Author Archives: Bob Evans

Movie Review: Hotel Mumbai

Based on the terrorist attacks launched into Mumbai November 2008 Hotel Mumbai, is a taunt, emotionally draining film reliving those attacks from a very personal character oriented point of view. As with any narrative film that is ‘based on real events’ or a ‘true story’ it is important to understand that fiction film is a terrible way to learn anything about history. What really good historical film can do is capture the emotional reality of an event, a place, or a time, allowing audiences to connect as human beings to the people who lived though the depicted events and hopefully come away with a better and more empathic understanding of what those events meant.

With the exception of the Raj Hotel’s chief chef Oberoi, played perfectly by Anupam Kher, the characters of the film are either entirely fictional or loosely combined from multiple sources however the characters themselves were not given and significant ‘Hollywood’ treatment and allowed to exist within a sphere of action that retained a strong sense of reality about them.

For those unaware of the history on November 26th 2008 a terrorist group, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, launched into Mumbai a series of murderous attacks. Arriving by boat they coordinated across 12 locations attacking crowds and landmarks with gunfire and explosives. The series of attacks lasted three days until November 29th when the last of the terrorists was killed. Killing 166 and wounding over 300 the Mumbai attacks represents one of the worst and most prolonged terrors incident. Lashkar, unlike many other Islamic-inspired terrorists organizations, held the belief that taking ones life by one’s own hands was always sinful but that dying at the action of the enemy was a path to martyrdom. These terrorists never intended to survive their operation and intended to kill as many unarmed, innocent people as possible before being killed by police or military. PBS’s Frontlinehas an excellent documentary from 2015 about the attacks and the critical role one American played in its planning and execution.

We witness the events of Hotel Mumbai  through the eyes of several characters, Arjun, a waiter and devote Sikh played by Dev Patel, The married couple David (Armie Hammer) and Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi) who have arrived at the hotel with their infant son and his nanny (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) and Vasili a rough Russian played by one of my favorite actors Jason Isaacs. This is not a story of unarmed people taking heroic action to overpower armed evil men. It should be said that the violence of the movie is handled quite expertly; never so graphically as to numb the viewers nor so distantly that it ceases to have emotional weight. There are heroes in the story and there is great tragedy but it is not one of thrilling action set pieces but rather horrific encounters with unrestrained hate and violence. The terrorists murdered with remorse and witnessing the recreated events I was moved to hatred of the attackers, terror for the victims, and emotionally wrung out as no one in the film has a cloak of invulnerability provided by neat story arcs and act structures. The film works, it is a powerful piece of art that conveys an emotional truth about these events while staying in some areas of the historical record. For example the movie compresses events down to a single night instead of the protracted siege that took place at the Hotel Raj, but the film’s deviations from the records are not of the sort that would make the project into propaganda or empty honorifics.

I can heartily recommend Hotel Mumbai if you are the sort of person who can endure a film that uncompromising depicts evil and expects a lot emotionally from its audience.

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The Day has Come

Sorry for the couple of days missed at this blog but things have been a little hectic. Good hectic as I am about to tell you but hectic all the same.

So after sitting on the news while I wait for all the details to be finalized and all the signatures collected I can now announce that I sold my SF/Noir novel ‘Vulcan’s Forge’ to Flame Tree Press and it is currently slotted for publication May 2020.

This has been quite a road and there have been a number of lessons learned as I traveled it. I won’t go into too many details as I think some of them will be better served in dedicated posting but here are a couple of highlights of lessons learned.

One: write what you love. I did not write ‘Vulcan’s Forge’ with any sort of an eye to the market, rather it was my own desire to see a blending of science-fiction with noir that spoke to my sensibilities. There are plenty of fine SF stories that blend with the noir traditions but the vast majority of them do so through the lens of the private detective and I wanted something that came at it from more a James M. Caine perspective where ordinary people get in over their heads in the sordid criminal life. When I outlined and wrote the novel my plans were to self publish it because it was more for myself than anyone else.

Two: Never self reject. I mentioned my plans were for self-publication but I still examined the publishing market and Flame Tree who publishes both crime and SF novels seemed to be the kind of house that might publish my cynical noir. If I had not submitted the book and self published it I would have never discovered that there are others who share this taste that I explored.  Always submit the material.

I am thrilled to be working with Flame Tree Press and I am over the moon excited about bringing ‘Vulcan’s Forge’ to market next year.

