Author Archives: Bob Evans

More Thoughts on Get Out

For Christmas I received a copy of Get Out  on Blu-ray and I have been digging through the bonus material including the writer/director Commentary by Jordan Peele. Peele reveals that the story has a deep mythology/backstory extending all the way to the Templar Knights and I respect the world building and considerable thought given to the back-story.

One of the aspect I watched closely as I reviewed the film was approaching it from the criticism that the film was racist in it depiction of its white characters. Naturally since the characters represent a small secret society they should not be taken as representation as a generalization of any lager demographic. These characters are racists, not the cross burning variety but racists just the same. However how does this work in conjunction with the theme, story, and film over all?

When I watched then movie in the theater I did not come away with the impression that it was racist or prejudicial and that remained my reaction as I re-watched it, even though throughout the running time there is not s single admirable Caucasian character. This was not reaction to some other media constructed made a similar situation; two examples are the Harry Potter franchise and Sleepless in Seattle.

In the Harry Potter films much is made about the difference between magical people, Wizards, and the non-magical, Muggles, with the author herself making the statement that the overarching theme of the work is a plea for tolerance and yet throughout the seven books and eight films, I am not speaking about the sequel franchise, there is not one admirable muggle character. The lack of an admirable muggle bothered me and in my opinion undercut the story’s powerful theme. It has sparked of heated debates between myself and some Potter fans that I consider this to be a fault in the story’s execution.

Sleepless in Seattle  possessed a similar dynamic but one that is driven around the difference between men and women. Throughout the film’s running time a common recurring motif is the difference between the sort of movies men like, such as The Dirty Dozen  and films that women enjoy such as An Affair to Remember. In the script it is a repeated concept that men just do not ‘get’ An Affair to Remember  and there is no male character that loves that movie, presenting the divide a reality. (And ignoring that An Affair to Remember, was written, produced, and directed by men, so at least some men must ‘get’ it.)

So if I had a reaction to the broad stereotyping of characters in these two films why did I not have a similar reaction to Get Out?

I think I have puzzled out the answer. In the two examples the broad difference are part of the theme and the manner in which the character react to each other. in Harry Potter the subject of muggles, how they lives, and what they are like surface again and again comically for our heroic wizarding characters and with fascistic overtones when touched on by the villains. In Sleepless in Seattle  the issue of the difference between men and women is s central aspect to the story a point emphasized by the film An Affair to Rememberis used to illustrate.

In Get Out none of the black characters make broad generalized comments about white people. The character’s comic relief best friend Rod, who often voices the wise advice for his friend to be wary makes no comments that the wife girlfriend or her family are not to be trusted because they are white, his warnings are caused by the situation and his ‘TSA Tingle.’ This simple but important element allows Get Out  to avoid the stereotype trap that others stories with this sort of subject fall into.

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A New Year and A New Computer

January 1 rolled around and as my sweetie-wife and I played an on-line game of Dominion I checked with Apple in the refurbished computer section and discovered that an iMac that perfectly fit my needs had popped up on the menu. 16GB of RAM, nearly all of the refurbished only offered 8 GB, 1 TB fusion drive, and 4K monitor. I ordered the machine straight away. Thanks to Apple’s ‘Ship to Store’ option I could avoid the hassle we always encounter when FedEx delivers to our home and yesterday I picked up the new system.

At ten years old my previous system had aged beyond decent functionality, key programs, including the OS, could no longer be updated and there were serious signs of physical fault to could crash the machine at any moment.

I was shocked just how much lighter the new system was over my older iMac. I had a few moments of concern when it looked like I didn’t have the right cables to connect my external HD, with my system back-ups, to my new computer but a bit if research and digging in my officer produced the USB3 I needed. After that set-up and transferred went fairly smooth and frankly faster than I has anticipated.  Once I got the process started it took less than 90 minutes to get my system configured from the Time Machine back-ups. The only glitch that I am still working through is that my Word 2011 activation code is not working and that is a bit of a pain.

