Monthly Archives: February 2018

February 11, 2018 · 5:11 am

Low budget movies, parrots, high school theater and Superman!: books

Books of film essays can be a tough sell: I have to have an interest in the movies, like what the critic has to say, and like the way he says it. With Charles Taylor’s OPENING WEDNESDAY AT A THEATER OR DRIVE-IN NEAR YOU: The Shadow Cinema of the American ’70’s I got the first of the three, but no more than that. Taylor argues that low-budget drive-in fair such as Coffy, Citizens’ Band (one I remember bored me and Mum when we saw it), Two Lane Blacktop (that one I love) and Prime Cut, while not lost classics, are worth study. As Taylor sees it they embody 1970s films’ acceptance that bad things can happen to good people, but never sink into cynicism, and thereby represent the freshness of a great film-making era which came to an end when Star Wars turned the market over to big-budget special effects and crass commercialism. Which is the kind of endless moaning that made the book more tedious than interesting, so despite some interesting recommendations, I found the book pretty “meh.”

I, PARROT by Deb Unferth Olin and Elizabeth Haidle tells how a struggling single mother, determined to regain custody of her kid, tries earning extra income sitting for a room full of rare parrots. Problems, of course, develop … The book is reasonably enjoyable at the start, and I like the art, but it seems to meander into nothing by the end.

THE BACKSTAGERS: Rebels Without Applause by James Tynion IV and Rian Sygh has a nervous new student drawn into the crazy world of a high-school drama club tech crew. Just how big is the backstage area? What are those monsters crawling around there? Is it true a previous generation’s tech crew wandered into the back and just … vanished? This is cute, but much as I love theater material it’s pitched a little young to really hook me (but as it’s a juvenile series, that’s not the creators’ faults).

SUPERMAN THE GOLDEN AGE Vol 1 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster collects the first couple of years of the Golden Age man of steel, “champion of the oppressed!” And the creators demonstrate that as Superman (as many others have pointed out) has a big, big social conscience that leads to waging war on corrupt mine owners who skimp on safety equipment, crooked contractors using cheap steel, reckless drivers and corrupt orphanage directors (admittedly Cruel Orphanage is a brand of villainy that goes back to the Victorians). In between Clark flirts with Lois, who comes off really unpleasant here, though impressively determined in her pursuit of a story. Reading this it’s obvious to see the growth of Kal-El’s powers as Siegel and Shuster kept topping one superfeat with another; light on the villains, though, the only one of note being the Ultra-Humanite (Supes’ other bald evil genius scientist foe). A fun read.

Cover by Joe Shuster, all rights remain with current holder. #SFWApro

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February 10, 2018 · 1:41 pm

New Screen Rant out

About terrible fantasy shows you forgot ever aired.  G vs. E below is probably the most obscure — even my editor didn’t know it existed.

I will admit to watching Secrets of Isis as a teen purely because I crushed on Joanna Cameron (I got crushes like I breathed). But I found the show as boring as Shazam!

And then there’s Heath Ledger’s Roar, which other than bringing the Spear of Destiny to TV has nothing to recommend it.

All rights to all images remain with current holders. #SFWApro

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February 10, 2018 · 5:10 am

Two Maxwell Smarts, Two Doctor Mabuses: movies

GET SMART (2008) suffers from trying to be two things at once. On the one hand this reboot of the sixties spy spoof is a stock zero-to-hero story with Steve Carrell as a brilliant CONTROL analyst who gets his first shot at fieldwork alongside veteran agent Anne Hathaway (I wonder if the emphasis on Hathaway having undergone age-concealing plastic surgery is meant to duck the age disparity?); on the other, it wants to be a spy spoof so Carrell keeps pulling the same bonehead shticks as Don Adams (“Would you believe Chuck Norris with a BB gun?”) and the two never reconcile (it makes me appreciate how Adams could make Max’s occasional bursts of competence believable). And the climax is pure action film, and I don’t mean that in a good way. The cast includes Alan Arkin as Chief of CONTROL, Bill Murray as Agent 13, Mako Osai of Heroes as a tech nerd, Terence Stamp playing Siegfried perfectly serious, Patrick Warburton as Hymie the robot, James Caan as a nitwit President Bush II knockoff and Dwayne Johsnon as Agent 23 (who gets a twist that I spotted early). “Hey guard why don’t you come in here so I can make you my pretty little girlfriend?”

THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (1933) is the sequel to Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler in which Mabuse, despite being insane and committed to an asylum, wreaks so much havoc even his agents are unsettled (without giving away too much, it’s one of those films where the terrorism looks horrifyingly plausible and effective). This time he has a more formidable adversary in Otto Wernicke as Inspector Lohmann (plus a henchman who wants out) but it’s still Mabuse’s show. This has a number of excellent special features, most notably commentary by Mabuse expert David Kalat (which goes into detail on Lang’s dubious claim the film is an anti-Nazi allegory) and a documentary The Three Faces of Mabuse. This compares the original masterpiece to the shorted French version (filmed by Lang with French actors for the French market) and a later American cut, The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse. A great DVD from Criterion. “No-one has any idea what kind of phenomenal, superhuman mind came to an end with Dr. Mabuse’s death.”

