because there is a rational, scientific (in comic book terms) resolution, but some people might feel that way. When you're basically hoping for a deus-ex-machina by issue 2 of what's probably at least a 6-issue arc, that shows exactly how messy things are. It's doubly messy because I don't think this is even one of those line-wide events across all the DC comics or even across all the Superman comics. So it doesn't really make sense that you could fuck up the whole world and yet in every other comic everything is just business as usual.
So as I've said before, the smaller you keep the story in terms of the central conflict, the number of central characters, the number of locations, and the timeline of the story, the easier it is to keep everything focused and to avoid creating plot holes. That Action Comics story should probably have just kept things in Metropolis to avoid getting too much going on.
It's just something to remember if anyone who reads my blog ever does any writing--besides me.
Especially since I started watching MST3K and Rifftrax on Pluto TV in 2017, I've watched a lot of bad movies. Just as a mental exercise I tried to go through all the episodes to figure out who had been in the most MST3K episodes and Rifftrax VODs (not the "Just the Jokes" of popular movies). It seemed pretty clear that the leader in the clubhouse is John Carradine.
The elder Carradine was in good movies like The Grapes of Wrath and The Ten Commandments, but he was also in a ton of crappy movies too. Here's the list I came up with (at present) with R being Rifftrax and M being MST3K:
Voodoo Man (R)
The Unearthly (M)
Red Zone Cuba (M)
Invasion of the Animal People (R)
Astro Zombies (R)
Terror in the Wax Museum (R)
Hillbillys in a Haunted House (R)
Missile X (R)
Frankenstein Island (R)
Jack-O (R) (they actually use footage of him from a previous movie since he was already dead)
To be fair, most of these movies he was not the star of the film. Voodoo Man he was a henchman, Red Zone Cuba he just has a cameo at the beginning, Animal People he's a narrator, Wax Museum he gets killed early in the film, Frankenstein Island his image is occasionally broadcast with him ranting about "the golden thread," and I mentioned already that Jack-O used footage from one of his old movies since he'd died years earlier. I don't know if it's better or worse that he's not actually the star of most of these movies.
He also sings the theme song to Red Zone Cuba, which was also known as Night Train to Mundo Fine, hence the song title:
His son David was in one Netflix MST3K episode and a bunch of Rifftrax ones:
Future Force
Future Zone
Project Eliminator
Karate Cop
Martial Law
Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II (M)
(A Fun Fact: except for Max Havoc the rest of those movies were all made around 1987-1992. Basically if you were making a bad movie in that time there was a non-zero chance David Carradine would appear in it.)
He had a lot more air time in most of these movies than his father did in his bad movies. The exception being in Karate Cop he has basically just a cameo as a cannibalistic diner owner.
So the two combined have been in 17 movies at least! I don't think anyone can top that, but there are a few who come close.
Probably the top female in Rifftrax movies is C-list martial arts star Cynthia Rothrock, though she didn't actually show up in any until 2016. Since then there's been:
Honor & Glory
Star Raiders
Santa's Summer House
Martial Law
Martial Law 2
In the Line of Duty 2: The Super Cops
It's kinda depressing I can't think of many other women who might come close to this. Most of these bad movies were horror, sci-fi, or action movies where women were just disposable, interchangeable love interests or eye candy. Most of the women who appeared in these bad movies were not "stars" who would be used again and again.
The next closest I can think of at the moment is Noell Neill who was in the four "Teenagers" movies on Rifftrax and had a bit part in the MST3K movie Invasion USA.
Who else can approach the "glory" of the Carradines? I'm just going to run a few names for the hell of it.
Basil Rathbone was a contemporary of John Carradine and has appeared in a few Rifftrax movies, mostly a series of Sherlock Holmes movies from the 1940s:
Sherlock Holmes & the Secret Weapon
Sherlock Holmes & the Woman in Green
Sherlock Holmes in Dressed to Kill
Sherlock Holmes in Terror By Night
Sherlock Holmes & the Scarlet Claw
The Magic Sword
Hillbillys In a Haunted House
The Magic Sword was also on MST3K. He's also in a short film version of A Christmas Carol that the Xumo app shows about 5 times a week around 10:30-11:30pm.
