Water for Elephants (2011)

I haven't read the book, so I can't compare this film to it, I can only compare the film to other circus films / love stories. Robert Pattinson is Jacob, wait isn't that the name of one of the characters from those other movies? Reese Witherspoon is Marlena the horse/elephant performer. There's a lot of smiling, and I guess if I was as pretty as either one of them, I'd smile a lot too. Add Cristoph Waltz in as August and you've got quite a main cast.
Considering that two of the three are Academy Award (r) you would think this movie would be amazing. It's not bad, but it's not amazing. The pacing of the film is a tad slow, though it does start to pick up at an hour or so into the film, but that is sooooo long to wait for things to pick up.
The vast portion of this film takes place in 1931, and everything seems to be very accurate. The costumery is top notch, as is the portrayal of depression era United States. But what really steals the show, is Rosie the elephant, played by Tai (hey, I'm giving everyone else their creds). She steals every scene she is in, but animals, especially those that are smart and well-trained, are well known for upstaging their human counterparts.
I wasn't around when prohibition was going on, but I was always under the impression that people did not flaunt their alcohol, they just drank in private, or if the movies are any indication, in speak-easies. This film has lots of booze. It seems to me that if you're going to fill a film with lots of booze and keep mentioning the prohibition that it should be key to the plot - cops busting you, or the friendly towny helping out with a warning, and then bam! In run the cops yelling it's a raid, just so that we can finally get the kiss we've been waiting for the last 78 minutes.
And then the movie goes on in slow motion with triumphant scenes of Witherspoon performing with the elephant as sad music plays to Pattinson looking on. Meanwhile Waltz is getting more and more jealous and a little crazy with what he imagines, and in no small part insures will happen.
But, at least Rosie is still in the movie. Right? As the movie finally builds to it's awkward climax, you finally get the idea that if the movie is like the book, that you're glad that you've watched the movie. Maybe I'm not a romantic (I guess there is more than one person that could confirm this for you if you need it confirmed) but I don't think this book would have done anything more than put me to sleep. Maybe the book was full of all kinds of delicious details like the wonderful "Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern. And maybe the book wasn't as formulaic as the film, I know that making a movie can often shape stories into something unrecognizable.
The finale of the movie makes up for the previous slowness, but leaves me wondering why they didn't have better pacing all along - I don't mean non-stop action, but non-stop movement of the story or non-stop character development, or preferably all of the above.
Oh, and I'm sure that Pattinson is happy to know that when he grows up and then old, he will be Hal Holbrook. There are far worse ways to turn out.

Water for Elephants at IMDb

Balada Triste de Trompeta - The Last Circus (2010)

Oh...my...fucking...god!
Thee is some seriously fucked up shit going on this film. I couldn't look away, like I was watching some horrible slow motion clown train wreck.
The protagonist and antagonist become so alike by the end, in fact I would say that the protagonist has become the antagonist if not his own antagonist. And the girl, oh the girl. As she is told, she wants her cake and to eat it too. And in the end, she does what she is good at and the clown is a laughing clown and the clown is a sad clown.
I don't know enough about the political climate of Spain in the 1970s to know if what we were shown was an accurate portrayal, certainly not the events, but perhaps the feel. I would like to think that Franco had his hand severely bit by a man forced to behave as a dog, before he became a crazy mother fucker on his way to being the sad clown.
Carlos Areces as Javier was an excellent choice, as was Antonio de la Torre as Sergio, they weren't just actors playing the roles, they were Javier and Sergio. Carolina Bang as Natalya was a little off her game the first half of the film I thought, but the second half I think I realized that being a little off was what Natalya was - beautiful, but in her own way as crazy as her clowns.
The final, climactic scene is painful on so many levels. Even though the clowns are now fully monsters, you still feel empathy towards them. But you really feel for Natalya. She seems so trapped in her choices and you can't tell if she really is trapped to the limited number of possibilities or if she is only convinced that her options are so limited.

Balada Triste de Trompeta at IMDb

Casshern (2004)

Imagine if you will, a world in which there is only war. A world where the men in power enjoy a certain lifestyle, one of luxury and relative peace, but for everyone else, it is the direst of times. Add the aesthetics of a Japanese version of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. For the story, use the age old avenging son plot, with equal parts Frankenstein and Akira rolled in to it, and you have Casshern.
In the context of this story, Casshern is the angel of peace, a deity of love and harmony. The character of the same name everntually becomes the deity and decides that the only way for there to be peace is to kill them all. I don't just mean the bad guys, I mean everyone, until just he and his wife are left. But don't worry, the spirits of the dead form a laser that shoots across the galaxy to smack into some planet, a ball of rock really, which it terraforms into paradise.
Yeah, I don't get it either.

Casshern at IMDb

The Grey

Oh my god, I was not prepared for this movie. I had seen a trailer with a plane crashing and Liam Neeson with a rifle and lots of snow. Based on this information and the title, I concocted some theory about this film being a spy thriller with the title being some reference to a moral grey zone. Boy, was I off the mark. But, I did know that before I hit play, since I had described the above to the librarian when I was checking this out, and all she would say was, "she couldn't say" and that it was a very exciting film. She was right, for sure.
This film is gritty and depressing both on a personal and on an existential level. But, it accomplished this brilliantly. It really is such a simple story, quite elegant really. It is man versus nature (I can get away with saying this because there are only male characters involved in the main story) and man versus himself as he copes with the first conflict. Rounded out with realistic dialog and reactions to the situations that present themselves, this film doesn't try to get fancy or be anything it's not.
Normally, I try to stay away from the real depressing films, but this is an exception. The reality of the situation is so closely paired with hope for the future that you can make it through this film. Even more rare than watching said films is my recommending them, but I strongly recommend this one. Sure, I'll watch anything with Mr. Neeson in it, but this one is a good one. This is one of the better films I've seen in a while.

