Author Archives: Bob Evans

A Decision Has Been Made

 

Running a little late this morning and so this post will be a brief one.

With my latest novel now off to a publisher and query letters off to new agencies it is time to turn my attention from my former Work In Progress to my next one.

I had two in mind, one the idea came quite recently and would be a direct sequel to Vulcan’s Forge as I had some rather intriguing ideas, at least to me, on the fall out of the vents of that novel and the larger ramification it had for the fictional setting as a whole.

The second is a more fleshed out novel about ‘no contact.’ A situation where aliens have arrived at earth but have no communication with humanity and one person who thinks she has fond to key to bridging the gulf between the humanity and aliens.

The ‘no contact’ idea has won out, principally because I see the arc of the entire story including the ending. It is a truism that I cannot write a story or even a decent outline until I know how it ends. Endings are critical. To me they are where plot, story, and theme unify. And so soon I will begin the pick-and-spade work of hammering out an outline for my next novel.

 

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Someone Lighted the Nut-Signal Yesterday

 

After months of anti-vaxx messaging, fear-mongering, and countless people suffering pain and death to appease a spoiled pamper man-baby in Florida ‘conservative’ news and twitter yesterday suddenly began broadcasting the urgent needs for people to be vaccinated. Tweets from the Senate minority leader, commentary from Fox News and other ‘conservative’ quarters all began singing from the same hymn.

I do not know why a sanity suddenly burst like a star flare over the right and while I expect it to fade as quickly as that flare, I still welcome it.

It’s with great doubt that I would entertain the concept that a sudden empathy for the people suffering and dying motivated these elites to urge a rational and urgently needed course of action. Yesterday’s messengers have been long vaccinated themselves against this plague and all too content to let others die slow lingering isolated deaths for brief political points making empathy an impossibly high hurdle for any sensible person’s suspension of disbelief.

No, I would look to some motivated, selfish, self-interest for the sudden, and in all likelihood, temporary change in messaging. Perhaps the growing hospitalizations has depressed fundraising and the flood of cash slowed frightening the politicians. Perhaps the suburbs fled the right even more as death and disease replaced low taxation as the most identifying aspect of the Republican party. Or maybe, just maybe, someone with a little foresight, able to peer into the misty future beyond the 24 hours news cycle understood that being anti-vaxx actually resulted in killing the very voters who would be insane enough to return them to power. Despite losing the popular vote by seven or so million the GOP lost the White House only by a margin of fifty or so thousand votes a margin easily expanded by a pandemic that concentrated itself within their base.

 

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Weekly vs Binge

 

Over the last few years, the streaming wars have given us two options for watching our series, have an episode drop every week very much like the traditional methods of series production or make all episode available at one and leave it to the viewer to decide on when and how much to watch at once.

I have engaged with both formats. The Queen’s Gambit and The Crown were consumed watching two or three episodes at a time while all the Disney+ MCU extension shows have been offered only once per week but then available for binge re-watching. There are also programs that I watch with my sweetie-wife that are available for binging but that is not her preferred method of viewing and these programs such as The Bridge (Which we have on disk) and Katla are watched episode by episode but not on a set this day of the week schedule.

Binging gives the viewer quick satisfaction and powers through the story but at times can feel like skimming a book rather than luxuriating in the artistry. However, the plot and characters are there right away and there is no need to wait for a resolution to a twist or surprise.

Weekly episodes give time and space for fans to connect, all synched to the rhythms of the story and speculate and share in the communal mood of the experience.

Sporadically gives the least satisfying experience. IT’s too easy to lose track of characters and events if the series is not watched regularly.

Of the three I think I still favor the weekly episodes but my feeling on this is not particularly strong.

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Neo-Noir: The Long Goodbye

 

After hearing it praised and discussed on the Junkfood Cinema podcast and knowing it was part of the Criterion Channel’s current Neo-Noir I decided to 1973’s adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye a viewing.

In the film Marlow is awakened in the middle of the night by his friend who needs an emergency car ride to Mexico from Los Angeles following a fight with his wife. Marlow, apparently a very good friend, complies and later when the wife turns up dead finds himself considered a co-conspirator in her murder kicking off the plot.

Sadly, I can’t say the film was an overwhelming success for me. Elliot Gould’s mumbling and seeming distracted take on P.I. Philip Marlow never fully engaged me as a character but only as an affectation. In addition to that Marlow in the script jumps to correct conclusions for the next stage of the mystery but seemingly without have seen or discovered the clues that would actually lead to such a leap of logic. For example, he asks a woman if she knew a particular couple that lives in the same gated community as she. She answers that she vaguely knew them and later he’s asking the woman’s husband if his wife was having an affair with the husband of the pervious couple and nothing in the film established or hinted at such a relationship. Marlow simply knew somehow. The gangster sub-plot, apparently an invention of the screenplay, is jarring both tonally and logically to story. It’s odd and absurdist but never fully explored or explained.

