Slow Sunday

Today turned out to be a very pleasant day. I spent it, as I do most Sundays, in the company of my sweetie-wife. We took a trip to the San Diego Zoo, we both hold memberships so visiting to Zoo is free. The weather was fine; the animals were active. When we came up on the enclosure for the Fishing Cat we got a small surprise. This animal is most often asleep, and usually on a back high ledge where if you can spot the point of an ear you’re having a lucky viewing day, but this morning he was down and pacing near the front of the habitat. We all witnesses some small deer like animals, they were Dik Diks but looked related, charging around and racing each other around their paddock.

For lunch we stopped at the Waypoint Public House where I experimented and got rewarded with a warm happy lunch. I have no memory of every trying a grilled cheese sandwich and so today I ordered one. I had them add avocado to at least help with with a few healthy fats. The sandwich was hot, gooey, and delicious.

At home we relaxed with computers games, Dominion online, and a round of Star Trek: The Original Series; The Deck Building Game. (She won the Star Trek game but it was a tight thing.)

All in all a very relaxing time leaving me quite contented.

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Don’t Make Your Period Characters Future-Smart

One of the things that has always bugged me in novels, short stories, and film set in a historical period is when those character of the past are so smart about things of the future.

I don’t mean time travelers and others who have knowledge of how things will unfold, I am speaking of characters that are supposed to be born, raised, and educated by their historical surroundings.

For example look at Rose and Cal in James Cameron’s Titanic. Rose is spot on in seeing that the ship has too few lifeboats, a clumsy bit of exposition in a film full of clumsy dialog, but the problem goes deeper than that for me. When she and Cal first get to their cabins one of the things we see is art work by Monet. Rose refers to it like being lost in a dream while Cal thinks its lousy but at least it was cheap.

Our ‘good’ character can see the master artist not yet recognized, she’s future-smart, while Cal is presented as exactly the opposite, future-stupid. He’s the villain of the piece and he is not allowed the be right with a single thing that comes out of his mouth. Even his love for her is false, making him hate the future art master simply solidifies his position.

You can see this effect over and over again in films set in the past. Often our ‘hero’ characters are more race aware than people of the era generally are, projecting our morality on the past peoples. This is bad writing and when done as heavy handed as in Titanic it is lazy writing too.

As a counter example look at the movie L.A. Confidential. While racism plays an important part of the story, no one gives two moments notice of the injustice being played against the African-American characters as they are being set up for robbery and murder. The injustice is plain to the audience without us having to endure a lecture. This is much stronger writing in a film that should have taken the Best Picture award that year.

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A Missed Opportunity

The recent kerfuffle with Senator Mitch McConnell leading the Republicans in censoring Senator Elizabeth Warren over her attempts to read Mrs. King’s letter concerning Jeff Sessions when he was nominated and rejected for a Judgeship represents a blown communications opportunity for the Democratic Party.

Certainly people are making hay of McConnell’s ‘She Persisted’ quote. Turning it into empowering memes and it may even become part of her re-election slogans, but that’s not where the Democrats should have had their eyes. Everything should have been about Sessions and not anyone else.

They had no chance to stop this nomination. If Devos or Carson could be confirmed then barring some truly outrageous scandal everyone that President Trump sends up will be confirmed. There is no filibuster and after eight years of opposing Obama’s administration the GOP have learned to close ranks and hold the line. The nominees will be confirmed, so what the Democrats should do is make sure that ever wart, every bit of bad news gets as much play as can be had for future use. Having the conversation be about Senator Warren and double standards between men and women does not advance their cause and turns the spotlight away from Sessions.

A number of other Senators took the floor of the Senate reading the same letter, but my understanding is that they all altered or omitted the language that McConnell has objected to. Now it is entirely beside the point if that language mattered in its substance, all that really mattered is that McConnell did not want it read it into the record. What each and every Democratic Senator should have done is read exactly the parts that McConnell silenced Warren over. Either McConnell is then forced to move against them in the same manner, and the news of the day becomes ‘Is this language, and by extension its subject, Sessions unfit for the floor of the Senate?’ The coverage would be about those lines, about Sessions, and what was McConnell so fearful of? Or he backs downs, looks weak, and it gets read into the record. Either way the result would be favorable for the Democratic position. What they did only played into McConnell’s hands and now everyone is talking about Warren, and if women are treat harsher than men when they speak out and such. Now those are not bad conversations to have, but they pulled the attention away from Sessions and why the Democrats, rightly or wrongly, opposed his nomination.