Christopher Lee is known for Hammer Horror movies, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, but he's also been in some crappy movies too:
City of the Dead
Sherlock Holmes & the Deadly Necklace
Castle of Fu Manchu
The Blood of Fu Manchu
Starship Invasions
Horror Express
The Castle of Fu Manchu was originally an MST3K episode but then later on Rifftrax.
Bela Lugosi was known for playing Dracula in the original Universal movie, but later he was in a lot of crappy movies, including at least 2 from Ed Wood:
The Corpse Vanishes (M)
Bride of the Monster (M)
Plan 9 From Outer Space (R)
Scared to Death (R)
The Phantom Creeps (R)
Voodoo Man (R)
Lugosi died during the production of Plan 9 and so to be able to keep Lugosi's name on the posters, Ed Wood used his wife's chiropractor as a stand-in during some scenes featuring Lugosi's character.
Joe Estevez is the brother of Martin Sheen and uncle of Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. While his famous relatives don't appear in any MST3K/Rifftrax episodes (yet), Joe has appeared in quite a few:
Soultaker (M)
Werewolf (M)
Baby Ghost (R)
Rollergator (R)
San Franpsycho (R)
Cameron Mitchell, like John Carradine, started out in good movies and even co-founded the Actor's Studio. But later in his career he was in a lot of crappy movies too:
The Stranger (M)
Viva Knievel
Supersonic Man
Space Mutiny
Deadly Prey
Jack-O (like John Carradine I think they used previously shot footage since he had also died)
Space Mutiny was originally on MST3K and then later a live Rifftrax show.
Recently, generic 90s martial arts guy Jeff Wincott has appeared in a few Rifftrax movies:
Martial Law 2
Street Law
Fatal Combat
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms
Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business
The two Universal Soldier movies were made for "The Movie Channel" and shot on the cheap in Canada in the late 90s. Neither is regarded as canon.
Just like there aren't many women on these lists, you're not going to get much diversity either. I mean in the 30-60s there weren't a lot of black, Asian, etc actors in movies. In these movies you're more likely to get a white person in black/brown face and racist shit like Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu than you are actual black, Asian, etc actors. Maybe that's a good thing that they didn't get to be featured in crummy movies.
When it comes to directors, who has directed the most features on MST3K/Rifftrax? It's neck-and-neck between 50s-60s shlock director Bert I Gordon and legendary shlock director/producer Roger Corman
Gordon's list found on an old forum post:
King Dinosaur
Amazing Colossal Man
Earth Vs. The Spider
War Of The Colossal Beast
The Magic Sword
Tormented
Beginning Of The End
Village Of The Giants
Attack of the Puppet People (R)
All of those but the last one are MST3K, though Magic Sword was also on Rifftrax.
Roger Corman had a lot of bad movies, though only a small percentage have been featured on MST3K/Rifftrax. Really most of them are on MST3K:
Gunslinger (M)
Swamp Diamonds (M)
It Conquered the World (M)
Teenage Caveman (M)
Viking Women & the Sea Serpent (M)
The Undead (M)
Little Shop of Horrors (R)
Last Woman on Earth (R)
Creature From the Haunted Sea (R)
Corman had a few others as a producer but not a director.
Those two directors were mostly on MST3K. For Rifftrax, the most-featured director is probably Greydon Clark, whose almost entire catalog has been featured:
Angel's Revenge
The Return
Final Justice
Uninvited
Dark Future
Star Games
Angel's Revenge & Final Justice were on MST3K first and then later on Rifftrax.
Paul Matthews has also had a bunch on Rifftrax, including a couple just as a producer, but here are his credits as a director:
Deadly Instinct
Fairy King of Ar
The Little Unicorn
Merlin the Return
Berserker
(Checking IMDB, Fairy King of Ar was originally released as Beings.)