Directed by hailed filmmaker Robert Altman with a screenplay by the legendary Leigh Bracket, The Long Goodbye should have been a film I loved but instead it slots in as a piece of film history I can now say I have watched but I have desire to see again.

 

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GOP Anti-Vaxx Did Not Start with Trump

 

I am running late this morning and so this post will be shorter than most.

While (hat tip to Stephen Colbert and his writing team) The Turd Reich has certainly accelerated and amplified anti-science and anti-vaccine ideology within the GOP he did not instigate or create that movement.

Long before that terrible entrance down the tower’s escalator many within the GOP had already begun swarming to the anti-vaccine message.

Michelle Malkin championed the idiocy because the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in women might *gasp* encourage sexual activity in girls. Better they die painfully and slowly of cancer that enjoy sexual pleasure not approved of by conservatives and the church.

Senator Rand Paul, a doctor for god’s sake, played with vaccines cause autism as a political ploy and then when called on it demanded that you believed him over the actual taped evidence.

The Delta variant, a far less entertaining variant thank any Loki, is spreading fast through the counties and districts of the country dedicated to the orange god/king and when winter arrives, I would not be surprised to see hospital in those area overwhelmed. Of course, the elites of the Turd Reich are vaccinated, they will survive the next waves like taxes it’s only little people that will die of COVID this winter.

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Series Review LOKI

 

This week Disney+ and Marvel Studios released the final episode of LOKI season one. Some mild spoilers for the history of the MCU through Avenger: Endgame are part of my review.

Loki, adopted brother of Thor and former villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after meeting his fate at the hands of the mad titan Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, lived on by way of a parallel time stream variant that escaped captivity due to the Avengers time heist to save half the universe in Avengers: Endgame. The series LOKI follows this edition of the character who
has not experienced the character growth from the films Thor: The Dark world or Thor: Ragnarök as he is hunted as a ‘variant’ by the Time Variance Authority the mysterious organization charged with keeping the timeline orderly and proceeding according to plan. Whose plan and why is the central mystery of LOKI as it compresses three feature films worth of character development for Loki into a montage and then challenges the character with a number of variations on himself exploring the question are we fated to be who we are, or can we choose who we are.

LOKI is a series that I could not review until the complete run had been released. It’s central mystery and eventual character development revealed in the final episode are too critical to the piece’s artistic vision. Overall, I think that they writers, directors, and actors, including some surprise and fun guest stars, landed their craft admirably and delivered an entertaining and even occasionally thoughtful series. Not as deep into exploring human emotion and motivation as WandaVision’s examination of the power of grief but a little more subtle and nuanced than The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’s dive into identity and social racism. Revealing one last mystery in its final scene LOKI promises more adventures for the Asgardian with an announced second season.

 

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Stunned by Evil

 

The currently political conditions are beyond stupid, or corrupt, or evil incompetence and are transgressing into the territory that can only be called evil.

An entire political movement, devoted to a thin-skinned, orange, tantrum throwing god/king has forcefully and utterly placed itself against science, common sense, and the health and lives of its base all in the name of ‘not doing what liberals are doing.’

This pandemic has killed over six hundred thousand in the United States and despite several vaccines, produced not by miracles or divine intervention but by the hard work brilliance and education of scientific heroes, infections and deaths are beginning to against rise due the conservative crazy.

The Governor of Florida is selling campaign merchandise celebrating resistance to vaccination. Tennessee republicans have sacked the head of the health department and suspended outreach to all adolescents for ALL vaccinations, not just the COVID ones, to appease the ravenous ignorant monster of a base that they have created with decades of dedicated anti-science, anti-expertise campaigning.

All of this, this disease and death, to support what? That Former Guy who’s a cheat and swindler? To lower taxes on the uber-wealthy? To loosen gun regulations? A pistol will not save you as you die on a ventilator with your lungs shredded by a virus.

NO matter what they say, no matter what they promise, we must turn out and vote and deny the modern GOP are hint or taste or any political power or authority.