All and all I am happy with my purchase and I look forward to writing a new novel and several short stories in 2019.

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Power’s Conquest Over Principle

The GOP is the party of Trump. It has been for sometime ad before Trump came along the various actors on the Republican side have been carving out an ecological niche for someone like Trump so his sudden rise to take control of the party is only surprising in that it cam from outside, from hated Hollywood and not from some fire and brimstone social conservative politician.

Trump has laid bare that there are very few, if any, principles that the GOP are willing to jettison in order to win and retain power. I say this as someone who at one time registered as a Republican, who has voted for Republican candidates, but fled the party when it became clear that the rot ran deep and that the corruption could not be excised I departed without any qualms.

This past week has brought their abandonment of all previous pretentions of principal into sharp focus.

If you are younger you are unlikely to remember the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. In 1979 the Soviets invaded that graveyard of empires and propping up a puppet government sparking a guerrilla war that bled the evil empire of blood, treasure, and prestige. President Carter ordered the United States to boycott the Olympics as a protest earning a merciless mocking by conservatives for his perceived weak and ineffectual response. One of the few unifying elements running through the GOP of the Cold War was staunch anti-communism. The collapse of International Communism robbed the GOP of that grand unifying force and now the leader of the GOP, the standard bearer that they are willing to change to rules to protect from potential insurgencies in 2020 has rewritten in accordance with Russian propaganda that depicts the invasion of Afghanistan as a noble struggled against thuggery.

Donald Trump this week on the Soviet Invasion:

 

The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. 

 

This really should be no surprise to anyone, Trump loves displays of violence mistaking them for strength it is at heart why he admires the murderers of Tiananmen Square, and dictators from the south the pacific to the Kremlin. What cannot be ignored is the complicity of the Republican Party. In pursuit if lax business regulations, reduced taxation for the wealthy, regressive social engineering they are all too happy to join Trump and to never cross him less their base rebel and coast them their precious power. A power that has becomes unyoked from any morality.

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My Writing Year of 2018

Well, it is now 2019 and it’s time to look back over 2018, a mildly eventful year in my writing history.

I complete another novel manuscript in 2019, a sequel of my military SF manuscript that is currently making the rounds with the major publishers.

I produced a number of new short stories including one that I had suspected I would never write due to its dark nature.

After many entries I scored a spot as a Finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest. This was an achievement I had not expected. The contest if very difficult, thousands of pieces are submitted every quarter and of those thousands only eight are placed as Finalist, of which three go on to become winners, 1sr, 2nd, and 3rd places. Below Finalist are the categories Semi-finalist, Silver Honorable Mentions, and Honorable Mentions. With earlier attempts I had placed as high as semi-finalist but a few years ago the coordinating judge, who determines the Finalists entries, changed and my batting average dropped off the charts. When this story made Finalist and I got the call that I was in the running to possibly win it was quite a shock. I did not win but apparently it was a close thing. That story is now making the rounds seeing if a magazine might want to pick it up.

During 2018 my military SF novel got a ‘full’ request from on of the major publishers of a SF novel. Let me explain what that means. When you submitted a novel directly to a publisher most publishers that take direct submission as for the first three chapters of the manuscript and a synopsis and for most submission that is all they need to issue a rejection. Having read from slush piles before I can fully understand this, it is often evident with a page or two if the writer has progressed to professional levels of skill. IF they like the sample then the editor will request the entire, or a ‘full’, manuscript and that it exactly what happened. Now I wait as the editor reads the novel and maker their decision.

September also the publication of my latest short story sale to NewMyths.com of AnyLanding …a story about a family that crashes in territory controlled by artificial intelligences and the crisis this brings out in the personal conflicts.

Sadly 2018 was also the year that my agency dropped me from representation. These sorts of reversals will occur and the important thing is to move on and not let such event derail the progress I have made.

