Category Archives: SF

Does Gemini Man Herald the End of Acting?

In a recent article over at VOX an author expressed the fear that the near perfect digital recreation of an actor’s younger version is merely the camel’s nose in the tent that will lead to the replacement of actors with entirely digital creations. This is not a new concern and formed the one central question in Connie Willis’ novel Remake and then as now I do not foresee that as a concern for the near future.

Acting is not just walking from mark to mark and parroting the words from the script. If it were there would be a far large number of great actors entertaining us and it would not b so plainly evident when a talented actor was simply ‘phoning in’ their performance. Acting is an art and like all art is requires a conscious creative act. There are numerous choices an actor makes in their performance that go far beyond simply repeating the words.  There will not fully digital actors entire there are self-aware computers capable of making those emotional choices.

A second often expressed fear is that there will be endless films using recreations of stars that have passed and while there will the occasional use of a dead actor to recreate a famous role, for example Peter Cushing’s double in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  it will never become a vehicle for a star powered film. Firstly there is still the creative aspect that will fail to double the original actor’s unique vision but more importantly is that younger generations will never simply adopt their parent’s stars. Even an eternally young John Wayne would not have continued to be the massive star of his earlier days as the country and culture changed around him.

Change is coming but actors are not about be wholly replaced by bits and bytes.

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Movie Review: Ad Astra

In Ad Astra  Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride an astronaut whose father, Clifford McBride also a revered astronaut, vanished on a mission beyond Neptune in the outer solar system to survey extra-solar planets for signs of intelligent life. Sudden intense burst of gamma radiation from outer solar system now threaten human on Earth, the Moon, and Mars, burst of radiation that appear to be coming from Clifford’s list mission. Roy is dispatched to send a message to his father and hopefully end the threat the humanity.

Sharing some thematic elements with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness  this film is a slow mediation on the shadows they live within the human spirit and the dangerous of isolation and disconnection that can happen even when we are surrounded by people. However while those are the themes of the screenplay, and the film is filled with talented veteran actors Ad Astra  fails to fully engage on a character level leaving the audience to experience repeated long sequences of Brad Pitt stealing Ryan Gosling’s thunder of staring expressionless in the middle distance.

Now, I love good slow cinema. The Remains of the Day  a film about one man’s repressed emotions set in the sedate world of less English nobility is one of my favorites but Ad Astra  fails to find the character at the center of the story and never forces the character to engage in a meaningful choice. A much better science-fiction film on these same themes and also with a careful slow pacing is the US version of Solaris. These films are possible but ad Astra  simply isn’t it.

The science in Ad Astra  is bad, but I have come to expect that from Hollywood science-fiction but without a good character story to catch the viewer that allows the bad science to become that much more noticeable.

The film is tonally inconsistent. It tries to balance quiet character contemplation with scenes of intense action and fails at both. There are two major set pieces of action that simply have no story reason for existing: a sequence with lunar pirates and an unmotivated attack on Roy McBride as he transits between lunar locales and a rescue mission to space station that apparently orbits between Earth and Mars solely for animal research.

All in all Ad Astra  was a dull plodding affair that thought is had much more profound things to say than it really did.

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Secret Morgue 2: Alien Autopsy Edition

This past Saturday was the second Secret Morgue a marathon of horror film presented at the theater in the ComicCon Museum by Film Geeks San Diego. Last year the theme of the marathon was VHS horror, films of the 70s and 80s that you may have discovered at your local video rental store back when that was a thing. This year’s theme was SF horror with an emphasis on aliens. As has become the tradition the selection is film presented is kept secret with the schedule providing a chronology that gives the starts and stop films of each film and the breaks for snacks but no titles. (The running times did allow me to eliminate the possibility that one of the films would be Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires.)

In order of presentation here are the films that were screened.

 

The Space Children

The Hidden

XTRO

Night of the Comet

Without Warning

I Come in Peace

Galaxy of Terror

 

There was a bonus feature but I simply could not muster the energy for that and left after the end of the seven-feature run. Of the films in the marathon I had previously seen two of them, The Space Children  and Galaxy of Terror  and the rest were known to me but for various reason had remained outside of my personal viewing history. This is a departure from last year’s run when I had seen none of the films screened. Of the film I think Night of the Comet  was likely the best made and the most entertaining while Without Warning  proved to be a chore to endure and I could not recommend it to anyone at all.

The food/snacks this year included a buffet of Indian Food, Pizza, and bakery bread with some green sauce that I did not try.

I adore Film geeks San Diego and everything they do to expand interesting cinema experiences in my town and I am looking forward to next year’s Secret morgue with its theme of ‘The Undead.’

