Author Archives: Bob Evans

Streaming Review: Sugar Hill (1974)

I first came across this title when I was reading a gift from my sweetie-wife The Encyclopedia of Zombie Movies  and at that time the film was not available on any of my streaming services. My interest was revived when I watched the documentary Horror Noir  on the history the cinema of Black Horror and this time Amazon Prime did have Sugar Hillavailable for streaming.

Set in New Orleans the film about Diana ‘Sugar’ Hill the girlfriend of Langston, a successful nightclub owner. When Langston refuses to sell his club to the mob he is assassinated in a brutal beating sparking a burning vengeance in Sugar. Turning to a Voodoo priestess Sugar enters into a bargain with the Voodoo lord of the dead Baron Samedi to enact her vengeance on the men responsible for Langston’s murder. Now with Samedi and a squad of zombies at her command, Sugar tears her way through the mob as her former boyfriend Valentine, now a homicide detective tries to unravel the supernatural slaughter.

While somewhat flawed in its structure, Sugar faces no real test or challenge to her plans and emotionally all of costs are front-loaded with Langston’s murder, Sugar Hill  proved to be a surprisingly engaging movie. Marki Bay as Sugar is adept at both the sweet and sexy aspects of her character while being able to turn on a dime and present a cold, merciless demeanor as she takes in the fruits of her revenge. From her dazzling smile to her expressionless enjoyment at the savage retribution this is Marki’s movie and she commands the screen throughout its running time of 91 minutes. Her performance is rivaled only by Don Pedro Colley as Samedi, a part that allowed Don to chew the scenery without damaging the product.

A thoroughly fun installment in that curious bit of mid 70s fare, the Blaxploitation genre, Sugar Hilla perfectly fine way to pass a dark film night.

 

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David French: Disingenuous or Dense?

As a devotee to the concept that truth is fractal and complex I try to read from a number of political perspectives. No one has a corner on truth and no one is above getting it wrong but sometimes I read something that makes it seems as if someone is just trying to go out of their way to be thick, David French’s article ‘The Green New Deal is Everything That is Wrong With Progressive Environmentalism‘ is just such a thing.

The core argument of the essay is that progressives even when they are motivated singular subject cannot resist the allure of their various causes and these drag unrelated topics in an every expansive net to transform, alter, and control American culture. As evidence of this he cites Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s legislative proposal ‘The Green New Deal,’ and the numerous issues it addresses beyond climate change and environmentalism. He is right that the issues addressed range far and wide but he’s wrong to suggest that this is some sort of nefarious mission creep or a legislative Trojan Horse, the title alone is enough to explain the scope of her proposal.

The title ‘The Green New Deal’ is comprised of three elements, we can safely ignore the article as simply something required by English grammar leaving us with two elements, “Green” and “New Deal.”

Green clearly refers to the environment and currently the point of concern is Global Climate chiefly driven by human induced atmospheric pollution. Here French seems to have stopped reading the title of the legislation and his piece works off the assumption that everything in it is about and should be restricted to environmental policies but there is that second element to consider.

The New Deal was a set of sweeping program, financial reforms, public work projects, and yes social engineering enacted during the Administration of FDR in the decade before America’s entry into World War II. Now, set aside if The New Deal was a good idea or a bad one, a successful government project or not, those questions are immaterial to the French’s disingenuous or dense observation about AOC’s proposal. As French states in his piece ‘Because when you read the document you quickly realize that progressivism is the priority, not the environment.’

The entire critique is built upon the assumption that The Green New Deal is only about the Green and not at all about The New Deal. The title was chosen, clearly, to harken to back to what the Democratic Party, and many others, feel was the shinning success that came about following the Great Depression and ignoring that aspect is misleading and unworthy of a columnist’s precious word count. AOC clearly plans social engineering on the scale or FDR’s and she is not hiding that intent behind bland euphemisms like ‘Enhanced Interrogation,’  ‘Job Creators,’ or ‘Persons of Wealth.’

So I put it to you, who is being dishonest and trying to hoodwink the public?

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Rules For Prologs

An often-cited bit of wisdom is that editors and agents do not like prologs, and that is true. Usually someone in love with their prolog will counter will examples of novels that started off with the dreaded bit of pre-story as evidence that the wisdom is not true.

Of course some books do have prologs but it is still true that agents and editors shy away from them because the prolog is an overused and misused tool.

I myself fall into avoid the prolog camp, but I do have one novel out of submission that utilizes the technique and so here are a few of the rules I think about when considering a prolog.

1) It should not include the main character.

If you have a critical event that involves the protagonist of the tale and that is part of the main story and not a prelude to it. I have seen some people want to take an event and make it a prolog because it takes place much earlier than the rest of the story but that alone does not mean it is a prolog. Chapter one can be decades before chapter two but if it is vital and involves the main character, then do not partition it away in a prolog.