 

 

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Series Review: Wellington Paranormal

 

In 2014 the world was treated to the feature film comedy What We Do in The Shadows, a mock documentary of a film crew following a trio of vampires around Wellington New Zealand leading up to a major vampire celebration. It’s co-writer, Director, and one of the stars, Taika Waititi has gone on to create memorable movies such as Thor: Ragnarök and JoJo Rabbit. Here in the United States the first spin off of the successful vampire comedy was the Hulu television series What We Do in The Shadows which utilized the same mockumentary conceit but this time following three old-world vampires living in Staten Island. However New Zealand actually witnessed the first television series inspired by the mockumentary Wellington Paranormal.

Employing the same mockumentary style Wellington Paranormalfollows three officers of the Wellington Police Force as they investigate and deal with supernatural threats and occurrences in the city. The series combines the broad humor found in the original feature film with a satirical reproduction of the seriousness of programs such as COPS. The show’s principal characters are Officer Minogue partnered with Officer O’Leary played by Mike Minogue and Kate O’Leary respectively a pair of hapless but good-hearted officers hopelessly over their head in dealing with ghosts, vampires, and in the first episode of the season, demonic possession. The rough handheld camerawork mimicking the documentary style allows the series to utilized decent special effects while covering the for the television level of budget with quick pans and shaking visuals. While some of the humor is clearly based in local culture and geography and doesn’t translate to an American audience over all the series is funny and well worth the time.

Wellington Paranormal starting with the 1 season originally aired in New Zealand in 2018 plays on the CW Network with episodes becoming available on HBOMax the following day.

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Movie Review: Black Widow

 

This weekend my sweetie-wife and I did something we haven’t done since February of 2020; we went out for Sunday lunch and a movie.

Lunch was open air dining at a seafood place and the movie was the COVID delayed MCU franchise film Black Widow.

Natasha Romanov, AKA The Black Widow, was introduced into the MCU with Iron Man 2 as an agent of SHIELD with her background as a former assassin revealed in marvel’s The Avenger and throughout the twenty plus run of the MCU movies though always displaying strong fan support she remained the only Avenger character without their own stand-alone entry in the series. Now, following the conclusion of star Scarlett Johansson’s run as the character, Marvel Studios has backfilled a film for Natasha with Black Widow.

The film is principally set following the events of Captain America: Civil War which presented the dissolution of the Avengers due to political and personal conflicts between its members.

A fugitive because of her refusal to abide my new international law regarding ‘enhanced’ individuals, Natasha’s plan to lay low and off the grid watching bad Bond movies is shattered when her past as an assassin reemerges and the deadly, abusive, and corrupt organization that created her and a cadre of women with similar skills is revealed to be quite operational. Forced to reunite with fellow undercover operatives from her past Natasha arc confronts her with not only with challenges to global peace and freedom but with her self-image and understanding of exactly who and what she is.

Black Widow is a solid entry into the MCU canon that personally does not score high enough to place it within the top quarter of entries but rather just below that. The story is solid, the acting credible, and the action fast paced and well shot never leaving the viewer confused as to who just did what, a result all too often these days of frenetic editing in other action movies. Setting the story between Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War limited the film’s ability to breath and carve out its own space and it would have been far better for this to have been produced and shot in sequence instead of feeling like an afterthought apology to the character’s fans. Though the movie’s post credit sequence could only have been created and shot following the events of Avengers: Endgame.

Still, this was a fun film and well worth the time to get out and see it in a theater.

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Series Review: Katla

 

 

My sweetie-wife enjoys programming from Iceland, and this has expanded my cinematic and entertainment horizons with the latest being the enigmatic series Katla.

Katla is the largest volcano in Iceland and in the program Katla is had been erupting for a year when the first episode begins. The shows start with a woman covered in mud and ash climbing out from under the glacier and stumbling to a local station. The nearby town of Vik has been evacuated save for a few people maintaining the vulcanologists studying the eruption. The mysterious woman gives the name of a Swedish tourist who had visited Vik some twenty years earlier. Soon other strange occurrences begin happening. Dead ravens are seen alive again and people who are missing or known to be dead and buried appear in the area, again covered in the mud and ash of the eruption. The reappearance of the dead, missing, and long departed persons reopens traumatic memories and familial divisions with the people surviving the brutal conditions at the volcano’s base.

I haven’t yet finished the series and so I reserve final judgment. Endings are critical and something as atmospheric and mysterious as Katla depends heavily on a satisfying conclusion.

That said I am very much enjoying the series. It is well produced, every frame carries mood and tone far beyond the simple spoken word and the air is not only thick with ash and gas from the volcano but with tension, secrets, and menace. Katla is not an action series but one that builds slowly over its episodes as we follow disparate characters struggling with mysteries with the viewers the only ones having all the clues.

Katla is currently streaming exclusively on Netflix.

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