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Foreign Movie Review: Salyut-7

Inspired by the Soviet Mission to save their crippled space station the film Salyut 7is a fictionalized drama in low Earth orbit.

Vladimir Fyodorov is a Soviet Cosmonaut grounded after reporting having seen ‘angels’ in orbit during a life-threatening emergency. His wife and daughter are relieved that Vladimir will no longer be risking his life in dangerous space missions. Everything is upturned when the space station Salyut 7 that was un-crewed and flying on automatic suddenly loses all power and is rendered dead in orbit. Fearful that either the Americans may steal the station by way of a shuttle mission or that the station in an uncontrolled re-entry posses a hazard the Soviet’s decide to launch a mission to repair the station. After all other cosmonauts fail to dock with tumbling station in simulation it is decided to reactive Vladimir and along with an engineer is sent to Salyut 7. Once there they face numerous challenges both technical and personal as they struggle to rescue the station, Soviet prestige, and their very lives in a desperate bid to save the station.

With only a few technical errors, Salyut 7 is a gorgeous film utilizing the very best special effects to recreate the sensation of flying 200 miles above the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour.  In the interests of narrative and drama, the story deviates significantly from the historical record and should be best viewed as a work of fiction rather than a view of actual events. The acting is very good, the drama is tight and the characters believable and relatable. Currently available on Amazon Prime in Russian with English subtitles Salyut 7 is worth the time for anyone who enjoys a heavy dose of technical realism in their space films/

 

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One Year Without an Agent

It was a little more than a year ago when my literary agency made it official and dropped me from their list.

I won’t lie, that hurt.

I won’t lie, I saw it coming. Emails went unanswered manuscripts went unread and in general I seemed to be more and more of an afterthought so the eventual move was hardly surprising. I am not naming names and I am not here to trash talk anyone or make a big public angry rant. The Author/Agent relations is a relation and now all of them work out, people have the be compatible just as with romantic entanglements there comes a time when it is better to walk away than to stay in one that is unhealthy and counter-productive. For those who are still with that agent and that agency I wish you all the best.

So, what has happened to me in the intervening twelve months?

I mentioned that ‘manuscripts went unread’ well that referred to a strange little novel I wrote where I combined Science-Fiction with Film Noir. I am certainly not the first person to that, there a plenty of novels exploring that blending of genres but what is different in mine are the exact sub-genres I braided together. Noir has two major branches, the ‘Hard Boiled’ school of police and private detectives and the ‘dark underbelly’ of society. That second branch is represented by works such as ‘Double Indemnity’ and ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ and it is the flavor I wanted to work with, merging it with colonial science-fiction about humanity as it struggles to survive on alien worlds.

I took that SF/Noir manuscript that had languished unread and found a publisher that produced books of both SF and crime narrative and submitted it. The book sold. First time, first publisher I submitted it to. I just completed the edits to the manuscript and my editor has submitted to the house’s production department. Vulcan’s Forge is expected to hit the shelves next March.

The manuscript that started the relationship with my former agent is showing promise as well. A major house that specializes in military SF, which is what that manuscript is, just alerted me that the work had been pulled of ‘closer examination.’ Of course they may still pass on the book but it’s more activity that it had been getting.

On the short story front I made it to ‘Finalist’ for the Writers of the Future Contest. That’s in the top eight slots out of thousands that had entered. I did not win, but it felt good that my odd little AI/Ghost story made it so far.

The point of all this?

If you’re queries are bouncing off agencies, do not despair. There are more paths in that just that one. Keep writing, keep plugging, and remember never ever self-reject

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Movie Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home

The first post-Avengers: Endgame  Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Spider-Man: Far From Home  opened this weekend and reviewing it will requires spoilers for Endgame,  though I will refrain from spoilers for Far From Home  as much as possible.

Set five years after the events in Infinity War  and shortly after the return of the ‘snapped’ and after Iron Man’s sacrifice ending Thanos’ threat Far From Home opens with Peter Parker trying to resume his abnormal life as a high school student, he and all his emotionally relevant friends lost five years due to the Snapture (thanks to NPR’s Glen Weldon), while trying to cope with the loss of Tony Stark.

A new threat appears on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar when monstrous forces called elementals begin appearing around the world and the sole survivor from a parallel universe Quentin beck where these forces destroyed the Earth is recruited to save this version of Earth. With the major former Avengers either dead, aged out, crippled, or unavailable, Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. conscripts Peter Parker to help Beck save the world.