2) It should not be an encyclopedia of world building.

A very common thing seen in unrequired prologs is deep history of the setting; the recounting of kings and emperors of old, of the blood feuds, and the magical disasters that befell the people in ancient times. What that lacks is any real sense of character, it’s dull, plodding, and when I encounter it in a book I skip over it and I cannot think of a time when I did and I missed that information, Some of you may be pointing at the classic The Lord of The Rings  but I remind you that the film has a deep history prolog, one that is rich in voice and tone, but that the novel’s prolog is in an authorial voice and is more concerned with the narrative fiction of the ‘lost text’ approach than with the in world backstory. Dune  a novel with an extremely deep backstory leaps straight into the text without a prolog.

3) It should tie directly to the story central plot and themes.

This is sort of the opposite rule to guideline number 2. Instead of history and world building, use these valuable font pages to establish critical plot elements, things that will impact the characters as they navigate their troubles and inform the readers to the nature of the hurdles you are throwing up for the heroes.

Think about the prolog to A Song of Fire and Ice  the first novel in the Game of Thrones  books. It deals with a patrol of rangers, none of our main characters. The rangers encounter the ice wraiths and except for one die at the supernatural threat. For the rest of the story the reader knows the danger lurking beyond the wall. Even after the survivor flees and then in chapter one tries to warn everyone of the magical threat but is not believed, the reader knows what is going one. When learned wise men lecture other characters that there is no magic in the world, we know that there is. Without that prolog we would be on the wrong foot, tending to accept the wise old men at their word.

These simple guidelines are not the sum total of how to approach prologs and there are numerous ways to violate them and still make it work, but such a trick is not easy.

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Do You Want to End Up Like Venezuela?

That is the cry wolf heard over and over again from actors on the political right. Venezuela has become the go to example, if not the only example, of the doom that lies ahead of the United States should it make a single step to the left. From talking head commentators, op-ed writers, and casual conservatives in conversations Venezuela rises like the specter of Bob Marley warning that the lure of socialism leads only to doom, disaster, and damnation.

Make no mistake, Venezuela is a tragic case, its people are in terrible trouble, its economy is in ruins and its politics corrupt, but whenever a single case is used repeatedly as an example that covers a full spectrum of thought then that case is disingenuous propaganda.

Setting aside for the moment that ‘socialism’ is hurled as an ill-defined pejorative as often as ‘fascist,’ and apparently covers everything from the elimination of private property to merely expanding banking regulations, the conservative critics wave the bloody shirt of Venezuela while ignoring the numerous nations that have fallen into a Mad Max anarchy.

If you are a conservative who is about to elevate Venezuela’s crisis as evidence in the disaster that the Democratic Party is bringing upon the nation then I want you to embrace as a symbol for American Conservatism Richard Spencer.

Spencer, for those who do not know, among other displays, upon Trump’s election threw the Nazi salute and shouted ‘Hail Trump!’

There are those on the left that do make the same disingenuous generalization, equating all conservative thought with Spencer and Fascism and I dismiss those arguments a pure propaganda in exactly the same manner as these ‘Look at Venezuela!’ shouts from the peanut gallery.

There is and will always be a need to be vigilant to threats from the right and from the left, evil does not reside solely on either end of the political spectrum, but the United States is neither the Weimar Republican on the verge of political collapse nor is it Venezuela.

 

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2019 SDSU Writers Conference

This past weekend was the 34th annual San Diego State University Writers Conference and the first one that I have attended. I have twice attended the Southern California Writers Conference also here in San Diego, and thought that this year I would give this one a shot. Both conferences are hosted by good people, passionate about the craft, art, and business of writing so I cannot honestly rank one as better than the other.

All of the keynote speakers, Jonathan Mayberry, Cory Doctorow, Paula Munier, and William Kenower, gave lively, entertaining, and informative speeches as well as being open and friendly person that made the conference inviting. Throughout the three days I attended a number of lectures on subject as diverse as avant-garde science-fiction as social critique to the nuts and bolts of self-publishing and promoting your work.

Personally the highlights of the conference were the one on one session I had with a number of editors and agents. I gained valuable insight into areas of improvement for my writing, apparently I am the opposite of an info-dump, withholding too much of my world building back, and I gained at least the interest from one editor for a novel and an agent for another novel. These leads may not pan out, but they are encouraging just the same.

If you are a writer I strongly suggest getting to a writers conference. Do the research, find out the ones that fit for you, but I have found them invaluable.