And you might wonder: what about the Hitchcock of bad movies, Ed Wood? He's had at least 6 movies featured, half as a writer/director and half as just the writer and half on Rifftrax and half on MST3K:
Plan 9 From Outer Space (Writer/Director) (R)
Bride of the Monster (Writer/Director) (M)
Bride and the Beast (Writer) (R)
The Violent Years (Writer) (M)
The Sinister Urge (Writer/Director) (M)
The Revenge of Dr. X (Writer) (R)
(The Revenge of Dr. X was originally released as Body of the Prey and Wood used a pseudonym for the writing credit.)
Just some random things I was thinking of. Of course it's subject to change since they're always doing new Rifftrax and at some point there should be another season of MST3K
After watching the dreadful The Marvels, the less dreadful Blue Beetle, the muddled Flash, uninspired Shazam 2, and hearing about this Madame Web movie, I thought: why are they trying to make every solo movie into a team movie? I suppose a lot of it is the success of the Avengers franchise. But the problem is that good team movies are hard to do. Good solo movies (or almost solo) are much easier.
Especially with The Marvels, Wakanda Forever, and Madame Web there was this thing where the studio really wanted to push "girl power" with a bunch of female heroes. It's like despite the success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, the studios didn't think a single female superhero could hold her own so they needed a bunch of extra characters. Or maybe they thought that audiences wanted something bigger.
But as someone who literally wrote a Girl Power team-up, I can tell you that team stories have some inherent problems versus a solo story. The simple fact is there's only so much story time (whether on screen or on paper) and it's hard to give everyone an equal share of time. So you end up focusing on one or two characters more than others. (Besides superhero movies this was also the issue in every Star Trek movie ever.) In Girl Power for instance the Batman character of Midnight Spectre gets the most story time--because she's Batman! I think the Flash character might get the next most and then the Aquaman character and then the Superman character. Really I continue to think the Superman character got short-changed, and as I've said before, this is a reason she got a big subplot in the next story.
Anyway, the point being that even in a team you're always going to have a couple of characters who get more focus than others. Even in sports this is largely true. There really isn't a team that's completely made up of stars. You have a few stars and then you have "role players." Like in football the quarterback is your star and then you have a few prominent playmakers like a running back, wide receiver, or tight end and then you have those other guys like the offensive linemen no one cares about despite how vital they are. Probably the closest you had to an equal team was the 2004 Pistons who won the championship from the star-studded Lakers despite not having any big stars of their own; it was pretty much a whole team of "role players."
Still, the point is when you're writing a story (a book or movie) the more "main" characters you have, the harder it is to give them all time. The problem then with something like The Marvels is it tries to develop three characters but pretty much fails to do anything with anyone. Or a movie like The Flash that's supposed to be a solo movie but then jams in a bunch of extra characters (Batfleck, Keaton Batman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, younger Barry Allen) which makes it hard to focus on the title character. Or Ant-Man 3 where you have Ant-Man, Wasp, his daughter, and Wasp's parents basically as a team, whereas in the first movie it was mostly just Ant-Man and the second one it was aptly titled Ant-Man and the Wasp. Or a movie like Blue Beetle where for some reason they decided to basically make it a team movie by having his whole family plus Ted Kord's daughter assisting him, again making it hard to focus on the main character. That Madame Web movie sounds like basically the same thing where there are all these extra characters to take focus away from the supposed main character.
Superhero movies that have worked in the last few years are pretty much the ones that don't do this like The Batman and Shang-Chi. (Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is the exception.) In The Batman you have Batman and Selina Kyle and then role players like Lieutenant Gordon and Alfred. In Shang-Chi you have him and Awkwafina and then some role players. Or even in Joker you have Arthur Fleck and then some support characters.
The science here basically says you have a main character, a nearly-main character (usually doubling as the love interest), and your role players. Even look at the original Star Wars: you have Luke as your mainest character and then Leia and then Han is more of a role player in that he doesn't get a lot of background or anything; he's just the scoundrel who develops a conscience. And then you have your other role players in Chewie, Ben Kenobi, and the droids. It's still a two or two-and-a-half situation and that allows the story to work.