The Grey on IMDb

Preparation for NaNoWriMo

This time next Thursday I will be very tired. I will have either stayed up all night to start writing at midnight, or I will have taken a short nap before doing so. I may or may not take a nap after the first push, but the second push will definitely begin at 6 a.m. sharp as I brew that first cup of tea of the day.
I've spent the last week going over notes and filling in blank spots as I find them. As I am working on a sequel this time out, I do have a certain advantage as I have seen most of the characters in action already, though I am adding several new characters, at least one of whom will get to narrate chapters. I've been working on character portraits for them so I will have as strong a base as possible to start from.
I have an outline for the first quarter to third of the story. Again, this almost seems too easy because I'm writing a sequel. I know how this story begins and how this story ends. I just have to hope that my characters are going to take from point A to point B, and that any detours we take along the way are just that, detours and not changes of course. But if I get off track, well maybe instead of a trilogy it will be a quadrology.
There are two particular things I'm doing in preparation this year, one I've done for a couple of years and the other for the first time. First, what I've done before: I don't create a soundtrack for my story, but I create a soundtrack for my writing. It's more about the musical ambiance than about the words, because I'm really using this soundtrack to create a moodscape. The way I do it, which I am by no means insinuating is the only way or even a good way, is to find an artist or several artists that has a sound the either represents the narrator or would be their favorite music in the whole world. I try to get at least three hours worth per narrator and not more than say 12 hours worth because you start getting away from that core sound. I expect I'll be using between five and nine narrators, so I've got plenty of work putting together playlists. Personally, once the playlist is created I like to set it on random. When I know an album, I find myself taking a little break to wait for a favorite song to start and sometimes the little break becomes much bigger. That is not bad in general, but for NaNoWriMo, it might be the difference of 500 words or more across a days writing which equates to 15,000 or more across the month - and that is a lot of words.
I typically use music I am familiar with for my moodscapes. That can mean a favorite album I've played hundreds of times (well at least certain songs from the album) or it can mean something I've just checked out from the library and listened to one time to make sure it is what I want. For example, two years ago I was working on a science fiction story where it was popular in the culture to be nostalgic for your family's historical homeland. I checked out CDs of folk music for China and India, of which there were very few choices through out library system, but the ones I found were exactly what I was looking for. I had a much harder time finding traditional music from Brazil and eventually found some through youtube, which I could not listen to when I was writing because I do not have an internet connection where I live, but none the less they were a good resource for flavor for the character.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that on almost all the days, I couldn't have told you more than two or three songs that I listened to. Once I get into the flow of writing, I concentrate hard enough on what I am doing that I miss the sounds entirely - at least consciously. Subconsciously is a different story and why I cannot listen to my beloved NPR while writing. Words from the radio pop up in the story. Usually they have nothing to do with the story and sometimes can be quite funny on the re-read. I never catch them while writing, it's always at the end of the day or the start of the next day when I am reading over what I have just written that I notice them.
The new thing I am doing in preparation this year supplements my outline and character portraits. I am writing character arcs. A character arc is like a story arc, except it's specific for a given character and contains emotional and psychological changes/transformations as well as the physical events that will happen to the character. I plan on writing a story with more than a dozen named, recurring characters. It is very easy to forget where you were going with a character if you haven't written them in a week or two, a week or two where you have been intensely focused on other characters. I think there will be an additional benefit to doing this along the same lines when it comes around to rewriting for the second draft. It certainly can't hurt. In fact, I'm going to retro-create character arcs for the first book in the series.
There is one final thing I'm doing in preparation. I know I said two things to prepare for writing, but this is preparation for when I'm not writing when I feel like I should be writing. I'm gathering together writer's block breakers (WBB). My main WBB are magazines, especially National Geographic. Can't write? Or get stuck in a spot? Take a break to read a magazine. I choose National Geographic, because my reading might be as quick as just glancing at the pictures, of which every single issue I've ever seen is full of just amazing photography, or I might be need a bigger distraction in which case I'll take the time to read one oor more articles. I also like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics for the same reason. But I also have a few New Yorkers, Smithsonians and Scientific Americans mixed into my pile of several hundred. That's right, several hundred because my library sells old issues and issues donated to the library for ten cents each. I prefer the actual physical magazine for a couple of reasons - it's not my computer, and if I have writer's block stepping away from the computer is more helpful than just changing windows; if I see a particularly motivational image, I can tear it out and post it on the wall. If you've only spent ten cents instead of the full price for a magazine, you do not feel in the least bit guilty tearing it up.
Another WBB I have gathered, that I often couple with eating my meals, are episodes of sitcoms or comedies. I find the half hour variety is better, because when you're watching them on DVD they're only 22 minutes. Again, it's the library to the rescue. I live in a small town that is part of a small county cooperative and we have lots to choose from. It doesn't really matter if you have seen them before or not. These WBBs are to take your mind off what you are doing for a short while, which is why I prefer comedies. I suppose if I were writing a humorous novel, I might choose serious shows, but you get the idea.
The last thing I have to add is kind of preparatory, but mostly just something to think about. I think most of us interested writing a novel are apt readers of novels. And just because we're spending all of our free time writing doesn't mean that we have to give up reading. But, I feel that if I'm writing a novel, it is not in my best interest to be reading a novel. I don't want to subconsciously influence my own story or style by reading a particular book. Though there are many books who I would be proud to write in the style of, I want to do it through practice and conscious thought. The solution, I think, is to find a good non-fiction book or two, of the non-narrative kind. Though you might feel different, and I can imagine reading a biography of a famous person, for example, might be beneficial if you are writing about that person or the time they lived in. I've got Elephants on Acid and other Bizarre Experiments by Alex Boese and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Both books can be read five minutes at a time if you so choose, or in chapter lengths. I am already reading the former and am both freaked out and intrigued by it, but mostly entertained. The latter book I haven't started, but recently finished another Bryson history book At Home: a Short History of Private Life, which was amazingly interesting and random enough to keep me hooked the whole book. I also recommend any of Sarah Vowell's books. Educational and funny, which is a winning combo when you need to take a break from writing to get some reading done.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

Oh Alan Tudyk, one of my friends hates you for Firefly, well more precisely for you character dying in Serenity, because now the new Firefly series won't be the same. She's an optimist. How old are you now, buddy? I'm not asking because you look old, it's just that by the logic of this movie, your character is childhood buddies with Tyler Labine's character, who is supposed to be 26, and I'm not sure that I buy that, though having a full beard messes with how old someone looks, so maybe... But, let's be realistic, you're at least my age, probably a couple of years older, but you stay in shape and I'll be generous and say that I would buy you as a 35 year old, maybe I'd even go so far as to allow you a 33 year old character, one which had lead a hard life. So just how big of an age difference did you have with your childhood buddy? 7 years (see best case scenario above) is a long time for kids, long enough to mean that you would never have been in school together. Maybe you were neighbors. Still, how weird would it be for you, I mean your character, to have best buds with an 8 year old when you were 15? Pretty weird.
Tyler Labine? I don't know you man, but damn brother, thanks for representing and good on you. I can't think of the last time that I saw a larger, shall we say, fellow get the girl, in a full beard none the less (you, not the girl). There were some good action scenes, good physical comedy too, but you didn't let your size ever be the joke. Now, I realize this is probably due to the script and the director as well, but you still could have played it that way, and you didn't. And for the record, I don't really buy that you look 26, I was just trying to rub it in Tudyk's face that he's not a kid any more, for my friend's sake...ya, I did it because of her...
Okay, I guess I shouldn't leave you out, Katrina Bowden. Um, hey. How's it going? I'm guessing you're not really 20, but I believe that you look 20. But, don't count on Hollywood thinking that for much longer, hell in the 2 years since this film came out, you've aged like 10 years in Hollywood time. So, play the young damsel in distress while you can, or you know, the dimwitted but hot receptionist.
Jesse Moss, are you around? Dude, you made a good psychopath. I'm sure you'll get the opportunity to play all kinds of characters throughout your career, but good looking bad guys are always in demand, and I can see a real future in it for you. You seemed to really get into this role, and I appreciate that, because you took it seriously in the context in which it was offered. Nice job.
Eli Craig and Morgan Jurgenson, you fellows wrote an excellent movie. My friend, the one who is not Tudyk's friend, had filled me in on the premise, so I came into this expecting a high cheese factor, and was pleasantly surprised not to be confronted by this. There were so many obvious jokes that you just let hang out there for us viewers to get or not get, but without any explanations that would have made this cheesy. Also, that opening which almost immediately flashes back to "three days earlier" is pretty crafty. Sure, I know that it's an oft used cinematic trick, but the movie doesn't end where it starts. The three protagonists are nowhere near the cabin, and the main antagonist doesn't look like the beginning guy by the end of the movie, so is this immaterial or setting us up for a sequel or just good movie fun? The one thing that I was waiting for, and I admit it was an obvious joke, was for us to find out what Tucker and Dale were on vacation from. You know what I'm talking about, Tucker might work as an accounts manager somewhere, and Dale works at an auto parts store.
Anyways, thanks for the good time, y'all.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil on IMDb

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Excuse me, would somebody please get Keira Knightly a sandwich? And maybe a slice of cake?
Let me start by saying that all the actors did a good job, as did the costumers and set designers. I guess you know that when I start a paragraph the way I did, that there will be a "but" coming, so let me not disappoint you. But, I didn't like this movie and that is the fault of the writer and director, well less the former and more the latter I suspect.
This film that went to such great pains for authenticity totally dropped the ball on language, as do most period pieces. Freud (Viggo Mortenson) is Austrian, Jung (Michael Fassbender) is Swiss, and XXX (Keira Knightly) is Russian, yet they all speak in English - which Freud and Jung spoke with very heavy German accents, though not in this movie - which we are asked to believe is German. So German speaking Swiss sound like Brits to the German ear? And Austrians sound like Americans and Russians sound like Brits who sometimes throw in some Russian glottal sounds? At times I think that Mortenson was trying to do a British accent, but at other times he was adding a hint of German. I found this totally off-putting and wish that David Cronenberg would have just picked an accent and had everyone go with that, or even better, made a German-speaking film with subtitles.
The other big area was how flat the characters were. Were Freud and Jung so dispassionate that even in their most heated arguments they sounded like a high school practice debate? Perhaps Cronenberg was trying to point out how gentlemen of that era did not get passionate in public or with friends, but if so he missed the mark as there was no context to put this into. He could have taken a lesson from all the wonderful British dramas set in that time.
Meh. I wanted more about anything in this movie - more about the conflict between Freud and Jung, more about the passion between Jung and XXX, more about Jung's loveless seeming marriage.
I repeat, meh.

