Monthly Archives: January 2020

It is Time to Engage with Reality

The GOP is not only going to acquit Trump for all his blatant and egregious wrong doing and abuse of office but now it is clear they intend to block all further witness testimony in an attempt to obscure the truth. The truth will be revealed, its arc may be delayed but it is predetermined. However, incentives force the GOP senators into this action. They cannot vote against Trump, now it is his party and any who even suggest that they are not fully committed are destroyed by Trump himself and his enthusiastic followers. To vote for witnesses or conviction is to invite the primary challenger and defeat at the 85-90 percent that are committed to Trump.

Our political system no longer represents divisions based on any sense of philosophy or vision but instead is a brawl between two self-selected groups. The battleground is no longer idea or hearts and minds but procedure. We are witnessing something every gamer is familiar with, rules lawyering.

The Democratic needs to recognize that the shape of the warfare has changed and is unlikely to ever change back. We will not return to the days when the two parties could compromise on major issues. In those days there were significant numbers of conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans species that have gone extinct. McConnell has demonstrated that there is no price to b paid for victory no matter how ugly the method by which it is won. Norms have ceased to exist and all that matters is winning.

Going forward the Democrats need to fight the war on the same terms. Should they win the Senate they need to eliminate the filibuster, make P.R., D.C., and Guam into states, add at least one seat to the Supreme Court to counter the stolen one and learn the be as ruthless as their opponents. If they do not they will eventually be replaced internally by those who will. The projectile has been launched and its trajectory is out of our control.

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Coronavirus Panic

I am not saying that you should utterly ignore the news about the emerging coronavirus and its outbreak. New viruses and new pandemics are a certainty but be aware that all too often what sells advertising and pushes ‘clicks’ on the internet is fear and outrage not reason and facts.

Last I saw the death toll from the coronavirus is  still under 200 with just north of 7000 cases. Now for each person and their family and loved ones those are terrible but from a ‘should I be scared’  perspective it’s still dwarfed by the currently raging flu season.

The CDC estimates that the USA 2019 thru late January 2020 has seen between 15 and 21 million cases of flu with deaths estimated between 8200 and 20,000 people. And still people put off or ignore the advice to get their damn flu shot.

GET YOUR DAMN FLU SHOT!

Oh, and by the way most of the time when someone think they have the flu they really have a cold. Both are virial infections, but flu is influenza and it will hit you much harder than the common cold.

So, pay attention to the news, coronavirus could be just starting, and we need to be prepared but do not panic.

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Streaming Review: The Woman in the Window (1944)

Directed by Fritz Lang The Woman in the Window is a noir film about a married professor (Edward G. Robinson) who becomes fascinated by the subject of an oil painting hanging nears his gentlemen’s club. The subject, a lovely dark-haired woman (Joan Bennet) also fascinate the professor’s two pals, the city’s district attorney and a physician. A late-night chance encounter brings the professor and the subject together while the professor’s family is out on vacation for a week. They become friendly and her returns to her apartment to see sketches of her by the painting’s artist. An unexpected entrance by a mysterious and violent man end in the stranger’s death and to avoid professional ruin and unwanted questions the professor and the subject conspire to dump the body and never see each other again to hide any association with the killing. Naturally right from the start things unravel and both characters find themselves racing to stay ahead of bot the law and criminal elements.

The Woman in the Window is a tight, taunt noir that I watched on one of Roku’s free streaming channels dedicated to noir movies. The acting was top notch, the tension built wonderfully as the professor’s ignorance of police procedures and his friend’s ability as district attorney closed the nose around the pair. And yet I cannot truly recommend this movie. In the final minutes the script falls apart, perhaps in a bid to avoid trouble with the MPAA Production code and left me with an utterly unsatisfying resolution to the what had been a thrilling experience. I cannot tell you what the final ending is without massive spoilers and it may work for you but be warned it cheats.

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Thoughts About Prologs

One of the most common pieces of advice  you’re likely to hear at seminars, workshops, conventions, and writing groups is that publishers and agents do not want to see prologs. This is a true statement that is often countered by pointing to numerous books that currently sit on shelves with prologs. Of course, as a counter example that is not a very good argument because it suffers from survivor bias, the only books that sit on booksellers’ shelving are the book that were published a tiny fraction of the novel written and a tiny fraction of those submitted for consideration to agents and publishers.

Why is there such an often-repeated suggestion to omit your prolog? It is because far too many prologs are nothing more than either world building or backstory establishment where authors fearful that the readers will be lost create to explain the opening situation and there in a single word is why these prologs are weak openings, ‘explain.’

When you start your novel you have a very limited window to grab the reader’s attention and starting out with an explanation tends to lack dramatic tension. Agents and editors, people with little time and a very tall stack of things to read will smell an obvious explanation focused opening and from that deduce that the writer is unlikely to handle the rest of the story well and stop reading. Casual readers may give you more space but aside from self-publishing you must first survived the fires of the agents and editors to reach that larger audience.

