Author Archives: Bob Evans

Streaming Review: Murder by Death

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A year before Star Wars tossed the film industry into a whole new galaxy of chasing action/adventure box office bonanzas Columbia release Murder by Death a parody of the sedate country-manor murder mysteries that by then had already fallen out of style.

Columbia Pictures

Written by celebrated playwright Neild Simon the film is a broad comedy lampooning many of the genre’s most recognized sleuths: James Coco’s Milo Perrier satirizing Poirot, Peter Falk as Sam Diamond a play on Sam Spade, Peter Sellers in atrocious ‘yellow face’ as Wang, a take on Charlie Chan. (I honestly can’t tell if Sellers’ ‘yellow face’ is a comment on the practice used in the Chan films or simple racist.) Elsa Lanchester as Jessica Marbles standing in for Miss Marple and David Niven and Maggie Smith for Nick & Nora Charles from The Thin Man series.

Rounding out the cast was Alec Guinness as the blind butler, Nancy Walker as the deaf mute and illiterate cook, and Truman Capote as Lionel Twain hosting the detective while taunting them with meta commentary on the source novels.

Neil Simon was one of America’s premier playwrights, penning classic that are still watched and loved today.

This was not one of them.

The ‘comedy’ is weak, forced, and scarcely induces even a forced smile. There are moments that have some worth, but they are few. I had watched this movie some 40 years earlier and the only comedic moment that stuck with me was Twain berating Wang for his racist broken English.

“Pronouns! Say your god damned pronouns!”

The physical comedy has no speed or action to it, the character-based humor is tepid, and the plot makes less sense in 1985’s Clue.

All in all, even on YouTube for free, this is one to miss.

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A Writing Blindspot

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As a writer one of the things I strive to do is get emotionally in the head and heart space of the characters in my stories. Of course I am far from perfect in this. I maintain one of the hardest things for any human to do is truly see something from another point of view. It is difficult to ignore the years of joy and pain and experiences that formed your nature and try to imagine even a sliver of that which was felt by another, but I try.

That said one aspect of people I can never seem to connect with emotionally is antisemitism.

Intellectually I can construct the flawed and hatefully reason why someone might believe such idiotic things, but it is a mindset and a prejudice that is always alien to me.

Perhaps my distance from it stems from my own non-religious nature. While as a child I was exposed to Southern Baptist teachings in Sunday school they never took root in my mental garden. Even if they had I suspect my ever-questioning nature wouldn’t have place me in a position to hate Jews because they had ‘killed Jesus.’ Wasn’t that his purpose anyway? To die, albeit get better after that that, for our sins? That would just mean the people who killed him were all part of God’s plot and plan. It makes no sense.

Of course, there are the conspiracy theories that Jews run the world. Conspiracy theories are sanctuaries for those that need an explanation for the chaotic world we live in. They are poison to a healthy mind, and none stand up to the most casual scrutiny. I cannot emotionally connect with any conspiracy theory; they are more ludicrous than any religion.

Sadly, antisemitism is very real and my lack of ability to even fake feeling it has no bearing on the world, only a weakness in my fiction. Out there in the wider world it is alive and well and sadly thriving.

It may be strange, alien, and incomprehensible to me but that doesn’t mean I will not denounce it or that I will not fight it.

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Not Dead, Dying, or Seriously Ill

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This blog has been fallow since Sep 11 because my mind has been a wandering and not very blog productive. I am half-way through my folk/cosmic horror novel, but production of that project has now stalled.

I started this manuscript with just a bare idea of who the characters were and crude arc for their passage. This is the most I have ever ‘pantsed’ a book and overall the results so far have been surprisingly good. The voices of the point of view characters, three in all, came easily and strike me as distinct. (Whenever I turn to Sabrina the langue gets very salty. She’s got a moth on her.)

However, the motivation I gave the protagonist for traveling to the island commune feels too weak, too little to sustain her momentum until the hard plot kicks in. I need to find more personal motivations with more to lose that will drive her actions rather than having events influence them.

I have come ideas, and it feels like they are about to fall together into something I can use but there is an element or two missing still.

For the blog I could have been writing about the current and terrible political landscape but at this point it feels terribly repetitive. I did not watch the presidential candidate debate because it is almost inconceivable that Harris could have made a gaff that would have cost her my support and vote, and it is utterly inconceivable that Trump could do anything at all that would win any support from me at all.

I have been thoroughly enjoying on YouTube watching a pair of Canadian Gen Z’ers working through way through Star Trek the original series. Being an old fart who has seen these episodes countless time it’s quite a thrill watching someone get surprised that Korby is a freaking robot, that it was Kodos’ daughter that was murdering all those pesky witnesses, and that Finney wasn’t actually dead.

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Voice Actors are not Interchangeable

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I had intended to write this yesterday but when you wake in the morning in the midst of a migraine your day is pretty much trash.