A Dangerous Method on IMDB

Your Highness (2011)

I am sure that the title of this film is intended to be a blatant double entendre on the fact that the main characters are princes and that a lot of pot is smoked by the characters. But I think really it's a quality control comment aimed at the audience, as in, "How much will enjoy this movie? That depends on your highness." As I stopped measuring my life in those terms years ago, I struggled through the first bit of this film as I ate my dinner, only continuing because it's harder to type this while eating than watch a bad movie while eating. But then two things happened (no double entendre intended - if you've seen the film you'll know what I mean), first I noticed that despite the juvenile and simple attempts at humor and a story, that the special effects, costumes and scenery were actually top notch and I think it is either the herald of a new age of special F/X wizardry where even sucky films can have great SF/X, or someone was actually willing to put a lot of money into this thing, perhaps because they were high. The second, and more important reason is Natalie Portman. Let's see, she's kicking ass and taking names while wearing tight outfits and revealing just a touch of skin...this is why I played Dungeons and Dragons for all those years - for this moment. That it happened in a crappy film is immaterial.
Okay, what didn't suck about this movie? Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Charles Dance, Justin Theroux and sometimes James Franco, the SF/X, the scenery, the costuming.
What did suck in this movie? Danny McBride (or maybe he's just such a brilliant actor that I hate the character so much I don't even realize he's nothing like that), dick jokes, sodomy jokes, rape jokes and making light of child molestation on several occasions. Now, it should be said that I'm not the biggest fan of blue humor, but I still get it - this stuff was not funny, not even American Pie funny and that's about as base as you can get.
This movie was obviously designed to be a kind or "raunchy" comedy, but they took the genre serious enough to not go the spoof route. The jokes made about fantasy settings, this is a completely separate and more subtle business than the junior high humor that fills the dialog, are usually visual in this film and a nod to old school role playing games. But, really I was only able to get far enough to make that kind of analysis because of Ms. Portman.

Your Highness on IMDB

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by
Jane Austen & Seth Graham Smith
read by
Katherine Keldren

It's been over 20 years since I first read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I went on to read most of her books. They are a bit formulaic, but are good reads. I had to read Pride and Prejudice as a freshman at Willamette. I think I might have been the only one who read the whole book. I know I was the only to have read all the books, though I didn't finish the final one until several weeks after the semester ended. We certainly didn't spend as much time discussing this book as we did Hard Times, Frankenstein, On the Origin of Species or The Communist Manifesto. Too bad really, as this was probably the best read, of course I realize we were really after big ideas and not pleasing literary styles.
I've been a fan of zombie movies for longer than I have been a fan of Ms. Austen. But, in all of those years, I had never read a zombie book, only watched zombie movies. Well, I did try reading World War Z before this, but could not get into it at all.
I do have to confess that I never would have gotten into this at all if I hadn't been able to download the audio version. Sure, the concept intrigued me - take a classic and introduce an undead or other supernatural element into it while maintaining as much of the original book as possible. If I am not mistaken, Smith didn't cut any of Austen's words, only added his own. That in and of itself would have been reason to listen to this, but friends of mine were really split on this - either they loved it or hated it. I came down on the latter side, but not as nearly enthusiastic. I am glad I listened to this and I was thoroughly entertained, but I won't listen to the sequel. Nor will I listen to the other mash-up books. It was a bit of a novelty, and the shine is all gone now. And there are lots of others, such as, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Android Karenina and Little Women and Werewolves, just to name the first three that came to mind.
There's not really very much to share about the plot of this story - it is Pride and Prejudice with a whole bunch of zombies thrown in. And some expository passages explaining how the main characters came to be such fine zombie slayers. Though, unfortunately Smith never explains why the sister travel to China to train, yet prefer to use Japanese swords. That bit really bothered me. It's kind of funny sometimes the selective way I can suspend my disbelief, "Ya, alright, I'll buy zombies attacking Victorian England, but I don't believe for a second that anyone studying martial arts in China would use a Japanese sword!" Even I can see how stupid this statement looks. Such is the nature of geekdom and dorkiness, though, so what are you going to do?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies at Amazon

The Limits of Control (2009)

Fucking Jim Jarmusch. He has a way in this film of making David Lynch seem a straight-forward storyteller, while at the same time channelling the early work of Richard Linklater or maybe its Quentin Tarrentino. It's hard to tell as they both have that same kind of feel, where the characters give little speeches and never really converse. Each line is shaped as art not as story.
I just can't believe I watched the whole thing, or that so many other people have - if the sheet of paper with dates stamped on it is an accurate representation of how many times this film has been watched in the last couple of years instead of just a record of how many times it's been checked out, at least 49 other people in the county have seen this film. I wonder how many of them "got" this movie? Did I get it? I'm not sure. I know what he was saying with it, but I'm failing to see the art as art, so I guess I don't get it, or at least don't get all of it. That's okay. I don't need to impress Jarmusch, at least not until he impresses me.

The Limits of Control on IMDB

For the Win

For the Win
by
Cory Doctorow
read by
George Newbern

This is a science fiction novel? This is a science fiction novel. But it didn't have to be, in fact the sf bits of it are around the edges and largely incidental. There are four or five MMOs mentioned which to the best of my knowledge do not exist but for the most part actually sound like fun to play. There is no date given for when this story takes place, but it's not today, it's a day when Coca Cola is a big gaming company and there close to 4 billion people in China and India and retinal scans to start cars. But like I said, it was incidental. This story could have been one that took place now.
This story is one of the best explanations of macro economic forces and how monetary markets work that I've ever heard. At the same time, it manages to be a story that would warm Karl Marx's heart, wherein the workers of the world do rise up to demand the same privileges as the bourgeoisie.
But really, it's a story about characters and their struggles, their friendships, their loves - with a few lectures on economics sprinkled in. And I do mean lectures - a couple of times the narrator is talking directly to the listener/reader, other times it is an economist lecturing one of children he is working with.
Bad things happen to good people in this story, and some bad things done by bad people go unpunished, just like real life. Fortunately just like real life, some of the bad things happen to bad people and some of the good things happen to good people. In all, the characters seemed very three dimensional and humanly fallible.

Oh, and almost completely unrelated to this story, a particular phrase, "It's turtles all the way down" was used in it, which is not the most common of sayings, but one that just happened to pop up in a graphic novel I was reading at the same time (Fables #16 Inherit the Wind) and in a television show (Castle) that I watched during one of the days I was listening to this book, not to mention the previous audio book, the wonderful non-fiction account of the periodic table, "The Disappearing Spoon". What kind of synchronicity is at work here? There must be something important about this message? But, is it the message, that is turtles all the way down, or is it that fact that in the context the statement was originally uttered, it is wrong? Something for me to ponder for sure.