I have a novel coming out next month, Vulcan’s Forge and to much amusement from members of my writers’ group it has a prolog. However, when I first wrote the novel it did not. After the first round of beta readers one of the more common comments centered of confusion about events that had happened prior to the start of the story. Because Vulcan’s Forge is written in a first-person point of view, I had two options to fix the issue. I could have characters that were there tell the point of view character what happened much like how a detective in some novels will gather everyone together for the resolution of the mystery, or I could show the events in a prolog. Clearly, I went with the prolog and clearly it did not cause my editor to bounce the manuscript, but I think there were a couple of factors that helped my novel survive the issue around having a prolog.

To start with the prolog is presented in third person. This cleanly breaks it away from the rest of the novel setting the tone that there is much that the main character is unaware of and that presents a danger to him. Next the prolog itself is a scene of dramatic tension with a viewpoint character that faces a tribulation and suffers its resolution. The vital information that my beta readers felt was missing is presented in the context of characters in conflict and not direct exposition. And finally, the prolog ends with a dramatic hook that leads directly into the opening scene of the novel so that the reader but not the character is aware of the importance of the story opening sequence.

Prologs can work but you must understand the purpose of your prolog and you must always wrap it in dramatic narrative if it is to be seen as essential to your piece.

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Movie Review: The Gentlemen

Guy Ritchie movies do not always hit for me but more often than not when his films do work it is the ones centered on London and its criminal elements such as The Gentlemen.

The Gentlemen focuses on Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) an American crime boss whose has built an empire selling marijuana who now wants to retire. Pearson is looking to sell his operation to a fellow American coming into the UK’s criminal world, Matthew (Jeremy Strong.) Partnered with Pearson in his drug empire and operating a high-end automotive garage of her own his Pearson’s wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockery) and Pearson’s right-hand man Ray (Charlie Hunnan.) Things are complicated by a local and rival drug kingpin known as Lord George (Tom Wu) and his young protégé Dry Eye (Henry Golding.) the vast majority of the film occurs in flashback as told by the devilishly impish and overly greedy investigative reporter Fletcher (Hugh Grant.) Stray secondary characters including a powerful tabloid editor and various young thugs add further complications making it likely that Pearson’s retirement may be in the form a long cold dirt nap.

This film is much more like Ritchey at best such as Lock Stock, and Two Smoking barrels or Snatch than his more recent fare Aladdin or King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and we are all the better for it. This movie moves along at a fast clip never slowing down and risking audience boredom. The characters are lively, fascinating, and nearly impossible to ignore. This performance by Hugh grant is hands down my favorite and gives Grant more to do than a mere display of bumbling charm. Michele Dockery giver a performance that is utterly controlled and yet full of passion while Colin Farrell steals scenes with another talented accented turn.

Production design never forgot to be stylish but without ever letting style overshadow the story being told and while some of the music was not to my tastes it all fit the film perfectly.

Sunday Morning watching this film with my sweetie-wife was a perfect end to the weekend. While there is violence in this movie, it’s not overly graphic and shouldn’t be a reason for you to miss this gem.

 

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The Trouble with Screenplay Credits

If you watch movie made in the united states you know that right before the Director’s Credit, contractually the final credit displayed before the film plays, you will see the credit for the writer of the screenplay. You may see a single person credited, or several. If there’s an ampersand between two names it means those people are a team and if there’s an and it means one person wrote and then the other came along and also wrote but they did not work together. This is all well and good but in the end it seems like it’s not really the whole truth of the matter.

The writer is employed at the whim and dictates of the producer and in the film that has such a large impact that it makes it very difficult for anyone outside of the process that made that particular film to know just what elements of the screenplay are the result of the writer and which are elements that were forced into the work by some other agency. The writer may be against have a giant mutant worm sexually assault a female character but if the producer insists on the scene then it will be written and shot and for the rest of time the writer will be the one carrying the credit and the blame for the exploitive sequence. The director may be a hired gun for the production with little interest in the material who throws out the final act and writes his own ending, but it will be the credited screenwriters who are blamed for ripping off Aliens for their script.

When you watch a movie it can be nearly impossible to know who is actually responsible for both the great and terrible elements of the story and that’s a problem in my book. I wish I had some solution, but I don’t. The truth of the matter is that the final product is what it is and the credits may give you a clue as to how it came to be and its potential quality but only a clue.

 

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A New Social Media Time Waster

Listening to the Shockwaves and Pure Cinema podcasts I discovered a social media site for cinephiles, Letterboxd. (No, the ‘e’ is not missing that is the site’s name.)

It’s a site dedicated to films. People post lists of movies that they have seen, reviews, and movies that they want to see. It seems like it might be a good way to get heads up on films that interest me that aren’t part of the main cycle of releases.

