I did get writing in yesterday. Oh no where near as much as I would like, but more than 500 words just the same. Even with the migraine.
I say — Go Team Me!
So, one the gifts I got for Christmas was a gift card to Borders. Now, as regular readers of the blatherings know I have purchased an ebook reader in 2009 and so I have transitioned to e-books for my pleasure reading.
Sunday I was at Borders with my sweetie-wife and I used the gift card to upgrade my DVD of Casino Royale to a blu-ray collectors edition of Casino Royale. I got a much better picture and sound quality and additional bonus feature. Which is like crack to me.
I really liked this reboot of the James Bond Franchise. Frankly the Bond films had slipped into fantasy and as such were not very satisfying. Now, don’t get me wrong, Bond in the books is not about realism. Bond is a larger than life character. He’s a tough man who can win any fight and knows what to do to survive and to win. As a character he is interesting because of what he went through in the story Casino Royale. These are the events that armored Bond, that until the story of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service rendered him cold to women. If you want gritty complex spy novels with a heavy dose of realism you should read the works of John Le Carre. There’s nothing wrong about either approach. James Bond is what we would like to have out there on our side and John Le Carre’s characters are what we fear are out there on our side. Continue reading
So today my sweetie-wife and I went out to see The Wolfman, the recent remake of the classic Universal Horror film. I am a big fan of the original The Wolf Man (1941.) Perhaps I’ll cross post my essay on Werewolves and the pivotal position the 1941 film had on our understanding of this beast, but for right now I will concentrate on the screening we just attended.
I went in with lowered expectations and they were not met. This film is a mess, the script doesn’t know what story it really wants to tell, the plot is filled with holes that a pack of werewolves could dive through, the acting was telephoned in, and there is no chemistry between the leads.
It’s clear that the writers certainly started out using the Curt Siodmak screenplay as there basis for a remake, but quickly they lost the heart and soul of the writing. This has been a troubled production and it shows. I know the director, Joe Johnston, was not the first director and that he had been brought in to save the project. He did not. Continue reading
As you can see I have switched themes for my blog. I particularly like this theme because it is customizable by the user to a pretty good degree.
You can expect the background image — currently courtesy of NASA — to change a bit as I look for the perfect space image for my SF blog.
Comments are of course welcome.
Well I had meant to start writing Cawdor this week, but that just didn’t happen. Between the hellishly busy pace at the day-job and two days sucked into the Big Bang Experience, I got nada done this week.
Still, I am excited. This will be a challenging novel for me to write and I am looking forward to it.
So on Tuesday this week I worked half a day because I went to Hollywood to watch a live taping of The Big Bang Theory.
I left work about noon, but our plans had changed an I knew we would not be leaving La Jolla where I work any sooner than 1:30, so I took along lunch at a near by strip club. No, not that kind of strip club. It’s a steak house called The La Jolla Strip Club. It’s a vodka bar and steak house. I had a really bug burger and some tasty fries. Continue reading