Author Archives: Bob Evans

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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Well, That Was a Day Lost

Yesterday I awoke to a blinding migraine. I hate it when they sneak up on me while I am sleeping. If I am awake I can usually feel the pre-migraine show starting up take my meds and keep them from become more than simply troublesome, but if they strike in the night I wake to find that any amount of light and noise is intolerable and I am forced to use the heavier medication that leaves me groggy, dizzy, and useless for nearly everything for a significant number of hours.

It wasn’t until about 2 pm that I became useful in any capacity and it wasn’t until around 9:30 pm that the migraine itself lifted.

Needless to say I did not go to work and I did not get any writing completed.

It could have been worse. Today looks to be better.

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First Author Event

The release of my first published novel Vulcan’s Forge is just two months away and with it comes my first in person event as an author, a book signing on March 28th at Mysterious Galaxy.

I admit that even two months out I am nervous.

Now, I am not one of those people who have a terrible fear about public speaking. I have been on a number of panels at science-fiction conventions, made presentations at my day job, excelled at my speech class, and even performed in a play before a paying audience, but I am also nervous and unsure about things I have never done before. I am looking forward to the event and I am planning on more in the southwest region to help promote the book.

What should I do at the event is one of those questions I haven’t yet answered.

I have been to a number of author events and I’ve seen it handled in one of three basic ways.

  • Read from the work being promoted. This is good for hopefully generating interest in the work and moving units.
  • Make a speech/presentation. There are very successful authors out there who do not read from their work but rather use the time to talk about the process, the world, and what the writing means to them.
  • Read from some other work. This can be used as sort of like a Blu-ray bonus material. The people who go the events get peeks at short stories or novel in progress that people who buy the book will never have,

All three of these approaches have advantages and disadvantages. I think I could do any of them fairly well. I am just going to have to decide and which one.

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Tragedies Do Not Have Surprise Endings

This is a political post, but I am going to use a writing metaphor.

Classical tragedies have no surprise in the endings with the central figures meeting their terrible fates. The point of a tragedy is that it is the immutable human flaws of the character that produces his downfall. They are moral warning about pride and fascinating studies of human under unbearable pressure, but they are not about twists and sudden turns of good fortune that save the characters from their foolishness.

The Trump Presidency is a tragedy.

Unless everything we think we know about this man’s character is wrong he is a mean, petty, greedy and corrupt person. It is clear that even from what limited information we have and the best efforts by Trump, his family, and his powerful circle of friends, that he has abused his office for petty, personal, and quite likely financial gain. By having his hands on the levers of power in the most powerful office on the planet he has avoided all serious consequences of his actions.

But he will not be there forever.

It is quite likely that at this time next year we will be looking at a wholly new political landscape. If not next year, then setting aside then in four more years. It will happen. The powers that protect Trump today are transitory and when they pass from friendly to unfriendly hands a lot of truth is going to be exposed.

The people and the politicians who have expended so much political treasure and capital to defend Trump are going to be the ones left holding the bag. The Senators who will vote to keep his corrupt administration intact are going to have to answer to those truths. Defending Trump today may protect you from short term threats but in the end there will be no surprise ending where he is revealed to be a righteous and noble man. Be wary tying yourself to a cause for it may very well turn out to be instead of a ship an anchor.

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Brief Comments on the Passing of Mike Resnick

Mike Resnick noted science fiction author and mentor to many up and coming writers has died. He did not disclose publicly that severity of his condition and there are a great many in the field that will miss him.

I never had the fortune to have personal interaction with Mike other than a few passing online comments and an ‘almost there’ rejection letter. (He said he was onboard for the story until the last two pages.)

Many of my writing friends have had close communication and guidance from Mike and all had nothing but good things to say about the man, as a writer, as a teacher, and as a human being. That’s a damned fine eulogy right there.

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