Contrasting to Girl Power, the Tales of the Scarlet Knight series starts out focusing on primarily Emma Earl as she finds the armor and becomes a hero. Then there are the role players: Becky, Dan, Lieutenant Donovan, Percival Graves, and the witches. In the full version some of those role players got a little more time, but in the version that went out first a lot of that got cut and so it mostly keeps a tight focus on Emma. Then over the next seven books those role players get some more time. Some are killed off and new ones are added as well. But it probably wouldn't have worked if I'd tried to jam a couple more heroes in there and made it Tales of the Scarlet Knights.
Anyway, the point being if Hollywood still wants to make superhero movies, stop trying to jam a bunch of excess characters in there. One or two main characters are all you should have unless it is a team like the Fantastic Four or X-Men. That is generally how "the MCU" started. I mean Iron Man just had Iron Man and his supporting cast. Thor just had Thor and supporting characters. And so on. It was only after those first five movies that they did the big team-up. Then it mattered less if there wasn't a lot of character development because the characters had already been developed somewhat in their own movies.
Point being, solo movies should be solo movies--or nearly so. Getting back to that will make the movies stronger and then maybe people will want to watch them again. I'm not that optimistic about the new Superman movie since they announced it'll have Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and others in it. Sounds like the new boss isn't much different from the old boss.
(PS: This actually demonstrates another reason why pure Marxist theology never works. Everyone--including you and me--thinks they are the star of the show. No one thinks they are just a role player. But pure Marxist communism only works if everyone accepts being literally a role player as in they do their role. No more, no less. In the real world, just about everyone will think they're the star of the team and thus they should get more. In sports you often sees what happens when someone thinks they should be making more: the team has to cut back in other areas to compensate or else the player goes somewhere else and then the team has to replace him. Either option usually weakens the team, which is a reason why it's so hard to win championships year after year.)
The Marvels: Like most people I didn't see this in a theater. I watched it on Disney+ on Super Bowl Sunday instead. It became clear then that this was not "superhero movie fatigue" so much as "shitty superhero movie fatigue." This was a pretty doomed project from the start by taking Captain Marvel, who did well in her debut movie in 2019 but hadn't been seen outside two cookie scenes since Endgame, and pairing her with Ms. Marvel (from that 2022 TV show) and Monica Rambeau, who was like the fifth most important character in WandaVision back in 2021.
At less than 2 hours there's really not much time to essentially introduce two new characters (mostly to each other) plus another disposable villain. The story doesn't do them any favors by literally copying the main plot of Spaceballs. Like Dark Helmet, the Kree villain is trying to steal atmosphere (also water and sunlight) from other planets to save her own. A "quantum bracelet" like Ms. Marvel's can somehow do this scientifically impossible thing. Like when James Bond ripped off Austin Powers 3 in SPECTRE, it's pathetic for a "real" movie to rip off a parody.
And the alien "cat" Goose is pregnant and laying eggs, because we needed to waste a few minutes with this. The payoff is the "cats" help to evacuate the Earth space station. Though since Valkyrie had used the Bifrost to beam a bunch of Skrull to Earth earlier, why didn't they just call her up? Or Dr. Strange/Wong who could have magicked them to Earth.
There's a lot of stuff that was poorly set up in advance and poorly executed in the present. I'm not sure the actress playing Ms. Marvel was really ready for a big feature film but then most of her early screen time is screaming and/or crying. Monica Rambeau is better but her heroic sacrifice doesn't mean much since the character previously had about 10 minutes of screen time when she wasn't in some weird fake TV show. Then there's another lame, disposable villain and aliens who are all humanoid rejects from an early Star Trek or Dr. Who. There's just so little to like about this. After Ant-Man 3, Eternals, and Wakanda Forever, the bloom is really off the MCU rose. (2/5) (Fun Facts: One cookie scene has Ms. Marvel meeting Kate Bishop to start some kind of Young Avengers team with...Ant-Man's daughter? Ironheart? Hulk's son? They don't have a lot of sidekicks to work with so I'm not sure who else they have. The other cookie scene has Monica in the Fox X-Menverse with crappy regular Kelsey Grammar Beast replaced by crappier CGI Kelsey Grammar Beast. Since it's a parallel universe it's not adding the X-Men to the MCU; we'll have to see what happens in Deadpool 3 with that. One crappy alien race mostly communicates in song, which gave Brie Larson a chance to sing, which she did early in her career.)