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All Too Predictable

Perhaps what I read was a terribly April Fool’s jest but given the history that is an outcome I find highly improbable. I generally spend some of my mornings doing political reading, news and opinion pieces from left and right to get a sense what may but on the active discussions and minds of political actors. This morning I read a piece by Rod Dreher titled ‘The Little Steps In Between.’ Quoting from a non-fiction book ‘They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933 – 1945.’ a survey of ten German citizen that lived through the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and published in 1955. The long quote pulled recounts how the decent into a murderous hate filled ideology did not happen suddenly but in gradual steps, bit by bit the people were brought along until it was far too late.

If you are familiar with Dreher’s work you undoubtedly see the twist coming to the foundations of his argument. Dreher is not speaking about the corruption of the conservative movement, a movement that professes a devotion to morality, often an explicit Christiane morality, a movement that professes a commitment to the value of each individual, a movement that professes a commitment to the notion of Truth, and yet this same movement has in steps accepted and embraced bigotry, lies, and torture. This is not the gradual steps towards Nazi’s that concerns Dreher but rather the ‘intolerable’ condition that public institutions are no longer allowed to engage in bigotry under the cover of ‘personal religious convictions,’ a fiction used the justify bigotry in the nation throughout its history. No the United States is not being submerged into hatred ideology by the rise of the alt-right, by openly white supremacist representatives, or a bigoted president that praises a gather of neo-Nazis as containing ‘very fine people,’ but rather by the mild insistence that public institutions are not allowed to discriminate.

To be clear I think that there is a clear difference between individuals and institutions, particularly public institutions that exist and gain tangible benefits from legal structures that derive from our common governments. A company or a corporation exist because we created the legal framework for them and they confer protections to the individuals that band together to create them, such as shielding personal assets from corporate misdeeds. Companies and corporation are not their owners and should not have the same rights and privileges as persons. Oh course the Christian Right has been hypocritical on this point. I recall quite clearly when California’s Prop 8, seeking enshrine in state constitution a legal definition of marriage as one man one woman, was fought in the public sphere and the Christian Right objected to boycotts of businesses whose owners had donated to the campaign to pass the amendment. They argued that private political actions and personal beliefs had no connection to their businesses and such linkages were unjust. Now that they have lost both the political and cultural battle over marriage they argue the exact opposite, that a business such as a hobby shop or bakery are extensions of their owners’ personal beliefs and sacrosanct under their personal religious freedom.

No Dreher is of course terrified if equality, engaging in the perpetual Christian Right fantasy of modern martyrdom. Like Jordan Petersen and his delusion of the ‘Murderous Equity Doctrine’ there is no end to the right playing themselves as the victim which not only makes them look ridiculous, encourages violence from their unbalanced members, but also robs them of genuine sympathy when their rights are under assault.

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The Last Ringbearer

Upon my sweetie-wife’s recommendation I have begun reading The Last Ringbearer. A 1999 fantasy novel the central conceit of the book is that because history is always written by the victors to make the victors look good that events of The Lord of the Rings  as told in that set of books is quite untrue. The Last Ringbearer skims over the events of the war of the ring, providing context and removing Elvish propaganda and then commences with the heroic struggles to avert the coming domination of the world by the unearthly elves.

Yes, if you are a lover of elves then this book is very far removed from what you are likely to enjoy. Also if you secretly dream of being a wizard then this too is not a book for you, nor if you long for the strong hand of a king, born to rule over you with his divine right. This book is truly for those who love freedom, the freedom of thought, the freedom to live without bending the knee to supernatural and un-chosen rulers, and most of all, the book if those who love science.

Told from the point of view of a Human and Orc who have escaped the destruction of Mordor’s armies and then joined by a lord of Gondor disgusted by the war crimes of the elves, they embark on a quest that will removed magic from the world and allow the learning and science of men to flourish.

I haven’t yet finished the novel and it may fall apart by the time I do but for the moment I am thoroughly loving this ride. As heretical as this statement may be for someone who has played Dungeons and Dragons  for more than 30 years, I like The Last Ringbearer  much more than I like The Lord of the Rings.

Unauthorized in the English language world, and I do not begrudge the Tolkien estate in protecting their intellectual property, The Last Ringbearer  is available as a free download from numerous sites and best thought of as professionally executive fan fiction.