NaNoWriMo 2012 - Two Weeks and Counting

This time two weeks from now, I will be very tired. I will have been up at midnight to pound out the first couple thousand words on a new story that will hopefully magically morph into a novel over the course of the 30 days that are November.
I'm planning on making this the fourth year in a row that I am kicking off the month of craziness with a midnight write. Write for two hours and then sleep until my regular time which is six a.m. get up, make some tea and write some more, eat some breakfast drink some more tea, write some more, go for a walk, write some more, eat lunch. I think I can have 5,000 words by that point and if I"m really focused maybe upwards of 7,500 words. No writing after lunch, though. The rest of the day is for touching up the outline or doing some research and for checking in with anyone I can track down also doing NaNoWriMo. Well, not just anyone, someone I know.
A big part of being focused is being prepared. That and tea, tea which I normally drink by the cup full, but during the month of November will drink by the pot load.
Each year I prepare for this event differently, hoping that I will find something that clicks with me, something that can be my thing for writing a novel. How many years have I done this now? I think this will be my tenth NaNoWriMo, with a failure rate of one third thus far. This can be the year that takes from a D to a C.
Last year I did character development as my preparation. The first part of the story was a dream, which I of course bastardized to fit with an idea I've been kicking around for years. This certainly worked to get me to the word count, but not so much on giving me a story arc, though by the middle of the month I did know where I was going.
Two years ago, I created a timeline of events and did a ton of research. And when I say ton, I do mean quantity and not quality. I did a lot of very broad research, thinking that the story would find it's direction and then I could do deeper research into those areas. I still think that was a good way to work on a sci-fi which is what I was doing. I met my word goal, but didn't finish the story, not even close. There's at least 250k more words to write on this one. I haven't touched it since then because one of the three vantage points is boring the crap out of me, but I like the character so I don't just want to cut her out.
Three years ago, I worked on an urban fantasy. It doesn't seem like it was three years ago. Damn. I just looked through the folder and all of the research is from the following summer when I had moved down here to Coquille. As far as I can tell, I did almost no preparation for this story other than just thinking about it. There is no timeline, no character portraits, no timeline. And yet this was the novel that I finished. Well kind of. I did reach my word goal and I did get to the end of the story, but I stopped writing one of the view points so that I could get to the end. And what's more is that I like this story. It sounds like I did nothing to get ready for this, which is untrue. I just didn't write anything down. Some of the underpinning ideas I've been thinking about since the early 90s.
I should say for this book that I didn't have an outline, or character portraits, or timeline, but I do now. Over the last three weeks or so, I've been putting in a lot of time on this one. I've read it straight though, taking notes for an outline and timeline as well as for fleshing out the character portraits. I've even figured out which direction I ned to go for the second draft. And did I mention that I've written the missing chapters?
This is how I'm preparing for this year's competition - touching and working on a three year old manuscript because it's time to write the sequel. I had ended it in a rather big cliff hanger, but had tied everything up like a good boy. I always knew that there was more to this story. I always planned on revisiting it someday. It turns out that someday is this year, in a couple of weeks.
I don't have a timeline or outline for the new story yet. I do want to have a sketch in place by the start of NaNoWriMo. The research I did after the first manuscript was written so I could touch up things has proved a valuable resource for getting ready for the next part of the story. I am very tempted to say this will be a trilogy, just so I can write no less than four stories for it. But, honestly, I think this is more open-ended than that.
In the next 13 days and change, I will continue working on rewriting the first manuscript and on doing character portraits for two of the new characters I know I'll be adding in this story. I have yet to find a good way to rewrite, by which I mean the physical logistics. My eye sight is poor enough that printing out a copy on paper to mark up isn't terribly feasible (not to mention that since I don't have a working printer that it will be quite expensive to print it up). I haven't found a good electronic answer, either. I spent a lot of time looking for a program that was a text editor with two screens side-by-side. in one would be the original, and the other would be my edit. I want the original to stay the same contentwise, just show spaces where stuff is added or be a different color if deleted. I will handle this by using two text editors (not two tabs in the same one) so that I can have them open next to each other. I will just have to manually scroll and insert space. I know that using OpenOffice or MS Office, I can easily edit while leaving the original text there, I just want to be able to look at a clean copy as I go.
I'm really just making excuses to put of the rewrite. I don't know what non-novelists think occurs with a second draft, from conversation with friends they think it's mostly running spell check and reading it through, adding a word here, deleting a word there. Then you turn it in to your teacher and hope that you did well enough to pass the class. Maybe for some writers it can be that easy, but not for me, not for this book. I need to completely change the narrative style of the whole book - switch out of first person to third person limited with focus on a particular character per chapter, but allowing insight into that character's thoughts. That means everything needs to be rewritten, though perhaps I can retain some of the better dialogue.
Believe it or not, this post is part of the prep. To be a writer, you need to write. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you write, just that you write. I don't know about developing my own voice, I think that the story should dictate the storyteller's voice to some extent. But, I do need to develop skillsets to be a competent writer. It's more important than you can imagine for me to know that I can sit down and in the course of 25 days or so kick out about 100,000 words. I have the confidence to start writing and to not be down on myself if it seems like crap, because to be frank it is crap. Not all of it of course, otherwise I would have already given up, but most of it is crap. I have seen that number go down, though. Those first 50,000 words, I was hoping to get maybe 2,500 our of it that was worth keeping. Anything extra, and let me tell you that there is not a lot extra with that book, is all bonus. Things have progressed to the point where I'm hoping that around a quarter of what I write will be worth keeping. And worth keeping doesn't mean without rewriting.
If I don't forget or go totally lazy, I plan on writing at least one more NaNo themed post before it starts and then writing updates as I go. Last year I wrote a ton of emails and forum posts during NaNoWriMo because writing is not a chore for me any longer. It's something that I do, and if I go a whole day without writing, I feel kind of dirty. And not the good kind of dirty.

Hanna (2011)

If this movie had been made even three years earlier, it would have starred Liam Neeson in place of Eric Bana, and probably Scarlett Johannsen in place of Saoirse Ronan. Hanna would have been a lesser movie for it - more like the Bourne Identity with a girl, er, woman in place of Matt Damon (I say girl or woman because Hanna is a girl and Miss Johannsen is a woman). Don't get me wrong - I love the Bourne movies, but I don't need to see cheap knock-offs, and it would have been in that other-world version of the movie. But Bana and Ronan take it to a whole different level, and adding Cate Blanchett into the mix makes it a different kind of thing entirely.
Bana, whom I've most recently seen in Troy and the Hulk, seemed younger than in those movies and slimmer, almost like he was his own younger brother. His own younger, very talented brother at that. I've always liked Bana and usually feel that he is being underused, or like in Troy where his acting is so much above the other actors that he is in scenes with that you wonder if he's embarrassed at the role. Don't tell me that he isn't at least seven times the actor that Orlando Bloom is.
Ronan was such a treat in The Lovely Bones, and I'm glad to see her in another role. She owns every scene that shes in and is on par with Bana and Blanchett. Her scenes with the British family on vacation really illustrate her skill and I feel sorry for the actor playing the father, as he seems a bit out of his depth, as does perhaps the daughter, but it's hard to tell as the character is a bit shallow. The fight scenes are amazing, and yet seem very realistic. This isn't a movie with the high flying martial arts of earlier films in this genre, but instead uses the nitty-gritty, highly effective style popularized in the Bourne movies and Daniel Craig's James Bond movies. I like forward to a day when I can see Ronan in an action film fighting alongside Milla Jovovich, hopefully fighting zombies, vampires or ninjas, or even better yet all of the above.
Blanchett is the weak link of the three stars. That's right. That's how good this movie is, when you can say that Cate Blanchett is the weak link. Blanchett is reminiscent of a younger Helen Mirren and this type of role bodes of many great films to come. The only problem I had with her character was the accent. I understand why a CIA handler might need and American accent, and I understand why that might even be a Sourthern accent, but I'm not sure why they had her do one. The first part of the movie I felt like her accent was not nearly as pronounced as in the last part of the film.
This film leaves a lot of things open at the end in almost exactly the same way that the Bourne Identity did, so I will not be surprised to see a sequel or two based upon it and will galdly watch them.

Hanna on IMDB

The Three Musketeers (2011)