Across the Spider-Verse: It's hard for sequels to eclipse the original, but if this doesn't do that it comes really close. There is definitely an Empire Strikes Back vibe here as the end is not Happily Ever After. Like Empire, our hero--Miles Morales--finds out some unpleasant things and is nearly killed by in this case many relatives.
Six months or so after the previous movie, Miles is trying to juggle being Spider-Man and being a regular teen. But then he meets a sorta ridiculous new enemy called "the Spot" who has the power to create portals between locations. When the Spot is beaten, he escapes and vows to gain enough power to defeat Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Gwen Stacey (Spider-Gwen, Ghost-Spider, Spider-Woman, or whatever) has joined a team of Spideys from around the multiverse and goes to visit Miles. He follows her back to their headquarters and then something happens that puts Miles on the run and puts Gwen into the position of having to choose between her friend and her duty.
Overall it's just about everything The Marvels wasn't. There were fun parts, especially with all the different versions of Spiders, but serious parts that actually meant something because the characters were actually developed. There are stakes that aren't ridiculously taken from a parody movie. The Spot isn't a great villain but in a way he isn't the real villain of the piece. I would have liked to learn more about Miguel O'Hara (aka Spider-Man 2099); while I haven't read a ton of the comics I'm a little familiar with it. The comics character is sorta like Batman Beyond, or Batman Beyond is like him, whichever happened first. Anyway, maybe that will happen in the third movie. I am definitely here for that. (4/5) (Fun Facts: Obviously there are tons and tons of Easter eggs when they show the various different Spideys. Besides animation they work in some Legos--appropriate since it's produced by the directors of The Lego Movie--and live action clips from the movies. There's even a live action Donald Glover as a Prowler in the multiverse headquarters. It is widely known that Glover wanted to play Miles Morales but was too old before anything could happen, so there's a little nod to that when he meets Miles. Most of the alternate Spideys from the last movie aren't really seen much until the end of the movie; hopefully the next movie will feature the return of Nic Cage as Spider-Noir and John Mulvaney as Spider-Ham. Fact: There are no cookie scenes, which seemed weird. You'd think Sony would have put something in there for Madame Web or another project.)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968): I was writing a story about an art heist, which I thought was the premise of this, though I think that's the 1999 remake with Pierce Brosnan as Crown. This is about a bank robbery in Boston with Steve McQueen as businessman Thomas Crown. He cunningly manipulates a bunch of out-of-town businessmen to pull off a heist despite never having met each other. The last one takes the money to a cemetery, where Crown picks it up and then deposits it into a Swiss account to pay the other guys over time. Why does he do this? Kicks, mostly. In an early scene he seems to be doing well enough in business. He just needs the excitement and challenge.
Faye Dunaway is the insurance agent who zeroes in on him and falls in love with him. She tries to engineer a surrender for Crown so he can work out a deal, but things get complicated. For the most part I enjoyed it, though the theme song is annoying but mostly it bugged me that Dunaway's character seemed to figure out who Crown was based on nothing more than looking at a picture. Since they didn't establish that she's psychic, it made no sense that just a picture could tell her he was responsible. Similarly, she figures out most of the caper without any kind of actual evidence. It was a pretty weak setup. Otherwise it's worth watching if you like heist movies. (3/5)
Bullitt: Tubi brought this up after the previous Steve McQueen movie. I had heard about the famous chase scene but never watched it. So what the hell, I watched the movie. I don't know if it was really the first to establish a lot of tropes used later, but Steve McQueen is Lieutenant Bullitt, who plays by his own rules, is usually hungover, and has a cool car. Unlike some later movies like the Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon movies, his captain doesn't scream about his wild card shenanigans and stuff.
A mob guy is trying to turn state's evidence and Bullitt is assigned to protect him, but doesn't. He then tries to hunt down the killers, who also killed his partner. Robert Vaughn plays the DA who wants to make a big name for himself with this case and will serve up Bullitt to the press and Feds if the shit hits the fan. There's also a token love interest played by Jacqueline Bisset.