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Movie Review: Us

Jordan Peele, the writer, director, and producer of the fantastic film Get Outreturned to theater screens last week with another horror film, Us. Centered on an upper-middle class family during their summer vacation, Us  is a horror film that avoids the cheap and easy gimmicks often employed by lesser films, such as the repetitive ‘jump scare,’ in favor of disturbing images driven by magnificent performances and yet it does not achieve the same heights as get Out  leaving this film as modest enjoyable but subject to several disbelief braking elements.

Led by Lupita Nyong’o as the movie’s central character Adelaide Wilson and supported by Winston Duke playing her husband Gabe, Shahadi Wright Joseph as their eldest daughter Zora and Evan Alex as their youngest Jason the cast is uniformly fantastic. Playing real and relatable characters that draw in the audience’s sympathy their relationship as a family and as individuals powers the emotional heart of this film. Vacationing at Santa Cruz’s boardwalk, in an earlier cinematic decade the site of a vampire infestation in The Lost BoysAdelaide is unnerved by an ominous chain of coincidence echoing her childhood traumatic experiences at the amusement park. Gabe, ignorant of Adelaide’s experiences, insists on visiting the location and as evening falls tensions are running high and Adelaide is fearful of unseen forces when the family is suddenly confronted by doppelgangers of themselves and thrust into a fight for survival.

Much of Us  works beautifully. The characters feel real and their pain and fright are palatable. Lupita anchors the cast’s performances as the emotionally damaged mother giving Winston Duke, perhaps best know for his star making turn in Black Panther  to stretch his comedic chops as a very ‘Dad jokes’ kind of father. Midway though the movie’s second act the story opens up in an unexpected manner raising the stakes and the bring more mystery to the doppelgangers sudden appearance but the third act, while still engaging and superior to many horror films, is hampered by a exposition/info dump that stops the pace cold and pushes too many hurdles for my personal suspension of disbelief. I can’t be specific without venturing deeply into the land of spoilers but I can try to give hypothetical examples of the problems I encountered with the film final reveals.

Imagine a ghost story, going into the film as an audience we are already primed to suspend our disbelief in ghosts. It’s a ‘give’ we are ready to surrender to the filmmaker just from what we have been exposed to in advertising and trailers. Now, as our plucky characters grapple with a vengeful spirit we are suddenly confronted with alien ghost busters who also have been directing human governments and developments since the fall of Rome. This is asking the audience to simultaneously accept too many impossible things and breaks the reality of the story. Us  does not break things as blatantly as my hypothetical scenario but for me the final explanation for the events is far from neat and that I found impossible to accept. The ultimate resolution to Adelaide’s trauma was deep and morally conflicted, I loved that, the grand explanation for the doppelgangers and the wider canvas to story painted starting in the middle of the second act failed for me. Overall Us was an enjoyable film, a cut above most horror movies, though that is a low bar, but not as satisfying as Peele’s masterpiece Get Out.

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Documentary Review: Los Angeles Plays Itself

Over the weekend on the streaming service Kanopy, in installments, I watched the massive documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself. Released in 2003 and with a running time of nearly three hours (how many documentaries have an intermission?) Los Angeles Plays Itself is a video essay and love letter to the filmmaker Thomas Andersen’s home city.  Utilizing films clips from movies as famous as Chinatown and Sunset Boulevard  but also as obscure as independent art films from marginalized communities and early 70s horror films such as Messiah of Evil  Andersen focuses on the distortion and misrepresentations of his beloved home by the film industry over the decades. The film also carries Andersen’s undisguised feelings about the powers that be in the city and the destruction of local color and communities that the filmmaker mourns in their passing.

One of the amazing things about this film is the sheer size and scope of identifying filming locations from iconic movies throughout the history of cinema. Some are already well know, such as the Bradbury building whose use as a location stretches back to the 40s, but also other mansions and works of architectural art that has severed as the homes of bad guys, corporate raiders, and even as Deckard’s apartment in Blade Runner.

With a sharp eye and sarcastic tone Andersen exposed the illusions of Hollywood and the urban myths about Los Angeles that the movies have spread far and wide. For fans of film this is worth seeing.

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Thoughts on the Mueller Report

Friday Robert Mueller turned in his report to the Attorney General of the United States and the AG Barr released a statement advising the congress and the public of the report’s conclusions.