Peter wants nothing more than to leave the world saving to others, enjoy his high school class’ European Vacation, and possibly get closer to his crush Mary Jane Watson, but the continuing and escalating threat upset Peter’s plans and being the heir apparent to Stark’s mantle carries with it a level of guilt and responsibility that test’s Peter’s character.

Spider-Man: Far From Home  has exciting action set pieces, fine acting, deft, quirky, and often funny dialog but it lacks a strong story leaving it in the midlist of MCU movies. Unlike the last outing for Spider-Man where a padded plot dragged down the pacing this time the flaw is the central conceit of Peter’s motivation as character. As a protagonist Peter is simply far too passive.

In the Western tradition stories are constructed around a protagonist who desires a goal, something the protagonist much work to achieve, and the obstacles that the character most circumvent, defeat, or overcome to achieve their objectives. What your character wants and why they cannot simply have it is the core of a story’s plot. In this movie Peter wants to be left alone. He wants to go his vacation, not be ‘Spider-Man,’ and explore his relationship with M.J. Peter’s objective is not to do the thing the audience is here to see him do and as such the plot must repeatedly intervene and force Peter back onto the track that leads to dashing heroics and exciting action. In short he is pushed and pulled by the plot rather than driving the plot himself with his actins, choices, and needs for an objective. When the script makes the turn from Act 2 to Act 3 it finally creates enough pressure that Peter can no longer hide from his responsibilities and his objectives changes and for the final act he is driving the story, but this transformation comes too late to prevent the majority of the movie from being subjected to rudderless piloting.

How much this passive protagonist bothers someone will be a matter of individual taste. As I have mentioned this time the film’s running time doesn’t feel padded and each action set piece has a strong narrative purpose. There are plenty of humor and character moments to carry a viewer along but for me the lack of a plot driven by Peter’s needs drags the final product down into the mid-tier range of MCU movies.

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Movie Review: Dark Phoenix

One of the many signs that a movie is in trouble is when I am saying the lines of dialog before the character utter them. That usually indicates that the writers have taken the first and blatantly obvious choices in constructing their scenes. Throughout Dark PhoenixI predicted the characters’ dialog many times word for word.

The fourth installment in the re-booted X-Menfranchise Dark Phoenix  is the second attempt to adapt an iconic storyline from the source material onto the silver screen and while it is not the garbage fire that the most recent entry in the series was this movie managed to provoke big action boredom. Set in 1995 with an utter disregard to all of the characters’ ages, remember that the re-boot of this series started in 1962 by mixing mutants into the Cuban Missile Crisis and now thirty-three years have passed and none of the characters have appropriately aged, the X-men are now beloved by the world as heroes and saviors. Jean Grey, seen briefly in the previous installment, participates in rescue of a NASA shuttle crew and become empowered with a strange cosmic force.  Wielding her newly enhanced abilities Jean, for *reasons* (I’m sarcastic there nothing in the film is properly motivated.) engages in destructive behavior, assaults local police that responded to an unauthorized jet landing, and is then on the run from her friends and the law, all while being pursued by malevolent aliens who want her cosmic powers but are also somehow unable to possess them.

Of this film’s many great failings is the lack of a central story or even consistent theme. There are the bones and threads of an emotional and impactful story here about hubris, lies, and what happens when we start to believe our own press releases, but none of that is developed with any skill or tact. Characters speak in the plainest fashion, always revealing inner thoughts that most people obscure or in an overly expository explaining to each other what they already know. Things that might have been emotional reveals if held back as secrets as revealed in a straightforward linear fashion, draining later scenes of stakes and meaning. Characters are forced into the plot because the actors are under contract not because they belong in this story, yes I am looking at you Magneto, and set-piece battles happen because they are expected to happen at this act break.

Over all this film was dull, plodding, and wasted the talents of many fine actors, not worth your time at any price.

 

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Movie Review: Guardians (2017-Russian)

Not to be left out in the gold rush of Superhero film franchises Russian entered the fray with 2017s Guardians, an answer to Marvel’s The Avengersthough with even less set-up than DC’s Justice League.

In the film’s backstory, during the Cold War, for you youngsters out there a period from 1947 through 1989 when the world’s superpowers the USA and USSR stood ready with nuclear annihilation in their bitter rivalry, the USSR experimented on people, creating the Guardians, super-powered individuals. After the Soviet’s collapse these people dispersed to the four winds, losing themselves in the vast terrain of the Russian Federation. Simultaneously a competing Cold War project to protect the motherland, which focused on mechanical powers created by the mad scientist August Kuratov, succeed in giving Kuratov the ability to control any machine. Now Kuratov is back and bent on world domination. With the military’s vast forces neutralized by his ability to usurp control of all their weapon systems it is up to Major Elena Larina to locate and reunite the Guardians in the hopes that thy can defeat Kuratov.

