Author Archives: Bob Evans

Sunday Night Movie: Bowfinger

I was not in the mood for an untested product on Sunday night so I dove into my library of DVDs and pulled out a comedy that I knew I would enjoy and that I have not watched in some time, Bowfinger.

I missed this film in the theater and caught it went I rented it once from an internet company that is no longer with us. I honestly can’t remember the name of the company but there business was that they would bring DVDs and food to your home within an hour of your order. Netflix is a better deal, this was still daily charges and the whole shebang that most video stores did for their and to their customers.

Anywho, I really enjoy this film though it is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s a simple story really, Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) desperately wants to be a film maker, but he’s never been on the inside. His account has written a spec script and Bowfinger tries to get hollywoods biggest action star, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) to agree to be in the movie. Naturally that fails but Bowfinger, undaunted by such setback decides he will make the movie, with Kit in it, anyway. He’ll simply secretly film Kit, and a person who has an amazing resemblance to Kit (Eddie Murphy again) and edit these strangely filmed scenes together. Except for the camera man the rest of the actors and crew have no idea that Kit has never agreed to be in the movie. So Bowfinger is conning Kit, and his friends and associates.

There is a wonderful performance by most the cast, particularity Heather Graham who plays a wide-eyed innocent just off the bus and looking to be a star. A young lady who rapidly learns how to works the business if show business.

This movie is not perfect. I agree with a friend of mine who think it would have worked better had everyone been in on the con except Kit, but faults aside I still very much enjoy this film. In no small part due to the fact it is really about dreamers and how clinging to your dream can be a very painful thing in this cynical and dirty world, but losing them is worse.

 

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A pretty good day

So this morning was a trip to the World Famous San Diego Zoo with my sweetie-wofe. We had a very nice and got in a some decent exercise. Afterwards we went to a new place for Lunch, the Sea Rocket. This was an upscale bistro kind of place, so not my usual haunt. The food was good, the services was excellent and we enjoyed ourselves. (Though the burger I ordered was too large to eat like a hamburger and I was forced to utilize knife and forke to tackel the thing.)

Then it was grocery shopping and home. The entire time I had my mind gnawing and working on a problem in my newest novel. I have been going like gangbusters on the outline, it’s now up to 24 pages, and this week I came to a sudden and terrible halt. Partly because of the huge load of work that descended upon us at my day job, partly because of the arthritis flare that took me out of typing commission at home, and partly because I knew I was stuck for what was going to happen next in the plot.

If you think of the plot as a number line I was at 18, and I knew what happened from 23 on, but 19, 20, 21, & 22 were leaving me stumped. Today I think I cracked the problem. I’m going to sleep on it and try writing it out tomorrow, then I will know if it worked.

And I’ll close out with a photo from the zoo taken with my iPhone 4.

 

 

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going to bed

No writing tonight as the arthritis in my fingers has been hell today. I shouldn’t have been late on my medication last night.

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Loscon post -Day Three

The first panel of the morning was Robert Heinlein’s Future History, what he got right and what he got wrong. This was a panel discussion of a number of fans and scholars of Robert Heinlein, including the author of the Biography, Robert Heinlein: In Dialog With His Century. It was very innteresting, but covered little new ground. Verdict: Okay

Next up was a panel on upcoming movies in the next 3-5 years, however audience members kept derailing the single presenter and we had progress very slowly. So slowly I bailed on the panel and went to another. Verdict: No good. I stepped into a video presentation about Nazi Germany’s flying wing fighter and tests of a full-scale model as to its stealth capabilities. Now a bad documentary, but it leaned on the hyperbole of what this fighter would have meant to the war so late in that conflict. Even in full production in late 44 or early 45 this would not have turned the tide of the war. Verdict: Alright

Next I went to GRAIL: A Mission of Gravity. This was a presentation about the recently launched unmanned lunar mission to map the interior of the moon by gravity. The probes, two, were launched in September but because they are taking a very odd low energy orbit to the moon are still in transit. The GRAIL spacecraft should start operating early next year and after a three month mission we should have a detail mass mapping of the lunar subsurface.  Verdict: Pretty good

Final panel was How Should Magic Work in a Story? This was a two person panel of Tim Powers and Harry Turtledove. It was s fast and far ranging discussion of fantasy and magic and how to work the elements of the fantastic without breaking disbelief. Whenever these two get together it’s usually very good and this was no exception. Verdict: Thumbs Up.

 

And that was my Loscon for 2011.

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Post Loscon

Well, we are home and safe after Loscon 38. I had a great time, came away with lots of new information, and a few news story ideas. I had far more panels that were fun than were not fun could ask little more of a good convention.

Now I am tired and unlikely to stay up late, so there will be no Sunday Night Movie this weekened.

 

Happy Holidays to all.

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Loscon Post Day two

Good morning world, Here it is Sunday Morning I;ve had my breakfast and ready to take on day three, the last, of Loscon.
So what did I do yesterday?
I started with a presentation

    Vostok & Mercury: The Beginning Of The Space Race.

This was presented by Dr Jim Buby and it covered in a lot of detail, quite a bit unknown to me, the history of the early parts of the space race. Verdict: Thumbs Up
Next was

    Wings Into Space The History Of The X-15.

This weas presented by Michelle Evans (no realation) who has spent 30 years working on a book about the x-15, man’s first spacecraft. The X-15 was part of a program that was trying to reach space with fully reusable vehicles, but was derailed by the race to the moon. Verdict: Thumbs Up.
After that I hurried over to

    A Conversation With Nicholas Meyer

Riding Rockets: The X-racer experience. This was three of the founding engineers from X-Cor, and really great space start up, and one of their test pilots Col. Rick Searfoss former shuttle astronaut. Their work on the Lynx continues, and they report about a 25 month plan to start paid trip to space very much Virgin Galactic.
The final presentation did not work for me. It was a survey of fantasy and Sf set in ordinary home environments. Unfortunately the presentation was a bit dry and so I just bounced around this final hour.
After dinner we hit the parties where I heard some good readings, met friends I had not seen in quite a while, had many good conversation and enjoyed ice scream. Sadly, my arthritis began flaring, my knees began hurting and when it got to me limping from room to room I called it an evening and retired for the night.

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