Monday, we learned that the talented performer James Earl Jones passed away at 93. With a career and noted performances well before his ascendency to fan stardom as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, Jones was a unique talent.

Jones was also not the person Lucas had in mind when he wanted someone to vocally perform for his space fantasy adventure, his first choice was Orson Welles. Jones proved to be the right choice. His voice was lesser known but nothing in the man’s multidecade history indicates that he was ever difficult to work with. Would Star Wars have reached the same heights with Welles providing the voice? Probably. The nation culturally was ready to turn the page on the cynicism of the 70s and Star Wars provided that new direction and escape, but I do think that Vader would have been lessened with another voice actor.

Vader wasn’t the only character transformed by their vocal performer.

C3PO is famously vocally performed by the character’s suit performer Anthony Daniels but that was not the intention.  Daniels had been hired to be the body on set, much as David Prowse had been Darth Vader on set.

Instead of a prissy English butler, C3PO’s conception of a character was closer akin to an untrustworthy used car salesman. Go back and listen to his dialog in the original film and note just how mean and cutting it is. 3PO is not a nice and likeable character as written, but only becoming endearing due to Daniels’ performance. It is my understanding that when they tried to record the lines as originally envisioned, everyone heard the disaster it was, and the role was then given to Daniels.

We often think of voice actors as lesser. That is unfair and probably due to the preponderance of terrible dubbing of foreign language films. In those case the artists are rarely given the time or direction to craft a real performance, a gross disservice.

Voice actors deserve the respect and admiration of the audience, and they are never interchangeable.

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Series Review: The Decameron

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It is 14th century Italy, and the black death is ravaging the cites. The scope and scale of the pestilence is breaking civil society, and many believe that divine judgement is upon humanity and the end days are close at hand.

In this setting a collection of nobles and their servants greedily accept an invitation to fortified country villa to be the guest of Visconte Leonardo to either wait out the pestilence or spend humanity’s final days in comfort and luxury.

Netflix

The Decameron, very loosey based on the 14th Century manuscript, is a black comedy satirizing class structure, religion, and the endless human need to gain the upper hand on one another even as everything falls apart.

All of the characters of the series are duplicitous, scheming, and concealing secrets from one another. The humor is dark with death ever present. The tone of the show is not for everyone, but I enjoyed taking the series to be sort of a dark twisted comedy version of Corman’s adaptation of The Masque of the Red Death.

While very few of the cast were known to me save one secondary character, the actors performed their parts well and brought in my emotional engagement. The only thing that marred the production value of the program was the CGI flames utilized in some scene in the final few episodes, but I will not begrudge any production that errs on the side of safety.

The Decameron is pleasant, funny, and not without a few points to make. It streams on Netflix.

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Booths are for Cruising.

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When the story broke that the MAGA and Trump backed candidate for Governor of North Carolina Mark Robinson, a pol that frequently rants about pornography, was in fact a loyal customer of porn shops in the 1990s and early 2000s I had little interest. The story struck me as merely another example of the blatant hypocrisy so often seen in crusading extremist politicians. But then one detail came to my attention, not only did he visit these shops five or more times a week, but he was a regular customer of the booths.

Now, for several years in the 1990s I worked in a adult shop selling toys, magazines, and renting out porn to the customers. Like any business we had our regular customers and for someone to shop there five or more times a week would certainly be memorable. Also like nearly all of the adult shops we had the ‘arcade,’ a dozen or so closet sized private booths. A couple or the booths were fitted so that someone could rent a video, we’d load it into the player, and they would watch it in the booth, but that was not the majority of the booths. Most played an endless loop of porn on a number of channels and the customer just fed money into the machine and cycled the display to what struck their fancy.

But the real purpose of the booths was not to watch porn.

After all this was the 90s, video tapes players were in nearly every home, rentals were easy, and a cramped stuffy booth was hardly comfortable. Anyone interest in the porn would be far more comfortable at home.

No, the booths were for cruising.

Cruising is anonymous sex in public and semi-public places. Public Parks at night, airport bathrooms, and video store booths. Men, and it is always men, make their discreet eye contact and then follow each other into a booth, feeding the machine for the privacy to engage in sexual activates, afterwards going their separate ways.

Mark Robinson, in addition to his rants about pornography, his holocaust denial, and other unpleasant public stands is also blatantly homophobic.

I do not know that Robinson cruised the booths but it would hella shocking for someone that dedicated to the booths to not have.

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The Shiny New Story Idea

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Before this bizarre American folk horror concept came along and highjacked my writing I had been working on a strange fusion of a ghost story and disaster movie for my next novel.

One subplot in that on-hold ghost story novel has been flashing around in my brain like a hyperactive child just dying to tell you about the cool thing that they just learned.

The sub-plot is insisting that there is nothing sub about it and that it should be a full novel all on its little lonesome.

I don’t think it is wrong.

Of course, I am just reaching the halfway point on my American Folk horror novel and that needs to be completed first.