The big revelations are Mueller found no evidence supporting the accusation and concluded that Trump and his campaign did not coordinated with the Russian governments interference with out election and did not coordinate their campaign in general with Russia. The other major element Barr relayed to us was that Mueller came to no conclusion on the question of Trump’s innocence or guilt concerning accusations of obstruction of Justice.

Let’s take a quick look at both of these elements.

First off, I breathe a sigh of relief that Mueller did not find coordination. While I still think of Trump as corrupt it is good to know that he is not both corrupt and traitorous. Secondly, this adds support to the reports that Trump never actually intended to win the presidency. If he wanted to win and he was corrupt dealing and coordinating with Russia might have been a temptation he could not have resisted. That said it is clear that Russia and Putin, for they are the same thing, *wanted* Trump to win. They interfered in the primary and the general election seeking to have him become the next president. Perhaps because they believed he would be so inept that it would harm America on the world’s stage, perhaps because they felt he was easily manipulated, or perhaps because they thought that they had leverage due to his extensive and questionable dealing with Russia and it’s cadre of rich corrupt oligarchs. Any or all of these can be true without Trump ever truly wanting the office or working closely or at all with the Russians to win it. The opaqueness of his finances makes it impossible to be certain that powerful individuals do not have financial leverage on him. The fact of no electoral collusion does not free him of other dark suspicions.

Mueller apparently did not come to any conclusions on the issue of Trump and Obstruction of Justice and this is likely a good thing. Robert Mueller from everything I have read is a man who has served his nation well and honorably for decades and it is unlikely he would side step such a conclusion, one way or the other, lightly. Ultimately this issue comes down to the question of impeachment and that is a political question not a law enforcement one. By leaving the question unanswered Mueller has pushed into the only court with the legitimacy to deal with it, the political court and investigations by the legislative braches.

The fat lady has not sung and the opera continues.

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After The Electoral College — Maybe

There has been a lot of talk recently of doing away with the Electoral College, the actual system by which the United States selects its president. In each state the people vote not for a candidate directly but for a slate of electors who have pledged themselves to support a stated person for the position. The elector meets and vote and the person who obtains a clear majority of that vote becomes the president. In the event that no one has a clear majority the House of Representatives determines the winner. With our mature two party system there is nearly always a majority winner, but as we have seen recently and repeatedly that winner, due to the quirks of the states, their populations, and how electors are distributed, may have actually lost the national popular vote. These lesser votes winning the election results are called electoral misfires and with the current president having lost the popular vote by 3 million votes has reignited the debate about how we elect our president with many advocating for a direct popular vote. I am, in general, in favor of direct elections, but I do wonder how we might handle the undoubtedly different outcomes it would generate.

Our two party indirect method of electing a president makes candidates from third parties nearly or wholly irrelevant. With the two major parties fielding candidates that many found deeply unpopular only one third party managed ballot access in all 50 states and obtained a popular votes total of just over 3 percent. But even just that minor number of votes lost in 2016 no major candidate crossed over 50% of the vote. How do you handle the situation where no one has gotten a majority of the votes?

Do you go with simply the largest votes total and accept a minority vote president?

Do you have run offs eliminating candidate until you have a majority winner?

Do you introduce a voting scheme such as ranked choice that creates the effect of an instant run off?

All of these solutions have their pluses and minuses with their advocates fiercely defending their adoption.

Here’s an idea; after the vote totals are known if no candidate has crossed the 50% line, starting with the person with the least number of votes, each candidate assigns their vote total to one of the top two in vote total. The process is repeated until a candidate crosses the 50% mark and wins the election.

This is in one way very similar to the instant run off created by rank choice voting but with what I think is an important distinction, it is not automatic. The losing candidate elects where his votes will go and to whom he, or she, gives their support, creating an incentive for horse-trading. A candidate who campaign had been dedicated to a cause, such as global warming, minority rights, or whatever can demand tangible concession in exchange for their support, cabinet posts, legislation, and so one. This means the winner has to have not just de facto coalitional support in order to win but that those collations are explicit and thereby reducing that likelihood that they will be ignored or taken for granted.

This idea is far from perfect but I think it has promise.

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Movie Review: I Saw The Light

Released in 2015 and starring Tom Hiddleston I Saw the Light is a biopic based on the brief meteoric life of Country singer Hank Williams. Adapting the biography writer and director Marc Abraham has a clear love and passion for the subject matter.