I have high hopes for 2019, the novel is still under consideration, I will be attending the SDSU writers Conference for the first time, and I have many more stories to tell.

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Movie Review: Spider-Man Into The Spider Verse

 

I end 2018 with yet another movie review. Now that the work at the day-job has slowed back to a more normal pacing I am finally able to catch up on a lot of the movies from the Christmas season including this gem Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse.

Though a Marvel logo appears along with other production logos before the opening scene of the film this movie is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film rights to Spiderman and a number of the associated characters are still held by Sony Studios and, after their last two Spiderman  movies were poorly received by critics and disappointing at the box office, they entered into a joint custody arrangement with Marvel Studios allowing the wall crawler to enter into the MCU they retained the right for other Spiderman properties of which this is one.

Animated in a bold kinetic style that draws inspiration from the Ben-Day dots of classic comic-books of the 50s and 60s, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse  follows the life of Miles Morales as he becomes entangled not only with Peter Parker, that universe’s Spider-Man, as Parker attempts to defeat the machinations of The Kingpin whose obsessions threaten the fabric of reality but also with a squad of spider-persons drawn from alternate realities where the fateful spider bit imbued various people with strange and wondrous abilities. Together they learn about each other and face an array of classic Spiderman though many have been given an unexpected twist befitting the narrative’s  multi-verse nature. I particularly like the twist given to Doc Ock. Early in the film there are a number of hat-tips to earlier Sony version of the franchise including a laugh out loud reference to something according the Peter Parker we ‘do not talk about.’ At its core the story is about Miles coming into his own on a larger thematic level it is about the heroism in all us and anyone could be under that mask.

I have heard some people are uneasy with the animation style, the film does utilize a number of flashing and contrasting colors, they animators in a deep homage to the color printing processes of by gone decades even print some tone ‘off-registration’ which I am sure confused at least a few people at both the 2D and 3D screenings but over all the effect works quite well.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse  is a film with story, plot, hart, and soul that provides an exciting and thoughtful excursion on variations on what it means to be a hero. It is one not to be missed.

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Returning to Failure

A few years ago I spent some time trying my hand of game design. The first attempts were utter failures but frankly that is to be expected. Just as your first writing or any artistic endeavors are likely to fail as you learn what it is you do not know but need to understand so it is with game design.

Now I feel like returning to that process and trying my hand again. For the last couple of weeks my mind has been buzzing with a space themed worker placement game concept. A worker placement or action drafting game is one where the key mechanic is placing a token that represents a worker on an action spot that produces an effect or resource for the player. There are limited spots and the spots generally have a limited capacity so that players block action to others when they occupy those positions. Last year my nephew introduced me to Viticulture, a game whose theme is wine production and it quickly became one of my favorites, (Particularly when you bring in the expansion which I think improves the play tremendously.) My friends and me will play a couple of games of Viticulture  every weekend and when someone asked if there were space themed worker placement games my researched indicated that there were very few utilizing that theme, prompting this surge in creativity.

Working under the title of Space Force!  I have begun making design notes for this came and who know in a month or two I may have something to test out.

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Movie Review: Aquaman

Christmas morning my sweetie-wife and I ventured to local AMC multiplex and caught the first showing of Aquaman  the next release in the DC cinematic universe. Over all I, like many but not all, have been disappointed by the feature Warner Brothers have released in their effectors to catch up with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. Essentially most of the prior films have two principal failing, firstly they do not take the time to tell a good story first and set up the deep mythology second and secondly they often deeply violate the nature of the characters, particularly in the case of Superman. The decision to rush into Justice League  without establishing films in advance such as Marvel did with Avengers  hampered the audiences anticipation, if you are asking ‘who is that?’ then you are very interested in seeing that character as part of a team up film, and it saddled Justice League  with character introductions that ate up valuable screen time.

So with all that said how did Aquaman  do?

It was okay.