I'm not sure that Alexander Dumas would recognize this version of France or his tale. The last time I watched a film based on this story it stored Keifer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen...did I make that up? It was like such a bad nightmare, barely passable American actors in frilly clothes and handling swords like they were fighting with sticks. I must ahve dreamt that, I'm sure.
I had made up my mind going into this version that I wasn't going to like it because it was going to try and be accurate, but be all in English which really bothers me for some reason - not that all the characters would speak English, but that the French would all speak English and the English would all speak English, and they would all have the same accent, and in the case of this movie, the Italians also speak English. I would then spend two hours finding little nitpicky things wrong with it and remind myself that American made movies about this period in European history are always crap because Hollywood doesn't understand how to do the period piece right.
That never happened though. Oh sure, all the nationalities of Europe speak English with the same accents in this film, but right from the beginning Athos is all Steampunk scuba diver guy, what a hundred, hundred fifty years before there would have been the steam power to hitch the punk up to? I know this movie played in theaters as a 3D film, and right from the get-go the action plays like that. What it really plays like is the Matrix - slow motion slides under a hail of spiked balls, using the chains that one is bound with to beat the enemies at hand. This is not your father's or grandfather's interpretation of the classic story.
Right at the beginning we meet Athos, so ably played by one of my favorite actors, Matthew MacFadyen. I loved him in Spooks, he was even okay in that version of Robin Hood with Russel Crowe (which was also surprisingly better than I thought it would be, but in a completely different way that this film). I even watched him in the abysmal Pillars of the Earth, which was a period piece and was very authentic, but had just a horrid and convoluted story.
And there kissing Athos is "Milady" played by Milla Jovovich. She has never let me down. Ok, I haven't seen that movie where she's on a honeymoon on Hawaii on some hike and there is a killer about, Dang, now I'm going to have to watch that, and pretty sure that will suck, but I am willing to put up with that to watch her. I don't think there is a better female action star out there, and I strongly encourage Kate Beckinsale, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Zhi, or Charlize Theron to come to my house and set me straight. I am the proud owner of all the Resident Evil movies, and I'm not afraid to say that I think UltraViolet is best non-traditional vampire movie. So there.
This Three Musketeers is not historical as much as it is whimsical, very visually stylized that I may look back on 20 years from now and make fun of. but honestly most of the films I do that with now I made fun of when they came out, or at least when I got to see them for the first time. Take Army of Darkness for example, brilliantly funny movie - Bruce Campbell at his absolute best - and yet I am willing to admit that Bridgette Fonda's hair-do has become a hair-don't in the last 25 years. I thought it was cute then, just like I thought the cute girls I went to high school with had cute hair, but now looking back at old yearbooks, I can see how silly their hair looked.
Lately, I've been kind of down on Orlando Bloom - you may recall that I compared his portrayal of Paris with his portrayal of Legolas, and there was very little to contrast. But, he totally rocks the bad-ass bad-boy who may be opposed to the heroes but does it with style.
The weak point for me was D'Artagnon. This is not the first thing I've seen Logan Lerman in and he does a fine job, it's just that he's too damn young. Not his fault, I blame the director. I just don't buy that a 16 or 17 year old kid is pretty much the best sword fighter in Europe. Sure, I'll buy airships and hidden vaults of Da Vinci's secrets, but this is too much.
One thing I always think about every time I watch a Three Musketeers movie, any Three Musketeers movie, is what cool names Dumas came up with: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and even D'Artagnon. I salute you M. Dumas and will strive to come up with better names for the characters I write about.

The Three Musketeers at IMDB

Drive (2011)

Ryan Gosling is the Driver, a man of few words, but plenty of action. This is a really different character for him. Sure, we're using to seeing Gosling in action roles, but he's always the guy with the big mouth and usually the means to back it up. This character though, is different, almost savant different.
Everything goes along in awkward mode as the Driver gets to know Irene and her son, and then her husband is released from prison and the shit goes south real quick.
It seems that almost everyone has a link to organized crime in this movie, whether they know it or not. Hollywood normally gives us Vin Diesel or Jason Statham for these kind of movies, except that this isn't one of those movies.
Much like the main character, the soundtrack says much by saying little. There are long moments of near silence, the kind of moments where you expect music to fill in the blanks. But by leaving it out, the scenes create a feeling of anxiety that at times is almost unbearable. The atmosphere is very reminiscent of No Country for Old Men. When there is music playing, it's timeless and to the point. Based on the soundtrack this movie could be happening any time from 1970 until today.
The visualization of Drive matches the soundtrack. The way the characters dress, the cars they drive - with a couple of exceptions - are all timeless. And the backdrop of Los Angeles is the same - this could be any major city. All of this serves to put the focus on the story.
I'm not sure if this movie is brilliant, I guess that is better left to others, probably those that are more of a fan than I am. I'm glad I watched this film and have no regrets, but this is not one that I would freely suggest to friends. I would have to recommend it with the same caveat I reserve for films like No Country for Old Men and Goodfellas - this film is brutal and graphic.

Drive at IMDB

Live Free or Die Hard: Die Hard 4 (2007)

A long time passes between the rhird and fourth films in this franchise. I'm guessing that after the third tanked, they decided to put McClane to bed until there were actual terrorists for him to defeat.
We finally get them in this film. In complete opposition to the first three films, the bad guys are terrorists this time, but he doesn't think he's a terrorist. He's also stealing billions of dollars, so maybe he is crook and not a terrorist, but I'm going to have to go with greedy terrorist.
There are no mentions made of the second or third films at all in this installment, though this does set up number 3 to have been the true and canonical sequel to number 2 - McClane has always been a New York cop. They also expanded on the separation from his wife so that now he is divorced. The only bit of continuity that gets messed up is the age of his daughter, Lucy. In the first film (the only other time that we see her) she is roughly six to eight years old, let's lowball it and say six. This movie is 19 years after the first one and Lucy is now a student at Rutgers. Ok, 25 year old co-ed isn't too far of a stretch maybe she took a year off to travel and another year or two to work. Except that she looks 19 or 20 and acts the same. It is strongly implied that at the beginning of the film that she is newly on her own. Now, if they had made her a law student or something, I could have save a few pixels here.
The producers learned from the mistakes of 2 and 3 - in 2 it was that he was the Rodney Dangerfield of police detectives and in 3 it was giving him a partner who was also a bad-ass. This time around, the FBI listen to him from very early on, and the sidekick is a kid who needs McClane's protection to stay alive. Plus, they give him his motivation back - he has to stop the bad guys in order to save his daughter's life.
Less stuff blew up this movie than in the first 3, but the effects were cooler - you didn't just get a truck blowing up in the tunnel, you get a truck blowing up that sends other cars flying through the air that McClane and his sidekick barely dodge. You don't have a car chase shout-out, you have a fighter jet chasing and demolishing a big rig and the highway that it's on. And very noticeably, you don't have a tough assassin chick that only engages minor characters, you have a tough beautiful assassin chick that takes it to McClane and for the most part kicks his ass.
I watched the unrated version this time around. I honestly couldn't tell any difference from the theatrical version. Whatever was different was minor.
Now that I'm on the far side of Die Hard, I can recommend the first and fourth movies. They have a relatively simple and straight forward plot and stick to it. The characters are all motivated to act the way they act. The second was unnecessarily complicated - they weren't just pulling the wool over McClane's eyes, they were pulling one on the viewer too. And the third one...well, it just kinda sucked.

Live Free or Die Hard at IMDB

Die Hard with a Vengeance: Die Hard 3 (1995)

It's now several years later, and for the first time it's not the Christmas season. Which is too bad, that was quite a nice motif they had going, but it doesn't make sense to the big movie companies when switching from the Christmas release schedule to the Summer Blockbuster release schedule to put out a summer-time movie that takes place at Christmas, because apparently, we audience members are too dumb to imagine a winter movie in the summer. Or something.
Theoretically, this movie is a sequel to Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder. Bruce Willis is in it, that is certainly the same. He plays a policeman named John McClane, which is also the same. And that's just about it. This McClane never was an L.A. cop, and is estranged from his wife and kids who live in L.A. In fact, there is no reference to the second movie, though there are numerous references to the first, even a brief flashback of the main baddie dying at the end of the film. I'd like to think of this as the alternate universe sequel to Die Hard - the one where McClane has gone from being a good cop with the occasional disagreement with his immediate superiors, to a rogue cop, alcoholic who cares more about his own pride than he does about his wife or children.
I missed this movie when it came out and had to verify the date on IMDb. This film turns out to be nothing like the first two really. It's not about a man doing whatever it takes to save his wife. This is a buddy cop movie, well a buddy movie where the main buddy is a cop and the other buddy is Zeus, a bad-ass shopkeeper who gets tangled up with McClane.
McClane has reached true bad-assness in this third film. It's the first time that we see him go all Super Saiyan. Nothing can stop him, not bullets, not exploding subways, not flooding aqueducts, not falling 50 feet and landing flat on his back. In fact the only thing that even gives him more than a second's pause is calling his wife, whom we learn that he hasn't spoken to in over a year. There's nothing that a little bandage, an aspirin or a cigarette can't heal. McGoku is beyond the human reality of toughness.
The baddie in this installment is a combination of the first two - a German robber and a military man. This time the baddie pretends to be a psycho out to get McClane, which is of course a diversion, but towards the end, Simon pretends to be a terrorist to insure that the authorities are looking in the wrong direction. The group of baddies includes a woman for the first time, who is like some type of East German trained Assassin Savant using her wickedly curved knife, but it's not enough to save the film. Maybe if they had her fight McClane or Zeus at some point, but they don't and the movie was lamer because of it.
This film brings Samuel L. Jackson on as Zeus, and Jeremy Irons as the villain Simon. But Jackson and Irons cannot save this film. Maybe if Jackson had been allowed to bring his light sabre and if Irons or his knife-wielding babe had actually gotten into a physical altercation with McClane. But they didn't.
Oh, one last thing, the tossing in of "Yippie-kai-yea mother fucker" has taken the phase from being a witty if irreverant offhand response to a mantra repeated when you take out the first of the main bad guys.