McConnell, sharpened by eight years of parliamentary battles against Obama and his people, is a sharp cagy man and the Democrats will need to get better if they intend to win political wars and not just news cycles.

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Universal Studios Hollywood: February 2017

So Sunday was my first trip of the year to Universal Studios. I take these trips 3 or 4 times a year. I have strong introvert tendencies and I find that being alone in a crowd to be a very relaxing environment. It helps that I am a movie nut and never tire of things that are film related.

I departed San Diego about 7 am and arrived just after the park opened. Sadly the Stunt show was closed for refurbishment, along with the Jaws attraction on the tram tour, but these are the sort of things that happen when you go in the dead of winter.

I always do the tram tour. Depending on what’s filing and where the course can vary quite a bit and the tour is different with each guide. I do have to admit that on this trip I had the worst tour guide yet. It may be that he was a last minute replacement or something like that. I sat in the front tram car and I watched as he read the script right of the page. Now that script is a tough one, the corny jokes are a tough sell on a good day but doing them in a cold read renders them worse than dead.

The weather was cold, grey, and fogged in for most the morning, which made the Wizarding World of Harry Potter feel just like a Scot winter. This was my first visit to the Harry Potter part of the park. It was fun and the ride “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey’ was fun and became my second favorite ride. (The Simpsons remain number one just for the sheer number of jokes at the park’s expense, but if I am being honest the flight sim of the Potter ride was better.)

Sadly they took out the little museum that used to live on the lower level. I guess people want more food and rides but I always enjoyed the exhibits.

I left early, about 3 pm, spending a total of about 6 hours in the park The weather threatened to turn rainy and I thought it best to get home to my sweetie-wife as quickly as possible.

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Movie Review: Roger Corman’s Death Race 2050

So yesterday I took my traditional SuperBowl Sunday trip to Universal Studios and I had planned today’s blog post to be my opinions and impressions from that visit, particularly since this was my first chance to explore the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but my Sunday Night Movie upset those plans.

After popping myself a big bowl of popcorn I settled onto our loveseat and started Roger Corman’s remake of his classic trashy SF satire Death Race 2000. For those who may not know the recent film franchise Death Race is considerably different from the 1970’s film that spawned them. Corman decided it was time to return to the socially satirical SF of the original, including the concept that running down pedestrians as central to the race and its purpose.

Death Race 2050 is a blast. A sharp, graphic, and funny take on the original concept. The writers updated the ideas, while remaining true to the first film’s beating heart. Being a remake 2050 hits the same major beats as the original but with enough twists and inventions that they kept the story fresh even for those of us old enough to remember the first time through this race.

Let me spoil one gag for you as an example of the film’s sharp satire.

Two named female characters has a heart to heart discussion about their lives and the sorry state of the nation without mentioning the men in their lives. They hold this conversation in the checkpoint’s “Bechdel’s Bar.”

Now, this movie is not for everyone. There’s lots of nudity, gore, and violence, but it wouldn’t Death Race without these things.

If you like the originally waste no time in streaming this modern gem.

 

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Superb Owl Sunday

So that time mof the year is at hand. When two squads of big burly men with fight for the skin of a dead pip.

To all who enjoy that sport, I wish you tghe best most exciting game possible.

Me?

 

I’m off to Universal Studios, Hollywood to explore their new attractions and work out plotting issues.

 

 

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Movie Review: Hacksaw Ridge

Originally I had planned to make a political post today but last night a couple of friend and me managed to catch a late showing of the WWII film Hacksaw Ridge.

Mel Gibson has wandered into wilderness for far less than forty years after his drunken racist rant and now returns to feature film direction with the story of Desmond Doss, a pacifist, conscientious objector, Army volunteer, and recipient of the Medal of Honor for valor and courage under fires.

This movie works very well. It takes it time introducing us the Desmond, his family, and the woman he loves and eventually marries. As we journey with him through basic training and the hostile reactions his devout pacifism provokes in his fellow soldiers we come to understand just who he is and his commitment to his convictions. The film deals fairly with those who understand and those who do not presenting us with a character who truly believes in something.