Here is a truism. When writing a story, it is not uncommon at all as the author hits the middle, where things can become quite challenging to write, for another idea to thrust itself into prominence. It is a fool’s errand to chase the new idea then and there. The most important skill to learn as a writer or artist of any stripe is completing.

A finished manuscript can be edited and reworked. Half a manuscript is useless to everyone including the author.

Even if you put the manuscript away in the trunk and never go back to it, it’s better to finish than abandon.

I am going to make notes for this other ghost story, but it must wait its turn.

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Who is it at Disney/Marvel That Hates Sex?

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It’s been a few weeks since I watched Deadpool & Wolverine and the short comings of that film continue to live in my head, particularly the radical changes to some of the characters such as Vanessa.

A friend of mine, Tom, suggest in a replay that the changes to her profession and nature were dictated by studio notes I think he has a high chance of being right on that.

Marvel Studios/Disney

When Vanessa was introduced in Deadpool she was a sex worker. Not a glamorous, oh so sophisticated idealized version such as the actress role on Firefly, but a woman who sold sexual unions for cash. She was tough, took charge of her own life, and made her own decisions. The roman between her and Wade Wilson was the beating heart of the film. Their reunion at the end the emotional payoff for the audience. Though I have quibbles that in the final act her character was presented a little too ‘girlfriend passive’ for my tastes and shortchanged her a bit.

In the sequel she was so beloved that test audience reactions forced the denouement that resurrected her. Vanessa was a passionate, forceful, and importantly to her character, a sexual person in charge of her own agency.

All of that was stripped away in Deadpool & Wolverine with her character reduced to off screen motivations and her life shrunk to an office drone. All of the fire and every aspect of her sexual passion stripped away to leave nothing but an empty shell of a character.

But it was not just Vanessa who lost their mojo. Wade Wilson in both preceding films presented as a man secure in his quite fluid sexuality. In addition to his passion and deep love for Vanessa Wade displayed deep sexual attraction and flirtation with people across the gender spectrum.

Aside from a single fourth wall break this was removed from the character. The film neutered Wilson as thoroughly as it had Vanessa.

It is clear that Disney/Marvel in willing to continue the R-rated franchise tolerated violence and splattered blood what it dictated that could not exist is open, healthy, and vigorous sexuality.

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Remakes Aren’t So Terrible

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I missed making a post yesterday. I had a dental visit, now I have two new molars, and for most of the day a somewhat sore jaw.

This past week saw a remake of the 90s cult favorite The Crow. Now, I have seen the 90’s film, it didn’t work for me, and I found it quite dull, so this remake hasn’t interested me at all. Naturally, there have been various vocal critics not wanting to see a remake of a film that was beloved to them. I can understand that. Remakes are often, particularly in this day of studio and demographic polled directed artistic decisions, inferior copies of the originals. The remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still possessed nothing of the 1950’s film’s intelligence or pointed narrative. The remake quickly fell from cultural attention and has been largely forgotten. The original remains accessible and untouched.

There are loads of badly executed remakes, Flight of the Phoenix, Poseidon vs The Poseidon Adventure, The Manchurian Candidate, King Kong and its pair of remakes. In each of these cases the remakes failed to capture the mysterious elements that made the original such classics.

All art is a product of its time. The artists and the audience are baked in the cultural over of their lives and that impressions on the art. The magic that made the classic so unforgettable is from much the years in which they were crafted as much as the people who crafted them.

So, if remakes are so often lesser movies, then why did I title this that they aren’t so bad?

Because the originals remain. Sometimes they gain new life because of the attention created by the remake. And sometimes, quite rarely, the remake becomes the new classic. The Maltese Falcon is the 3rd film adapted from the novel, but it is the 3rd film that lives on as a timeless classic while the preceding movies, who undoubtedly had their fans, fades away.

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Alien Covenant and the Mainline Franchise

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I saw Prometheus in the theater, found it terribly disappointing and therefore skipped its direct sequel Alien: Covenant when it was released. Following the modestly entertaining Alien: Romulus I decided to watch Covenant since it was one of my streaming services.

20th Century Studios

The first hour of Alien: Covenant was pretty damn good. The science, while far from being ‘hard sf’ was insulting and the neither the script nor the characters mind numbingly stupid as they had been in the previous film.

Then they reached the point where it had to bring in Prometheus and the film died. The action was lackluster with a dropped frame style that made everything too much like a video game and the plot progressed predictably with every ‘reveal’ blindingly obvious.

So, how do I feel about this most inconsistent franchise?

The two best films in the series are easily Alien and Aliens.

Next would be Alien” Romulus, derivative but entertaining.

Next Alien: Resurrection, more action than anything else and populated with what feels like the ‘alpha’ version of the Firefly crew.

Everything else, Alien 3, the Predator crossovers, and the two prequels are the trash dump of the franchise.

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