Die Hard with a Vengeance at IMDB

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

Christmas again, but now McClane lives in L.A. and is in Washington D.C. for the holidays with his in-laws. He's switched from being a detective in the NYPD to being a lieutenant in the LAPD, apparently conceding that his wife's career has at least some significance. I'm just glad that they got all of the actors back to play their respective roles, even if it's a bit far fetched that McClane would call L.A. to ask Al for help or that the asshole reporter would be on the same plane with Holly.
As I recall, when this movie came out in theatres, it was a big deal because of the amount of money spent on the special effects - it cots a lot of money to blow up a couple of 747s. I didn't see it in the theatre though, I hope it was because I was too busy studying, getting ready to go off to college. I did see it in the next couple of years though, on VHS. I got the action aspect, but I missed a lot of the humor. This movie is very self-referential, and at times almost self-aware by which I mean the characters seem to be talking directly to the audience. I mean of course McClane's rhetorical questions to the aether about why this kind of stuff keeps happening to him, a remark about 'what are the odds', etc. Plus, you can't overlook the title - "Die Harder".
This movie isn't as good as the first one. But, I give it credit for sticking with the characters and developing them, giving them a story that has some of the same aspects, but that isn't a carbon copy of the first film. I do find it interesting that in both films, criminal elements masquerade as terrorist organizations because they know how the government will react to terrorists. I can't help but wonder if they would have gone with the same premise after 9/11. I don't think so - I think they likely would have been terrorists.
This movie did see a departure from the character of McClane in one respect - one that will only grow in the third and fourth movies - McClane is no longer the every man cop who wins because he cares the most, he is now the Action Hero cop - along with references made throughout the film as to as much. The only thing that keeps McClane from being a true bad-ass, something which he will achieve in the next film, is that Holly is still in the picture, both humanizing John and showing quite a bit of her Action Hero-ness. I mean come on, not just anybody would taser a dude just to get him off the phone.

Die Hard 2 at IMDB

Die Hard (1988)

I think my recent rewatch of this film was the first time since I saw it originally, back in the day. I think I saw this in the theatre, but not the first run - when it hit the discount, cheap theatres.
Bruce Willis with hair, and it might even have been his hair. He was such a hot commodity when this film dropped. He can actually act, unlike the big three action stars at the time - Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme. Ok, there might be a few of you out there that think that Stallone can act a little, but it's only because you watched Oscar and it made you laugh, really though, Sly is Sly is Sly.
I had completely forgotten that Alan Rickman and Bonnie Bedelia's hair co-starred with Willis. Future-Snape is so young and thin and really in a different league than everyone else in this film. I think Bonnie Bedelia might have already been a big deal before this movie, and I think that because it certainly wasn't because of this movie. Seriously, you stick that hair on any woman who can read the lines without looking directly into the camera, and voila! You have Holly Generro (until she punches the reporter in the face and defiantly announces, "Holly McClane").
Willis's portrayal of McClane, along with Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies redefined the action hero in the late 80s through mid-90s. No longer was he the biggest, most buff, best trained guy with a funny sounding voice, he was the almost-every-man who won because he was basically a good guy, usually a cop, and because he was the most determined. He was as likely to use his brain as his gun. On television, this change was mirrored but a little more subtle, as we went from shows like Hawaii-5-0 to Miami Vice. The white hat was now likely to get knocked off a couple of times, and the hero was no longer the toughest S.O.B. you ever saw, just the one who wanted it the most. At this moment, I am prepared to take this even one step further, and say this mental shift was being played in the economic sector, where the Captain of Industry was being replaced by the MBA whiz kid and soon the dotcom whiz kid.
Two things about this movie surprised me. First, I found McClane uttering, "Yippee-kai-yea, mother fucker" just as entertaining at 40 as I did at 20. Second. it didn't suck. It's actually a pretty good movie and most of that is McClane. He's a cop, and he acts like a cop. He tries not to kill anyone if he can help it. He gets tired and he gets frustrated, and he certainly gets hurt. The character is very interesting - he desperately wants to get back together with his wife, but he wants her to apologize at the beginning of the film, though every attractive woman he walks by, he stops to gawk, I presume to show that he had been faithful to his wife and hadn't had sex in so long that he forgot how to act in public. By the end of the film he not only has come to grips with his own mortality, he has more importantly embraced the idea of a life without Holly, either because she has died or left him for good to stay in L.A. while he lives in New York.
If the above isn't a reason to give this classic action flick another watch, take a look to count how many of the 12 robbers/terrorists survive the ordeal, and out of those that die, how many do we see die and who do we just hear about. Go ahead, you have my permission to make this film a little more interesting for yourself if you need to.

Die Hard at IMDB

John Carter (2012)

I usually prefer to read the book before I watch the movie based on it, but "The Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Buroughs is still in the queue on my Kindle. It's not that I didn't want to read it, it's that I still haven't made it through the giganto book I'm reading (and yes, I'm still working on that book).
Okay, let's deal with this movie being a flop. Did it make back all of it's money playing in theaters in the United States? No. So, the media started calling it a flop and Disney supposedly fired the head of their film division over this. Supposedly. By the day this dropped on DVD, this movie which had cost about $265M to make had grossed $70M in the U.S. and $230M world-wide. Now, you're probably thinking, "300 is more than 265, so how can this be a flop?" Exactly. It's a political maneuver to write off on taxes. It's been out on DVD for a while now and has sold like gangbusters. Plus, Disney is still going to release the video game - they would be stupid not to since when doing the CGI, they were doing it with a mind towards using the collected works in a video game. All this really means to Disney, is that they can get out of their contracts to do sequels, which is too damned bad (not even counting that they've spent all that money on the CGI that could be used again - sure they would need to add new stuff, but they would already know how the aliens worked and have models, etc).
This is a Disney movie, so no profanity or illicit sex scenes. I'm pretty sure that the Buroughs book didn't contain these either, so I wasn't terribly put off by that. I am always more concerned with Disney movies that they will be formulaic. And while this is not the worst thing in the world, if it's completely obvious from the beginning, especially to the point where it becomes cliched, it's horrible to watch. Now, I won't say that you can't predict certain story elements of the movie, but it wasn't bad at all. Actually, a buddy of mine who thinks this is one of the best sf films in years and also loves the books claims that the book is even more predictable, because written about a century ago, it has oft been copied in style. So, perhaps this film is predictable because we're so familiar with the copycats of the original story.
This movie had a real grit to it, which I mean as a compliment. Part of it takes place on Earth, in the "Wild West" in the last part of the 19th century, a time which in movies past is often portrayed as full of happy-go-lucky and/or down-on-their-luck former gunfighters ride through the scrublands for days or weeks without a bath, yet still look clean and clean-shaven. This movie brings a fair bit of reality to the look of that time period of American history. I can't really speak to the Mars part, or I should say Barsoom, as I've never been and all I've ever seen of footage of the planet has failed to capture any of the four armed aliens or the communities or anything.
If its not already obvious (I think that it is), I liked this movie. If Disney changes their mind and makes sequels, I will watch those, too. It is a grand and weeping sf story in the Space Opera vein, a la Star Wars: A New Hope, but with better acting. Did I just say that? I don't think it's a better story, nor do I love it more, but come on, you can't tell me that Mark Hamill is a brilliant actor. That doesn't mean I love Luke Skywalker any less, in fact I find the portrayal quite endearing (in a way that Lucas totally missed when using Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christainsen).