As for the famous chase scene, it's good if you like that kind of thing. I'm not a big fan of car chases in movies. Even good ones like Bullitt or Ronin don't leave the actors a lot to do and all it really contributes to the story is whether the good guy catches the bad guys then or not. Chase scenes in general are just kinda lame to me because there's a lot of physical action but no real emotional action. Sex scenes are usually the same way. What I really wondered was why these two old guys have a cool Dodge Charger muscle car. The one guy looks like an accountant who should have a sensible sedan or station wagon. I guess that would have made it too easy for Bullitt then.
Otherwise the movie is a good action story that really inspired movies for the next 55 years. (3/5)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999): Since this wasn't on streaming except Cinemax, I bought an old DVD because I did still want to watch it and that was about as cheap as renting it from Amazon or Vudu. I didn't really learn a ton about art theft, which was what got me interested in the first place. Still, this was a good remake that has some similarities but a lot of differences.
The obvious difference is that Crown steals a valuable Monet in the beginning instead of robbing a bank. He does this by hiring a crew of Romanians to stage a robbery. Then he helps to thwart that and in the confusion, makes off with the Monet. Rene Russo plays the insurance agent who tries to find who did it. Unlike the original, she uses a little more actual detective work, like finding out Crown had previously bought some Monets at auction. Denis Leary plays the cop she partners with who would like to bed her if she weren't so into Crown. There's also a young woman who seems to be Crown's mistress--seems to be, wink.
This version of the movie focuses a bit more on Russo's character than Pierce Brosnan's Crown. But as before, while she starts off just looking to bust Crown, she starts to fall for him. There are a few more twists and turns and a happier ending. Overall it's an improvement on an original that was also good. (3.5/5) (Fun Facts: There's an instrumental version of the original's theme song and Sting sings a cover of it over the closing credits, which is an upgrade. Faye Dunaway has a small role as Crown's therapist.)
The Truth About Charlie: I watched this back in 2002-2003 when it came out on DVD and generally liked it. Recently on the Rifftrax app they added their riff of the 1963 movie Charade, on which this movie was based, so since this wasn't streaming I bought a used copy. Overall I don't think I liked this as much as back then but it's not bad.
Like Charade, this was sort of an off-brand Hitchcock movie. Regina Lampert (Thandiwe Newton) comes home from a trip, ready to divorce her husband Charles only to find Charlie has disappeared and sold everything in their Paris apartment. Three of Charlie's former associates get after her to find out what Charlie did with some diamonds he stole from them. She's helped by a guy going by different names (Mark Wahlberg) who seems to be working both sides. And there's also a government agent after the money (Tim Robbins) who wants Regina's help. There are some twists and turns then before the final showdown.
In some ways this improves on the original in being a little less cheesy. Thandiwe Newton holds her own in the Audrey Hepburn role, though it's hard to replace such an iconic actress. Mark Wahlberg is mostly a downgrade from Cary Grant except obviously he was a lot younger than Grant was to make the romance with Regina more believable. I'm not sure if Robbins was trying to do a sort of Boston accent or a Walter Matthau imitation (Matthau being the original actor in Charade) but it wasn't really great. The bad guys are softened a little to the point the female one seems to have a crush on Regina. They were not really great replacements for George Kennedy and James Coburn. And it's too bad they didn't include the maybe not extremely famous scene at Charlie's funeral where each bad guy storms in to make sure Charlie is really dead and not faking. But at least they kept the way that Charlie conceals the money he took, which was pretty neat. An old woman is added as Charlie's mother which didn't really add a lot.
The strangest thing is that while this was based on Charade, director Jonathan Demme uses a lot of references to Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, including the eponymous piano player showing up to do a couple of musical numbers. It made it a little odd unless you really like French "New Wave" movies, which obviously I haven't really watched. Anyway, having watched the original a couple of times, I mostly like that better. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: I remember watching it the first time and being really impressed with Thandiwe Newton and thinking she should get some good roles out of this. Other than a part in Chronicles of Riddick, not a lot happened for her though until Westworld almost 15 years later.)