Not as terrible as Man of Steel  or the even worse Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice  but not as tight and fun as WB’s breakout hit of the DCEU Wonder Woman. Aquamanserves as the origin story of the title character, Arthur Curry, who father was a human and mother was from an ancient race the Atlantians and their Queen. Now after the events of Justice League  Arthur finds himself drawn into the political machinations of Atlantis as his half-brother, King Orm, seeks to unites the fractured undersea nations in order to launch a war with the human race. Assisted by Princess Mera and a royal adviser Vulko, Arthur embarks on quest for an ancient device that will allow him to claim the throne, mastery of the seas, and prevent that coming war. During his quest Curry is forced to grapple with the consequence of his decisions and his own emotional scars.

Over all the core concepts of the story hold together and had real promise but in execution they felt a bit flat and invoked a bit of a plot coupon adventure. (That’s a story where the characters have to get items A, B, & C, and once that is done they can turn them in for a resolution.) The film has all the hallmarks of being the combination of various scripts with the elements not always melding together well. Where Wonder Woman  told a story if Diana’s lose of innocence and that is the thematic core of the film, Aquaman has thematic core and as such feels bloated and overstuffed. The direct is fine, the action fast paced and interesting, the actors all do anywhere from competent to good jobs and things progress in a logical fashion so the film is not bad or even flawed but for me it lacks emotional weight. It has a strong plot, characters need to achieve this to avoid a disastrous outcome and in that respect it can be compared to most movies of the Bond franchise but it is light on story. Arthur make no difficult choices, he as a person is not tested by the situation nor does he discover a truth about himself or life that prompts character growth, aside from titles and powers, he departs the story the same person that entered it.

This movie is certainly a ‘your mileage may vary’ piece, as we reached the climatic ending of the movie there were cheers in the audience but not a lot of them. I do not regret going out to see the film but nor can I heartily recommend it to anyone.

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A Whole Lot of Bonus Material

Christmas has come and gone and today I will return to the spice mines known as the day-job but feeling happy and reinvigorated.

For the gift-giving holiday my sweetie-wife and I really only exchange gifts with each other keeping the holiday a small personal affair. We do not have a large elaborate dinner, we do not overly decorate, there’s a lighted wreath that she’s fond of and that’s about it not even a tree, and beyond watching Rare Exports  a Finnish horror comedy about Santa Claus, we don’t even have a holiday tradition.

Our gifts mostly come from wish lists we curate on Amazon so the wrapping manages to avoid disappointed surprise. In addition to some nice new clothes, my sweetie-wife gifted me with a number of new film on Blu-ray for my library: Hail Caesar, Get Out, Kong: Skull Island, andAnnihilation.I love all these movies and the discs come with a lot of bonus material that I have already been digging my way through. Last night I watched all the production videos for the surreal and compelling SF film Annihilation.

In addition to the gifts and a lovely steak dinner, see non-traditional, we went out for an early showing of Aquaman,  short review, fun but flawed, not as good asWonder Woman  but better than the rest of the DC movies excepting the Christopher Nolan Batman  franchise.

All in all it was a pleasant day spent with someone I love and I hope yours was the same.

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Movie Review: Mortal Engines

Sunday my sweetie wife and I went out and caught a screening for Mortal Engines, a post-apocalyptic released by Peter Jackson and his Wingnut production company with a script adapted by Lord of The Rings scribes, Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens, and Jackson himself, from a series of novel by Philip Reeve.

Now, you might think with an illustrious production history and talent such as these Mortal Engines, even if based upon the patently ridiculous concept of mobile predatory cities, would be exciting and deeply engaging, but you would me wrong. I sat through the films running time of 128 minutes deeply bored. I was prepared to accept the mobile cities concept, after all it was central to the premise as given by the trailers, but the movie failed to generate any emotional engagement.