John Carter on IMDB

Young Adult (2011)

I loved that in the opening scene I recognized the city based on the bridges in the background. It made me feel nostalgic for Minneapolis. And then the talking starts and Mayvis kind of creeps me out - in a slow motion train wreck kind of way. You like her in spite of herself. Everyone else is so nice and straight forward. And she is a devious and deluded drunk.
Mayvis goes home to Mercury to try and hook up with her old high school beau. The problem, well not as far as she is concerned, is that Buddy is happily married and a new father. Somehow Mayvis ends up spending most of her time with Matt, the kid who had the locker next to hers in high school - the same kid who was brutally beaten for being gay, even though he wasn't really gay. Matt is the only one who knows what's going on and the only one who will tell her that she's full of shit.
Mayvis is home for three days before her mother tracks her down. During their lunch together she tells them that she has an alcohol problem and they laugh and tell her to be serious.
When Mayvis finally has her big breakdown at the naming party everyone finally comes clean that they knew something was going on with her, but that they were humoring her because they felt sorry for her.
Mavis turns to the only friend she has in Mercury, Matt. He is supportive, especially when it becomes clear that the way Mavis wants to deal with this is to sleep with him.
Talk about a depressing fucking movie. In earlier posts I had written how one should be dubious of DVD cases that proclaim films to be the funniest ever or calls someone a comic force to be reckoned with. They lie. The bigger and more grandiose the claim, the more opposite the truth is. Now, don't get me wrong, this is a good movie. Charlize Theron is absolutely convincing as Mavis, actually everyone is very good in this movie. But, it's not a goddamned comedy. Hmm, am I projecting too much of myself into the film? God, I hope not.
I am fascinated by movies that portray the lives of writers, whether they be fictional authors like this movie, or whether they portray real author. It's like getting a peek behind the curtain, because while the author in the film may be different from the writer of the screenplay, nobody knows writing as well as a writer. This film is especially delicious in this aspect because we get to hear what Mavis is writing and compare and contrast with how it resembles her life, but even more so we get a look at her interpretation of her life. Actually, if Castle had a little more about his process of writing the mystery novels (just to bring up another show along these lines that I adore), instead of the research and then the finished product. I know that writing can be boring to watch, but if it's handled like it was in this film, it can really add a lot to the film, giving some very unique insights into the characters.

Young Adult at IMDB

Real Steel (2011)

Hunky Hugh Jackman stars as Charlie Kenton a former boxer and now a robot fighter, well, in that he controls a robot which is fighting another robot, often in a competition to the explosive end. Dakota Goyo plays his estranged son, Max, who through an unfortunate chain of events comes to stay with Charlie for the summer. Rounding out the human side of the main characters is Evangeline Lilly as Bailey Tallet, the buddy slash love interest of Charlie.
What goes without saying (but will be said anyway)? The visual effects are stunning - there are lots of CGI scenes, but the filmmakers actually made full-sized puppet/models of all the robots in the movie (19 in all) which does lend to the realism if for nothing else than providing the actors with something to act against. Like Super 8, also by Dreamworks, this movie has a couple of bad words, uttered by the kid, that take this movie into the realm of PG-13, helped perhaps by some rather brutal robot-on-robot violence, but ultimately this film is very family friendly. The story follows a predictable arc, but does it well. While not groundbreaking, this film is solid and would earn a grade of B if I were to judge it on this alone.
What really is worth noting about this movie, is what doesn't happen. And I hope to god it's left out for the sake of a quality story and not because they were hooking for a sequel - a sequel would be great, just as long as it doesn't overturn the original. So, what's missing? Charlie grows as a character, but he doesn't leave character - he does not become the world's best dad, or even get custody of Max. Related to this, while Max's uncle is shown as a bit of a self-serving prat, his aunt, initially at odds with Charlie, has Max's best interest at heart the whole time, and is not vilified and ends up with custody of Max. Bailey obviously loves Charlie, but she is not the pushover who talks tough but always gives in, instead she is firm with Charlie when she needs to be, even when that means that he moves out of the gym she owns and goes on the road with no plans to come back. Fourth, there is a baddie, a rival of Charlie's from back in his boxing days, who in the climactic scene between the two, not only beats Charlie into unconsciousness (admittedly with the help of two thugs who use pipes), but he also steals not only Charlie's money but Max's money - and they never get it back. Max's robot, Atom is special, we get that, but in the end he's still just a robot. What a nice change from the hinted at possibility that he might have some form of sentience. Finally, in the final battle against the Zeus robot, Atom doesn't win. It does better than any other opponent, and the filmmakers leave us with the sense that given just another few seconds, it might have won, but he didn't - not by a 'knockout' or by score from the judges.
It's very satisfying to see an American movie that doesn't follow the usual American formula. I think while the biggest part of the credit should go to the director and writer, no insignificant part is that this film was made by Dreamworks, as opposed to Disney which I feel would have gone for the same-old, same-old because the emotional content is guaranteed. It is all of these factors that lead me to rate this movie. Well, to be completely honest I am only rating it because in a moment of over-zealous clap-trap above, I said it would have a "B" without the additional factors being included and then of course included them. That final rating would be an A-.

Check out Real Steel at IMDB

Hidalgo (2004)

Do you ever find yourself starting up a movie only to realize that you have already seen it? Almost always when I do this, I stop the movie once I recall how it goes, for it turns out I have not remembered seeing it because it is not worth watching. But, on a few occassions, I let it continue to play, saying to myself, "I don't remember this being a horrible movie, and since I've already seen it, I will only watch until I can't bear it any longer." Each time this happens, I end up watching the whole movie and thoroughly enjoy myself. Hidalgo is one of those movies.
I guess I should not have been too surprised as I am a big fan of Viggo Mortenson. Combined with the fact that I really appreciate movies where non-English speakers use their own languages as appropriate. The Sioux speak Sioux and the Bedouins speak Arabic and the movie is much better for it. Oh, and it doesn't hurt when one of those Bedouins is Omar Freakin' Sharif.
Misters Mortenson and Sharif aside, the real star of this movie is the horse. The filmmakers did an excellent job of giving him scenes where he appears to be thinking human thoughts and shows us this through human-like expressions and that knowing look.
Lest you think I'm all about the hunks and horses, Zuleikha Robinson who plays Sharif's daughter is outstanding playing the outspoken princess who disagrees with many of the customs of her people, but will not outright break them. Louise Lombard who I am quite fond of from her days on CSI and that one episode of NCIS, where they were launching NCIS: LA. Hmm, maybe that was a two-parter. It's nice to see Lombard actually get to act using her real accent and to play such a deliciously evil character to boot.
Sure, this movie is predictable and I don't just mean because I had already seen it. But, that's okay. It's a well-made movie, that tells a good story and does it in a manner that will not offend your sensibilities or your sense of decorum.

Hidalgo on IMDB

Thirst (2009)

First there was a priest or a monk, or I think maybe he was a monk who was a priest. Oh so confused about the Japanese movie version of Catholicism. Ok, I'm going with priest since he is called Father throughout most of the movie. This priest is confused about how best to aid humanity, so goes to Africa to be a test patient in some horrible experiment where all Caucasians and Asians who contract this disease die a horrible death. And the same thing happens to him, but as they're trying to save his life he gets a blood transfusion and miraculously recovers. But, it turns out the recovery isn't miraculous it's supernatural - he's been given a pint of vampire blood.
Alrighty then. Everyone who finds out wants to become a vampire too. The other priest, who may be just a monk. The girl he knew from childhood. Meanwhile, word has spread of his recovery and hard-up catholics are making pilgrimages to his church to be healed by him.
From her the hilarity ensues! Alright, not really a hilarious movie. In fact, though it does have some humorous moments, it is down right depressing, with the message of "be careful or you have to kill the one you love and yourself to save humanity".
All of the traditional vampire elements are there - blood-sucking, enhanced senses, enhanced strength, death by sunlight. They didn't have to sleep by day, though they chose to because they get tired just like us mere humans, so they might as well sleep when they can't be out and about.
I guess Father vampire is a sympathetic character, but the other mains aren't. I was kind of glad to see they got what they had coming. There isn't really a lot of development with the minor characters so that you form an attachment to them. You just feel sorry that they got et by a vampire.
If you're a fan of Japanese cinema, and vampire movies, you should watch this, otherwise, you should find out if that Kirusawa flick is in.