I spent some time yesterday figuring out how I could export the information from my database of films I own into a format that would allow me to import them into Letterboxd. I did eventually work it out and now I have a listing of over 400 movies that I have seen, since everything in my library is something I have seen. I have very rarely purchased a movie without having watched it. Now I will spend time her and there for the next few weeks rating the movies and adding to list movies I have seen but do not own. Luckily my AMC movie app keeps a full history of all the movies I see at my local AMC theater. Of course, I am happy to have another place to post my opinion and reviews of films. This should be fun.

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Things to Watch

So recently I discovered the Shockwaves Podcast, a weekly shows about horror and things going on in the world of media horror with a principle focus on film. Near the end of last month they did a show looking back on what they felt were the 10 best horror movies of the 2010s. Now since there were 4 hosts and each had their own top ten list that was a potential 40 films. Given that they did not coordinate their lists there were duplicates so I think the total come sin closed to the top 26 horror film in their opinions. They did not publish the listings in the show notes and so I had to compile it myself so I cannot attribute the listing to the host that gave them, but here’s their opinion.

10. It Follows

10. Bone Tomahawk

10. Dream Home

10. Detention (2011)

 

9. I Saw the Devil

9.Starry Eyes

9. Train to Busan  

9. Annihilation

 

8. Sinister

8. Demon

8. The Final Girls

8. What we do in the Shadows

 

7.  Train to Busan      

7.  A Dark Song

7. The Witch        

7. Attack the Block

 

6. Insidious

6.  Evil Dead

6. Sinister

6. Green Room

 

5. What we do in the Shadows

5. Autopsy of Jane Doe   

5. It Follows

5. Train to Busan

 

4. Mandy

4. Get Out   

4. Hereditary     

4. Autopsy of Jane Doe

 

3.  Cabin in the Woods 

3. Blackcoats Daughter

3. Get Out          

3. Kill List

 

2. Get Out    

2. Kill List

2. Cabin in the Woods

2. The  Babadook

 

1. The Conjuring

1. It Follows   

1. Evil Dead (remake)

1. Black Swan

 

 

The only list I can positively identify is the 4th and final entry in each column which are the selections by Dr Rebekah McKendry. As the only woman on the podcast her voice was easy to track. I have seen several of these films and agree with some of the listings. Entries in bold I have seen both Bold and Italics I own. The rest I have more to track down and watch.

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The Pain of Self-Rejecting

Recently I was invited to participate in an anthology and I submitted a short horror story. The editor returned with notes and suggestions for changes to the story but like its dark cruel ending.

Sadly, the changes felt ‘a bridge too far’ for my vision of the story and what it needed to achieve my goals. So, I have withdrawn the story from consideration for the anthology.

This is the first time I have run aground on this particular shoal in the treacherous sea of publishing. It’s not the editor’s fault, they are not wrong because as the person putting together the anthology  it must reflect their taste and their vision for what works in speculative fiction. I am not wrong. I have a very clear idea and vision for how this story and how horror stories work to me. It is simply a conflict of different artistic takes and vision.

I am not naming the anthology or the editor. This isn’t about complaining, whining, or bitching but a recognition that sometimes things simply can’t be made to work out for all parties involved.

I wish them the best and now the story will sail off into the storm of submission once more.

 

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Weekend Horror Film: The Vault

Saturday night after the close of the current session of the Space Opera game I run for friends, yes, Space Opera the RPG system from Fantasy Games Unlimited we’re doing throwback to the 80’s for our RPG’s this time around, I watched the horror movie The Vault.

The film came up on Netflix as a recommendation and I was intrigued enough to add it to my growing queue. The premise is that a gang of bank robbers having taken customers and employees hostage during a robbery are suddenly faced with a supernatural threat from the bank’s haunted vault. Starring Francesca Eastwood and James Franco The Vault is a modest to low budget movie that tries the make the most of it limited setting. Overall, I wasn’t bored during the film’s brief 90-minute run time, which fit perfectly with my tired and ready to do nothing mindset after an evening of gamemastering. Ms. Eastwood was perfectly fine as the leader of the small gang who have been driven by desperation, circumstance, and greed into that crime. Mr. Franco plays the bank’s assistance manager who, in a bid to keep the robbers who are edgy and not fully in control of themselves, assists the robbers with vital codes and information about a large score in the bank’s old secret vault.

Haunted is the right word because The Vault is a ghost story and as with most ghost stories there is a secret that must be unraveled before the circumstances of the plot can be fully understood. There was one set-up involving a robbery from 1982 and a masked killer that was never captured or unmasked that caused me to guess wrong about one of the twists and I actually liked that. The twist that was revealed worked and played fair. The greatest fault in the movie is that the director or editor showed too much too soon. There’s a sequence where some of the robbers have been separated and one is confronted by spectral figures while others watch on the bank’s security monitors. The characters watching on the monitors do not see the ghosts and I think the film would have had great tension if the audience had not seen them yet either. If like the witnessing characters, we couldn’t understand of fully hear the attack but frequent cuts to the action and the supernatural violence stripped the sequence of all tension.

Still for a late-night brain mostly off evening The Vault was perfectly serviceable. It is not overly graphic but there is blood and effect work that may disturb some.

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