On Super Bowl Sunday, former Forbes movie "expert" Scott Mendelson posted this Substack headline:
My first reaction was: why the hell is it my job to save movie theaters? I don't even like going to movie theaters for big movies like the MCU/DC superhero ones or other big popcorn movie franchises, let alone small movies like Lisa Frankenstein, which to me just looked like a remake of an 80s Tim Burton movie like Edward Scissorhands. Nor do I really want to watch a poorly-reviewed movie like Argylle.
Again, like I said pre-pandemic: movie theaters kinda suck. Tickets are expensive, you have to be there at a certain time, you can't pause if you want to use the can or buy snacks (which are also expensive), and you have to sit in an assigned seat with probably annoying strangers on phones and stuff. Where is the advantage over streaming for small movies? Then you throw in the pandemic and the risk of getting a serious illness and it's only worse.
And in part thanks to the pandemic and strikes, movie studios have had to delay movies and are stretching those they have to cover the important times like "summer." That's left some holes in the fall and winter schedules so for weekends like Super Bowl Sunday you really have nothing people would want to go see.
But, hey, it's MY fault as the consumer, right? Because I don't want to go out on Super Bowl weekend to plop down $15 for a ticket for a movie I don't care about, plus money for concessions, at a time and place that's totally inconvenient. Yup, it's MY fault. Not Hollywood's fault for only releasing shitty movies because they tried to screw actors and writers. Not theaters for having an increasingly unworkable business model that to me is just a step above the hassle of going to concerts (which I stopped going to years before the pandemic even), going to the doctor/dentist, and flying somewhere.
Like I said on BlueSky, for the price of watching one mediocre movie in a movie theater, I could buy at least one whole month of a streaming service. Throw in concessions and it might be two or even three months of a lower-priced service. Can we really blame people, especially in these times of "inflation," for making the smart financial choice for themselves instead of for the movie theater industry?
When someone says consumers need to prop up a business, it brings to mind other failing industries like department stores and newspapers. Chiding people or begging them to subsidize those industries is not a viable strategy. Because in the end, why the hell should I? What's in it for me? Nothing much. If theaters want my business then they have to do something to earn it. Provide a competitive advantage over streaming. For some people that's a bigger screen and better speakers for a popcorn movie, but as I said years ago there's not much advantage for small movies.
People like Mendelson keep beating this dead horse in the same way that when we talk about eBooks, people will blather about how physical books are better because they like the feel or smell or some dumb shit like that. Some people might like shelling out a bunch of extra money to sit in the dark with a bunch of strangers at an inconvenient time, but I think we're seeing that most people do not unless it is something big that they feel is worth their time and money.
And yet theaters--and their supporters--still refuse to accept the reality and change to find a way forward. In which case they're likely to end up out of business like all those department store chains.
As an aside, something I thought about is in a way movie theaters are like malls. In the 80s and 90s they started to move away from the smaller 1-4 screen theaters and open up these huge multiplexes with 20-30 screens. Like the expansion of malls in that time it seemed like a good idea, but only a generation (or generation-and-a-half) later these huge commercial complexes have become dinosaurs because of online shopping and now streaming services.
If anything, the handwriting was more on the wall for multiplexes than malls. I mean by the early 90s there was already home video while there wasn't really online shopping, so you can forgive the builders of malls for not being able to see right away that these things would be an anachronism in 20 years. But with multiplexes it really should have been more obvious that home video was going to get better, allowing people to stay home more to watch movies.
If you think about it, multiplexes have tried to adapt by making their theaters more like stadiums. And that's largely how audiences are treating them by mostly going when there's a big game, ie some big popcorn movie franchise. But people don't need stadium seats, 3D, Dolby whatever sound, etc. to watch Lisa Frankenstein or Drive Away Dolls or some would-be Oscar contender. It'd be like paying Super Bowl ticket prices to watch your local senior center shuffleboard teams compete at the rec center. Very few people are going to do that.
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