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Movie Review: Serenity (2019)

Not to be confused with the conclusion to Fox’s canceled Science-Fiction/Western  Firefly 2019’s Serenity’s  trailer would seemingly place it more in the noiror neo-noir  though the trailer itself isn’t very helpful for sussing out exactly what sort of film to expect.

Matthew McConaughey plays Baker Dill an Iraq war veteran turned charter boat owner/captain obsessed with an elusive monster sized tuna he had name ‘Justice’ and eludes his every attempt to land the fish. His life is upended with the arrival of his former lover Karen Zariakas, played by Anne Hathaway. The Iraq war changed Dill and destroyed their relationship and now she is married to an abusive, wanna be child-rapist, crime lord played by Jason Clarke. (It was quite the Jason Clare even at the theater last night in addition to Serenity  (2019), he was featured in two previews before the film.) Karen offers Baker 10 million dollars in cash if he will take her husband out on a day excursion and drop him in the ocean for the sharks. The rest of the island is made up of mostly stock characters, the loyal friend and second mate that often acts as Baker’s conscience, the barkeep that furthers plot and gives baker someone to at least partially open up to about his inner thoughts,. Rounding out the main speaking roles is Diane Lane playing Constance, Baker’s ‘sugar-momma’, keeping him in gas, expenses, and booze money in return for sex.

Much of this, including the central dramatic elements of the plot to murder the husband, is laid out plain in the feature’s trailer, painting a picture of a classic neo-noir  set-up, mysterious past, a femme fatale, and a moral chasm that threatens to destroy the protagonist and yet the film is, once it plays out in its entirety, is not a noir  but rather belongs to a far different genre.

To even tell you which genre it occupies by the conclusion is in itself a massive spoiler. About the half-way through the run time a minor mysterious character finally reaches Baker and reveals for Baker and the audience that this story is far stranger than either may have expected. Serenity (2019)with it unique twist is the sort of film that one expects to be produced on a shoestring and gathers ‘talk’ on the festival circuit before landing a distribution deal and playing in art house across the country. Instead we have a major studio production with bankable stars playing with the form and audience expectations. Directed and written by Steven Knight who gave us the usual feature Locke

a film that presented Tom Hardy driving at night for 90 minutes while juggling professional and emotional crises on telephone calls, Serenity (2019) is his most unusual movie.

Should you see it?

I really can’t say. I do know that it is failing fast the box office, probably because of that genre jump at the mid-point, and for many people that will be a deal breaker, but I enjoyed the film, it audacious swinging for the bleachers, and I am terribly happy to have seen it. If you plan on seeing avoid all comments in reviews, spoilers abound and more than the usual ‘who done it’ kind of early reveals, this movie is particularly damaged by spoilers.

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The Bonkers Adaptability of The Good Place

I was a little late coming to NBC’s unique sit-com The Good Place. I had heard about the show and most of the time it was promoted as from the creator of Brooklyn Nine-Nineor Parks and Recs, but as I had never seen a single episode of either of those shows, I watch very little network television, that promotion had failed to spark my interest. However I kept hearing good things and eventually one night I decided to watch the pilot on Netflix. Damn it, no one had informed me that Drew Goddard, a writer and filmmaking whose work I enjoy was also involved with the show.

Anyway, season one we are introduced to the core characters and a smattering of reoccurring one. The program’s lead is Eleanor Shellstrop a vain, self-centered, damaged woman who awake to discover that due to a mistake she has been slotted to spend the afterlife in ‘the Good Place.’ Along with Eleanor we meet Chidi, a

THE GOOD PLACE — Pictured: “The Good Place” Horizontal Key Art — (Photo by: NBCUniversal)

Senegalese professor of moral philosophy and Eleanor’s soul mate, Tahani Al-Jamil, an international socialite and philanthropist and her soul mate played by Manny Jacinto. In addition to these four human characters there are two addition eternals to the cast, Janet a universal storehouse of knowledge and Michael, played by Ted Danson, the architect of the afterlife neighborhood where the characters will be spending eternity.

Season One focuses on Eleanor and the strange occurrence and eventual explanation for what a woman who had not lived a good life has landed in the Good Place. When the season concludes the final revelations would seem to indicate that the creators had boxed themselves into a situation that had played itself out.

Season Two Focuses on Michael and the gulf between his eternal nature and understanding what it means to be human. Creating an entirely new dynamic for the series while retaining the characters and their essential natures. Again when the season reaches its conclusion a radical transformation of the situation creates an entirely new set-up.

Season Three returns the characters to Earth, no longer in the afterlife, and dives further into the essential questions explored throughout the series, what does it mean to be good? How can a person be good? Deep questions that the shows investigates and interrogates through philosophy and comedy making it the smartest dumb show on television.