Elementary: While You Were Sleeping

Well, the second episode didn't suck. In fact, I think it was quite good. I'm finding that I quite like the Miller portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. He has a hard time making friends, but not like Cumberbatch or Downey. He's not oblivious to other individuals, he just doesn't know how to play with others.
Liu's Watson is not like any other Watson, partly the way she is playing her, but also the relationship - Watson if Holmes' caretaker in point of law if not in point of fact. They are not friends yet, and I'm not sure that the two characters even like each other at this point. You can see the basis for a friendship, though. In the end, it will be much like the other portrayals of their friendship in that Watson likes Holmes in spite of himself.
Speaking of friends, Holmes and the police captain are friends or at least friendly. So far the adversarial relationship that Holmes has with the police he works with is between himself and the various detectives.
The feeling of watching a procedural was even more in evidence this time around, since there was no need to spend time introducing the characters. There is a bit of time spent examining forensic evidence in both eps so far, as noticing little items is kind of Sherlock Holmes' thing, so this show is like a super-hybrid of CSI, Law & Order and Castle. So far, taking the best of each of those shows. I think it helps having film actors - Liu and Miller bring a certain amount of gravitas to the small screen, which is kind of funny since I wouldn't have listed either one of them as great actors, but compared to what we are used to seeing on American television, they are pretty darn good. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they are bad actors, just good actors.

Troy (2004)

I remember when this movie hit the theaters, the reviews were so bad that I didn't see it on the big screen. It was years later before I saw it. I remember thinking that while I wasn't terribly impressed, neither was I displeased, but really what they should have done was cast Sean Bean as Odysseus in the Odyssey - they could have called it "Ithaca" since apparently they thought using the place name was cooler than what Homer used. But, then they probably would have changed it as drastically as they did this story.
Actually what would have been really cool is if they did a trilogy based on the Iliad and the Odyssey and have it be more phenomenological than this "historical" approach, but way toned down from the likes of Clash of the Titans. Naturally they should have some genius like Peter Jackson direct. Naturally.
And the star power of Brad Pitt aside, I would have gone with an all American, or all English cast or at least picked actors that could the accent of the world. Why would Achilles have a different accent from everybody else? Why would Priam's general sound like a Scotsman? So many of the actors in this movie I really enjoy, so of course recognize, "oh look there's that elf and the fallen hero, oh over there is that mutant supervillain and the dastardly government official. hey, don't make him mad, he'll super-size and go all green on your ass, and look, he's talking to the Scotsman who's heart is brave. The main problem with this movie is that I never stop seeing Brad Pitt and start seeing Achilles. I never stop seeing Orlando Bloom and start seeing Paris. And why is Helen blond?
Because they called it Troy, I'll let them get by with "loosely" basing their film on the Iliad. If they had called it the Iliad, I would be crucifying them for the inaccuracies, you know small things like the war taking only two to three weeks instead of the ten years. Or characters who are alive (if not well) in the Odyssey getting killed off. No, I won't mention those.
What did this film have going for it? Bana, Bean, O'Toole, Cox. It was pretty. There were hardly any spots where I could tell that certain characters were computer animated. It wasn't done in 3D.
What didn't this film have going for it? Bloom, Kruger. I mean come on - making Paris an archer that so closely resembles his Legolas, except for the part where Paris is a coward. There were scenes that were computer animated. I knew this before I saw the film, and I certainly knew this when I watched the armada approach Troy and when the Greeks finally breech the walls of Troy. And, as much as I love Brad Pitt, this story should not have been about Achilles.
Now, who would I cast in my trilogy of the Iliad and the Odyssey...

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

My first reaction was, "it was better than the last one I saw with Cameron Diaz in it". Then, I realized that I was thinking of Knight and Day, which I believe had been a Mission Impossible movie until it was disavowed by the Secretary and they were forced to change Hunt's name to Knight. Come on, who are you kidding? We all know who he is.
This movie was more about action and less about well planned out ruses than the others I've seen. Not that this earlier films didn't have their share of action, it's just that it was usually more involved with intricate and clever plans with cool gadgets. I get that the point of this film was that they're all superstars even more so because they had one equipment and logistical failure after another. I just wish that more time had been spent on the rivalry between Hunt's IMF team and Cobalt; less time running and driving through the sandstorm.
This MI film wasn't better than the previous ones, nor was it worse, it's kind of like watching a Bond film - you expect a certain amount of cheese and in actuality look forward to it (Daniel Craig's Bond withstanding). Pegg's character brought more humor to the film, and while that's appreciated, I would gladly trade away some of it for some more high-tech wizardry and tricky spy stuff.

Marvels

Marvels
by
Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross

Book one of Marvels is narrated by Phil, a newspaper photographer in New York City. He's on the scene when the first of the super heroes appears - the Human Torch and the subsequent arrivals of the Submariner and Captain America.
Phil can make a living photographing these new "Marvels" as he thinks of them, but he would rather photograph the war in Europe (WWII). The war feels more real to him because he identifies with the soldiers on a personal level, whereas photographing, even thinking about the Marvels leaves him feeling emasculated, so much so that he calls of his engagement to Doris.
Book two is some time later, when more Marvels are on the scene as well as rise of the mutants.
Book three comes even later. I know big surprise.
Book four is in Phil's golden years and starts right after the death of George Stacy, supposedly at the hands of Spider-man.
This book has an interesting premise. I really liked it at the beginning, when there was more internal conflict in Phil. Once he makes up his mind about the Marvels, well, it's just not as interesting because he doesn't really do anything about it which makes him kind of boring and just a barrier between the reader and the real story.
I know that this book was a big deal. But, if you just go by the story, that can't be it. It must be the artwork that adds that extra something that makes this worth reading. And the artwork is very extraordinary, not much like the typical comic book at all, but more like a book of paintings. It really is good enough that I recommend reading this book for the art more than makes up for the times when the sotry is lacking.

Last Resort: Pilot Episode

I think ABC has just presented us with what they think can be a replacement for Lost. They've put in the big bucks on the special effects. I don't know if they spent big bucks on the cast, I'm guessing for at least a couple of them, but all the leads are recognizable from other television shows, good actors from good shows, with a couple of film actors thrown in for good measure I guess.
This episode of full of hints at secrets. There is at least one conspiracy at the highest levels that may involve a coup d'etat if it gets pulled off. There are the secrets of the various crew members not to mention the Navy Seals they extracted just before the shit starts to go down. There are NATO personnel with their own agenda. There is a weapons designer who knows at least a part of the truth about the plot device driving the show (which I'm not going to reveal - if you want a play-by-play visit the Wikipedia page for Last Resort).
The only negative comments I have about this show are that I know that I'm not going to find out diddly about anything big until I've invested many hours, and then when I think we're on track, then they'll start throwing twists at me. With that predisposition, I kind of felt when I was done watching that they were pushing too hard. I can't put my finger on a particular instance or scenario, more of just a general feeling. I am willing to suspend my disbelief, believe me, I spend most of my waking moments with my disbelief suspended, but I also felt that the U.S. military would not have reacted as they did, or should I more correctly say failed to react. But, I am willing to put off all things I've heard from my many friends and family members who have served in the Armed Forces and think that maybe I'll be seeing some of that in the next episode, and in fact if the show is even to make it to 13 episodes, I will probably see a lot of military action take place.

Elementary: Pilot Episode

Jonny Lee Miller is not Benedict Cumberbatch. Get over it. Lucy Liu is not Martin Freeman, but that is obvious. The United States is not Great Britain. Have we got this all straight? Good. I'm not being pedantic, I had to convince myself of this, too.
Miller and Liu have good chemistry, that much is obvious from the very first scene that they have together and holds throughout the whole show. Even more surprising was the quality of the show. I am a fan of Ms. Liu and knew what to expect from her and was pleasantly surprised that she did even better. But, Miller was pretty much an unknown to me. I saw him in that movie, Hackers, what, like twenty years ago? Mostly I remember something about him being an item with, maybe even married to, Angelina Jolie. To say I was pleasantly surprised is almost an understatement. I really liked the way he played Holmes. He wasn't as manic as Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes or as cocky as Downey's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. He's confident for sure but also aware of his need even dependance on Watson.
What makes this show different from it's British counterpart is the similarity to police procedurals that we are already used to. And by we, I mean me. At the end of the episode I felt this show had more akin with Castle than it did with Sherlock. It's more than just the change of location and working amicably with the police (at least at this point in the series), it's the pacing. At times I could almost believe that I was watching CSI: Sherlock.
I don't know enough of the Sherlock Holmes canon to know if this story was based on any of those by Doyle. That is one aspect of the Sherlock series that I like - that they make an effort to tell a version of original tales. Well, its not like I only like one aspect of Sherlock, I quite like the whole show. And with only one episode to base it on so far, I quite like Elementary as well.