The characters are all fairly flat and even Hugo Weaving, who made his scenes in the abysmal remake of The Wolfman entertaining, was unable to bring his character to any semblance of life. Everyone’s motivation is of the simplest type and when the story does try to deploy a shocking reveal to shake up the narrative, one that comes so close to the end it can have little bearing on the plot, it is a ‘twist’ that can only remind you of a better film that fused science-fiction and fantasy. (I shall not give away the twist in a spoiler, lest you find the film fresh and engaging but you’ll know what I am talking about when you see it.)

Okay, so Mortal Engines has stock characters and an over the top concept but perhaps the actual mechanism of the plot will be engaging but that is not the case either. The film is constructed from a series of chases, but chases that unlike say Mad Max: Fury Road do not have any emotional and thematic weight. The character escape one spot of peril only to land in other bit of trouble that is unrelated to the either their choices, their natures, or the driving conflict of the plot. Amplifying the boredom and bad narrative construct if that all too often the character are quickly rescued from their peril by turns of sudden good fortune. It is not that we see these characters are skilled, deeply intelligent, or out of the box creative, but simply that over and over again they are lucky. In the end the resolution of the crisis comes not from the nature of their choices, hell the characters are never faced with anything amounting to a difficult or morally troubling choice, but rather from the luck of having the right McGuffin to stick in the right slot at the right time.

Even with all of these faults the film might have still been worth it if it had been fun, if the producers, writers, and actors had infused it with a sense of joy. I am reminded of Flash Gordon from 1980. A deeply silly movie, stock, flat characters, a nonsense plot, but the movie was fun and 38 years later it is still quoted and is part of the public’s memory because it was fun.Mortal Engines has none of that.

In my opinion there is nothing recommend this movie.

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Passing The Character Baton

Sometimes you may have a story that starts with one person as the protagonists and you will want to hand off the baton and make another character the lead for the rest of the story. This is a tricky maneuver and I want to examine two films, one that pulled it off to great success, Psycho (1960), and the other failed at this Godzilla (2014.)  Naturally spoilers for both movies follow in this posting.

The critical element in this hand-off is the motivation of the succeeding protagonist. Their motivation and the their ultimate goal must be derived from and dependent upon the actions of the establishing protagonist.

Psycho introduced Marion Crane as our protagonist. The film begins like a noir, with a character of questionable morals sliding into a life of crime that spins out of control when Marion steals a large sum of money from employer and heads out on the lamb. When she meets Norman Bates and ends up murdered in her motel room the genre shifts under our feet and we find ourselves in a horror film. The main character baton is passed to Marion’s sister Lila as she tried to discover what happened to her sister, eventually drawing her to the motel and its deadly mystery. Without Marion’s impulsive theft and flight leading to her murder Lila has no motivation that can drive a plot. With the audience aware of what happened to Marion, but not why or by who, there remains in addition to great danger, cryptic puzzles for Lila to overcome in her quest to understand her sister fate.

Godzilla (2014) introduces Joe Brody as the protagonist. An engineer at a Japanese nuclear power plant, Joe’s wife is killed by a mysterious forces that destroys the facility and leaves Joe with guilt over his responsibility for his wife’s demise. Fifteen years later Joe’s son Ford comes to get his father out of jail for trespassing into the quarantined power plant. Joe and Ford are therefore present when the Kaiju mature and escape. Joe is killed in the disaster and Ford spends the rest of the film trying to get home to his own family while repeatedly crossing paths with the massive monsters. Ford’s motivation, get home, has nothing to do with Joe’s actions or his own deep troubles. If Ford had been in japan on any assignment his motivation to get back to his wife and son would remain unchanged. The hand off from Joe to Ford fails and as such the film lack an emotional through line that it should have possessed. This could have been fixed in the writing processed. If Ford had felt guilty about never believing his father’s theories before his death and became obsessed with taking vengeance on the monsters, violating orders, ignoring his responsibilities to his own wife and child in order to chase the Kaiju across the pacific then the story would have had more weight and emotional impact.

To me it is clear that you can do this sort of hand off but the authors and creators must think hard about the motivations that drive both protagonists and fusing them so that one cannot exist without the other.

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