Now with the third season wrapped and the program returning to its original roots but from a decidedly new perspective, The Good Place  has reinvented itself once again and yet remained true to its central premise and theme. Not since Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad  have I seen a show that so utterly committed to transformation and yet never lose track of what it is supposed to be about.

If you are not watching The Good Place, catch up with Netflix and discover what you have missed.

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It’s Going to be A very Crowded Field

Well, we’ve started the race for the next Democratic contender for President of the United States and much like the Republican field from 2016 it is going to be a large one. (What’s the collective noun for a grouping of Politicians?)

Much like the 2016 GOP slate this one is looking top collect quite a few lesser known and lower tier politicians, though unlike the Republicans so far we haven’t’ seen any rich non-politicians leap into the fray. If I remember correctly in 2012 the GOP offered a lot more of the ‘rich dude’ running to run sort of candidate and perhaps that was because deposing an incumbent is a difficult thing to do. Of course Trump will be an incumbent, but he will also be a particularly weak one. (Unless there is some dramatic change. Remember Bush the Elder was in the 90s for his approval numbers but an economic downturn doomed his reelection and Bush the Younger had very low number until 9/11 unified the nation and helped his reelection.)

I am placing no bets this early as to who will walk away with the nomination but we are a year and a half out from the election with an incumbent that last time lost the popular contest by 3 million votes and is currently boasting an approval of 39.5 vs. a disapproval of 55.8.

 

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Thoughts on Military Service

As many of you know I served in the U.S.Navy, though I was a poor sailor and for me military life as particularly bad fit. The recent SCOTUS action that removed a number of injunctions concerning Trump’s transgender ban sparked a few thoughts on military service, exclusions placed on military service, and what that could mean.

People who step up and volunteer to serve in armed forces and associated branches of service deserve, in general, deep respect and admiration. Service is dangerous, even in peacetime, accidents with powerful machines and lethal weapons happen and they take lives. On my one Western Pacific (WestPac) cruise I remember two deaths and two instances of gross injury, though that cruise had an unusual amount of bad luck during its duration. The people who serve are putting their life and health on the line for the benefit of our collective society. (Clearly this applies as well to other dangerous public services jobs such as police and firefighting, but my essay is going to remain fixed on military service.)

Who is allowed serve or is forced to serve can illuminate aspects of the culture and its ideology. Universal forced conscription, particularly if it is open ended and not as a brief period used to help generate a large reserve, often indicates that the state views the individual as merely a function for the state and not as a realized human being. Your duty and your value are derived from what you can generate for the state and has no intrinsic value beyond that.

Excluding groups usually falls into one of two categories; either the group is placed on a ‘too valuable’ pedestal, which historically has been the argument for denying women the right to serve, or they are not considered a good standing member of society, that is to say they are not ‘one of us.’

The prior category often in society’s eyes infantilizes its subject, judging them as unfit to make their own life decisions and removing from them the liberty to live as they wish. The second category places people outside of ‘civil society’, judging them as outcasts and unworthy of the respect that inherently comes of volunteer service. Note that in 1934 the Nazis banned Jews from serving in their military, an action that possessed no rationale other then bigotry.

Even as far back as 1979 when I enlisted in the Navy it was clear to me that the ban on homosexuals serves in the US Military was from any rational viewpoint deeply flawed. It was ‘explained’ to us that homosexuals presented a security risk as they made easy targets for blackmail, but the fulcrum of that blackmail was their exclusion from service, creating a vicious circle.

Banning transgender persons, homosexuals, and others along such lines is a statement that those people are not ‘one of us’, that they are not worthy of respect, and that their existence should be minimized in our society. That is a viewpoint I cannot endorse, I cannot stay silent upon, and one I will also criticize to my best ability.

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A Childhood Memory

During this past weekend’s D&D game we got to discussing toys and games of our youth and that sparked a memory in me.

I recall having a toy car that was battery powered and operated via punch cards. The cards, some were pre-programmed and others were blank so you could program the car’s route yourself, fed through the toy directing it around an imaginary track. I also mentioned that I had searched for this device on Google. Not to own one, I’m not that into nostalgia, but rather just so I can see clearly what is only hazy in my memory.

Apparently my Google-Fun has popped a level because Sunday I found it easily on line, including several for sale on various sites.

I present Hasbro’s Amaze-A-Matics.

The information says that this was from year 1969 so I would have been eight. Strange I thought I was younger, but there it is 1969 and the Internet is never wrong. (Well, in this case I do think the Web’s right.)

When I saw the photos and the cards I knew I had found the correct product. I remember the cards more clearly than I remember the car itself. I honestly could not tell you which model I had.

So there you have a bit of toy trivia from the late 1960s, punch card programmable toy cars.

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