With a recording career that spanned jus six years, Williams blazed a brilliant career that produced 36 hit records and influenced Country/Western for decades after his premature death at 29 from heart disease. The film focuses on his turbulent relations ship with

image copyright Sony Pictures Classics

Audrey Sheppard Williams his first wife and sometimes singing partner (played by Elizabeth Olsen reuniting these two MCU stars), the pressures of his sudden fame, his complicated relationship with his mother, and his battles with alcoholism.

Hiddleston, a native of England, convincingly adopts William’s Alabama accent and singing mannerisms. Unlike many biopics about singers there is no attempt have the star lip sync to the singer’s performances but rather Hiddleston and Abraham work to create the impression of William’s unique style while giving the actor full reign for a performance. Olsen, as Audrey, has a tougher performance to nail down. Audrey’s irritation and eventual divorce from Williams over his infidelity and substance abuse issues is fairly straight forward and even handed but and additional source of friction in their relationship is Audrey’s desire for a singing career of her own and the film portrays her talents as quite lacking and Olsen must perform well enough that you can believe she has the possibility of a career and yet poorly enough that it is also clear she can never achieve her dreams. Frankly this did not work so well for me. It is possible that no one in the writing or production were looking out to make sure her story was faithful to her voice and viewpoint. I do not know enough to have an informed opinion but as for the action I think Olsen held her own against Hiddleston and they had a real on screen chemistry.

Where the film fails and it dos utterly is the lack of a narrative.  Biopics are particularly tough genre to produce. A person life rarely falls neatly into a narrative structure and this is doubly so when the story has to encompass their death. While there are plenty of  interesting characters and scenes a sequence of events is not a story. When the credits rolled on the Blu-ray I could not tell you why this film mattered or what it was trying to say, and you must always have something to say. There needs to be a point as to why were spent two hours caring about these characters and how that reflects on life in general. The film point of view is firmly fixed with Williams but we never come close to understanding the man, his art, or what drove his creativity. Without deeper themes or a character study the film is hollow and I cannot recommend it beyond enjoying Hiddleston’s enthusiastic performance.

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Digital Formats Give Movies More Time in Front of Audiences

So, the other day I was scrolling through the offerings at my local AMC theater, considering which movie to use of my reservations for and as I saw a number of films that had but one or two screenings for the entire day I suddenly considered the changing technology and options of film exhibition.

Many moons ago I worked at a local theater as an usher. It was a multiplex and each screen showed the same film throughout the week and, except for the rare double bill, only one film screen in each auditorium. Once a feature no longer commanded enough people in seats to justify the screen space it occupied all week the film was broken down back into its component reels and shipped away. This is very different than today where a film, such asThe Upside  might play for a showing or two during the matinee hours and then a different movie take over the screen for the prime time evening audience and it all comes down to digital technology.

This is the projector and film platter for a traditional projection booth. That massive set of three platters hold the entire film that had been assembled from its individual reels. At the theater where I worked this was done by an assistance manager for an extra $75

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/5240

Photo Credit Anthony Huneycutt

dollars per week. When Romero’s Day of the Dead  was released my friend, who was one of the assistant managers, assembled the print and we stayed later to ‘test’ it, screening the disappointing film for ourselves. Assembling the print onto the platter was a laborious and time consuming processes which dictated that you did not change out prints often or easily.

Here is the sort of hard drive that modern digital prints are distributed on these days. I took this photo during my tour of Paramount Studios and this has quickly become the standard for motion picture exhibition. It’s a lot cheaper to ship that hard drive than the reels and reels of a lengthy feature film, it involves a lot fewer employee hours to set up and project, and it is free from tampering my mischievous theater owners or employees. (I once worked for a theater manager who privately admitted to ‘editing’

photo credit R.M. Evans

the end of a film and sending it back out for distribution.) These hard drives are not only loaded with the film ‘assembled’ and ready to exhibit but also with a digital count that has been pre-authorized. The theaters can project the feature only as many times as authorized and no more. If a theater wants to hold a film over for more showing they have to contact the studio or distributor to have the hard drive reauthorized. (No more private screens like my friend and I enjoyed.) I suspect that these one a day showing of films that have been in release for months may be the theaters using every authorized screening before returning the drive back to the studio.

There are those who love film and maintain it has a look that digital has not duplicated but the chance for films to find audiences and for people to catch screening of movies that had missed I think is a wonderful thing.

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