The final act of the film is where it earns its title; Hacksaw Ridge. The invasion of Okinawa was considered by many to be a preview for the upcoming invasion of the Japanese home islands and the carnage, horror, and loss of life shocked the most experiences military planners. Bisecting the island a range nickname Hacksaw Ridge presented a final and terrible obstacle to the allied forces securing the island and into the maelstrom of blood, bullets, and fire Desmond goes refusing to ever touch a weapon. Serving as medic he is credited with pulling more than 70 wounded men from the battle field under utterly horrific conditions and often without any support. The battle scenes of fast, intense, and terribly graphic, but this is a case where explicit violence and its terrible aftermath is justified. Only by seeing that horror can we truly have any hope of the slightest comprehension of Desmond’s bravery and compassion.

The cast is uniformly good, many of them are foreign nationals playing Americans, and for several playing ‘hillbillies’, people of the southern mountains. Hugo Weaving, an actor who also captivates me, is fantastic as Desmond’s father, a man broken by the horror of the Great War.

This is not a movie for everyone. It is loud, it is bloody, it is gory in a way zombies film never manage, but it also speaks to the power of convictions, celebrating the courage of a man who saved lives without taking any by his hand.

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Oh, the Horror

So I have been working on a presentation that I intend to pitch to our local SF conventions, a history of zombie films. I’m treating the movies like an evolutionary tree and it’s been a challenge, a fun one, putting the presentation together.

Here is one of the slide to give you an impression of how the thing is looking.

The downside has been some of the research. Now mind you no one at all is making me watch any film. It’s just that your host and narrator is a bit of a masochist.

Hell of the Living Dead, a low budget Italian rip-off movie, (they even steal who music cues from the 1979 Dawn of the Dead)truly tasked me. I couldn’t watch more than 20 minutes at a time and so it was over several night before I completed that one. From the look of it I’d say the producers couldn’t afford to have more than 8 zombie extras in any single scene. It also boasted the least convincing military special forces unit ever. From their equipment, their ‘tactics’, and utterly non-uniform hair, nothing about these men resonated as anything other than second rate actors trying to look tough. Besides insulting the military the film also offended anyone with a care for the social sciences. Truly I had never heard of naked anthropology before. It was the second most gratuitous nude scene I had witnessed. (The first goes to the Roger Corman production of Forbidden World where two female characters have a shower in order discuss what to do about the rampaging killing monster.)

I also watched Shock Waves, an early film with NAZI zombies and Peter Cushing wishing desperately he was back aboard the Death Star. Really, given nothing to do but repeat bad exposition that had already been given in a prologue voice-over, Cushing still performed like a champ and a professional. However this film was a load of slow nothing with aquatic NAZI zombies who can apparently be killed by having their eye-gear removed.

Oh well, this Sunday I go the Universal Studios Hollywood and tat will be fun and relaxing.

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Whose Story is it Anyway?

Usually it looks straight forward as to who is the protagonist of a story, but that’s really something that can be a little slippery.

Many people, writers included, easily mistake a viewpoint character for the main character or protagonist. George R.R. Martin has said in interviews that he was inspired by the movie Alien, which kept the protagonist hidden in plain view, for his epic series  A Song of Fire and Ice. Who’s the main character in A Game of Thrones? We don’t know yet and that is because we have such a large number of point of view characters.

But even when there is a very limited number point of view characters identifying the protagonist may still be difficult.

In the film Ferris Buller’s Day Off there is no doubt that the viewpoint character is Ferris, aside from a few scenes here and there everything we see and hear is from Ferris’ viewpoint, but he’s not the main character. He’s just the person telling us the story.

To my way of thinking the main character is the person, or persons as it can be more than one who, over the course of the story, goes through the greatest change. I think ideally the character should take an action that would have simply not been possible for them before the events of the story, In Ferris Buller’s Day Off I think it is clear that Cameron is the main character. His actions over the car and what that represents in his relationship with his father are a dramatic change and growing for his character while Ferris leaves the story exactly the same as he entered it.

When you are looking at your story think about what the character can and cannot do. I do not mean physical powers or ability either, I mean what actions do their nature inhibit and look there for the real center of the story and for your protagonist.

A word of warning however. Do not be too slavish in the application. Rules in art are rarely unbroken. For example in most detective fiction the continuing characters rarely change. Holmes and Watson remain Holmes and Watson, at least for the most part in the original source material, and are not subject to a great deal of character change.

 

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