As a set up that doesn’t exactly suck, but the movie Guardians,  suffers from both a lack and over abundance of character issues to create a compelling plot. The film seems to have no central character to act as a point of view and with a brief running time of a mere 88 minutes it simply can’t explore all the set-ups that it attempts to utilize. There’s the question, where have the Guardians gone? Well, that’s knocked out in a fast montage of computer searches and rapid-fire location changes as Major Larina seeks and recruits the four members. Instead of any tension the sequence becomes route exposition and introduction. Each of the Guardians presented in the film have deep character issues, but without the focus on any particular character all of the issues are given short shrift and thus come as flat and uninteresting.

The movie picks up in the third act with a climatic battle against a villain atop a tower in a metropolitan center surrounded by a force-field with the Guardians having to learn to fight and work together to save the world from domination.

Overall this was slightly less than passable with much missed promise.

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More Thoughts on Noir

Recently I have been re-reading my SF/Noir novel Vulcan’s Forge  in anticipation of editor’s notes as we proceed towards our early 2020 publication date and, along with watching classic noirson streaming while reading some of the classic works in their original forms, I have been thinking about the nature of the genre and what really makes up this beloved form.

In previous posts I have discussed how one of the principal driving factor of noiris to me is how characters are consumed by their appetites and I still hold that this is an essential elements in noir  fiction, be it film or literature, but I am now thinking there is an additional element, beyond the stylized ones, that feels central to the genre and that is the conflict between the character and their culture.

In noir  fiction characters are often immoral and that immorality is judged against the larger culture that character comes from.  Murder, theft, and unsanctioned sexual activity are the hallmarks of noir  movies and from the classic period running through the 1940s and 1950s acting on these desires places a person firmly beyond the boundaries of ‘polite society.’ Even when the heroes of noir fiction aren’t murderous insurance salesmen but rather the hard-bitten border-line alcoholic private detective they still transgress far beyond anything accept my society at large. Sam Spade before being entangled in a hunt for the ‘black bird’ and temptation of great wealth it represents is betraying both his partner and societies morals by his affair with Archer’s wife. Time and time again the main characters in noir  reject society’s conformity, sometimes they do so with an internal code such as Spade or Jeff Bailey in Out of the Past  or in other instances they simply violate society’s rules out of greed and lust such as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity.

All of this prompts the idea, that I am sure is far from original with myself, that a close reading of noir, either in a film or prose piece, can also been seen as a commentary on the society surrounding those characters. This is doubly so when the noiris combine with another genre such as fantasy or science fiction where the society is likely to be as fictional as the protagonists leveling an additional responsibility on the creator to be detailed and thoughtful about their narrative and what it says about human nature both at the individual and societal levels.

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A Really Good Book: Delta V by Daniel Suarez

As I have stated before this blog is not a book review site. When I read a novel that doesn’t work for me, is flawed, or just fails to achieve takeoff speed I am not going to mention it here. However if I get my hands on a book that really works, which really sings you’ll hear about it and Delta-V by Daniel Suarez is just such a novel.

Set in the very close year of 2033 Delta-Vis the story of humanity’s first attempt to mine precious resources from a near Earth asteroid. Most people think of asteroid mining as something that would take place between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where the main asteroid belt resides but a number asteroids also orbit much closer, even occasionally cross the Earth’s orbit with potentially catastrophic consequences. The protagonist of the story is James Tighe, a cave diving adventurer who, after surviving a terrifying disaster while on a deep under ground cave dive, is recruited by mysterious billionaire Nathan Joyce as a potential member of the first asteroid mining crew. Joyce, an entirely fictional character, is part of the New Space contingent of billionaire including ones who made fortunes in robotics/Artificial Intelligences, reusable rockets, and Internet based commerce. (You can decide for yourself who these characters are possibly analogs of in our real world.) As the training and mission unfold it becomes clear that Joyce hasn’t told anyone the full scope and audacity of his plan and his lies, short cuts, and mania turn out to endanger the lives of everyone involved.

Delta-V  is a novel heavy on the technical aspects and for some that will prove to be too dry of a narrative to endure but for devotes of ‘hard sf’ this novel will be catnip. Suarez has worked out the launch windows, the delta-v for his transfers and journeys, and the climax of the novel is an amazing meld of engineering and trying emotional decisions for the characters. Though hardly a massive tome, the story if packed with a number of fascinating and believable characters and could easily be adapted into a limited run series if someone wanted to pony up the funds for a production that would be as challenging as this one promises.

Over all I really loved this book and I can’t recommend it enough.

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