THE LAST WILL OF DR. MABUSE (1933) was the American title for the French version (as Kalat notes, “will” has a double meaning in a Mabuse film) which was included on the Criterion DVD. Not as good as the German — Lohmann is much less impressive and forceful here — and with one change Kalat didn’t mention, Mabuse being described at the start as a super-hypnotist with a history of mesmerizing people into crime. Worth the added time it took to see it. “The testament of Mabuse? Is there such a thing?”

The TV movie GET SMART AGAIN (1989) was the good reunion film (I haven’t seen an earlier theatrical release, The Nude Bomb but I’ve never heard anything good about it) using some of the original creative team and all the original cast except Ed Platt as the Chief (Platt had passed away fifteen years earlier). KAOS acquires a weather control machine so US intelligence puts Max back in the field, reuniting with not only his old friends but archfoe Siegfried (played by the original actor, Bernie Koppell). Captures the show’s spirit perfectly; John de Lancie plays a KAOS mole and Harold Gould is a villain plotting to improve American literacy (“KAOS will publish the world’s great books, and if people don’t read them all — they die!”). “In 1969, KAOS traded him to THRUSH for two rookie killers and a minor-league mugger.”

Rights to images remain with current holders. #SFWApro

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February 9, 2018 · 4:30 pm

Crazy dog parent week

So Tuesday I discovered we’d lost Plush Dog’s tags. They were hooked to his collar, the metal loop was loose and he was wandering through brambles. Or it could have been one of his roll-in-the-dirt moments. No way to tell now. But as a result we’ve been doing most of their walkies in the back yard. Yes, he’s microchipped, but we still don’t want him running off without an easily identifiable phone number on his harness (I’ve ordered new holders and tags, but they ain’t here yet).

Possibly that’s why the pups have been so wired this week. I don’t recall them being quite so frantic and excited in the mornings. Thursday (doggy day care day this week) they were so needy and lively I wound up playing with them for an hour so TYG could get some stuff done. Not the best use of my day off, but such is dog-owner life.

Oh, and Plush chewed through one of their balls Wednesday, and had licked some of the stuffing out. Fortunately I caught him before he could swallow.

Then this morning Trixie came downstairs with me for the first time in a while. This slightly disrupted my schedule as I always wind up snuggling on the couch with her. Still, she’s worth it.

So, all that said, how did the work go? Not too bad.

I think I completed about fourteen articles for Leaf, which will help pay for — well I’m not sure yet, but it’ll certainly help pay for something.

I continued working on the rewrites of Questionable Minds and Impossible Takes a Little Longer. I also read a couple of heavy-exposition scenes from Southern Discomfort to the writing group and got (as usual) great feedback.

I got next to nothing done on No One Can Slay Her. The last half of the story needs heavier restructuring than I’d thought and while I’ve diagnosed the problems, I don’t have the solution yet. I’ll blame that partly on the dogs — it’s really hard to do thinky/planny stuff when they’re piled on my lap. And Thursday was devoted to Screen Rant work (not out yet) and the Leaf stuff. Regrettably I wasn’t able to make my 1,000 words of fiction a day on Thursday. I was hoping I’d keep it going the whole year, but I could be happy with “every day of 2018 but one.”

And I worked out my transportation and hotel for Mysticon later this month — I’m a guest. Actually credit goes to Carla at Mysticon for finding a room at the con hotel when I wasn’t able to do it.

Plus I squeezed in a dentist visit. Teeth are in good shape, yay.

And now I crash. Slept poorly last night and I’m done in. But the weekend is here.

 

#SFWApro Photos are mine, please credit me and source blog if you use ’em.

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Filed under Impossible Takes a Little Longer, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Story Problems, The Dog Ate My Homework, Time management and goals, Writing

February 9, 2018 · 5:10 am

More fun with journals

A recent blog post on the Wicked Cozy Authors group blog spoke enthusiastically about the Plot Your Work planner for writers. So as I still have some Christmas money left, I splurged and bought one.

The concept is pretty simple. I have five project sections. In each I can break down the month-by-month activity to get it completed — or as close as I expect to come — for the year. I don’t expect to complete Impossible Takes a Little Longer for instance, just to rework it so I’ve resolved the problems the manuscript has now.

The five projects? Glad you asked.

  • Reworking Impossible Takes a Little Longer
  • Finishing Southern Discomfort.
  • Finishing four short stories (I may be ambitious on that one).
  • Finishing Undead Sexist Cliches.
  • Publishing the hard copy of Atlas Shagged and the hard and ebook versions of Atoms for Peace.

Which looks like a lot (and it’s not like that’s all I want to do) but I don’t think it’s unattainable. There’s a lot of year left. The big challenges will be finishing the short stories — I don’t write those fast — and making the hard decisions for the final draft of Southern Discomfort. And of course, there’s always the challenge of added assignments turning up. The Leaf articles are currently keeping me very busy, and there are a couple of nonfiction projects that will keep me busy if they actually get the go-ahead.

Still, I suffer absolutely no penalty if I fall short of my goals, so I’ll shoot for it. I’m writing the workbook in pencil so I can adapt if anything falls through.

Of course I already knew I wanted to do all five of those projects. And I had a rough idea of the time frame. It’s not like I absolutely needed the book. But actually writing it in rather than just typing it in Scrivener really pushes me to break the five goals down into incremental steps. Then consider whether I can actually do that much stuff in the time allotted, then rewrite if I can’t (pencil!).

I’ve written the outline for the five projects. This weekend I’ll transfer the incremental steps to the month-by-month section of the planner. If I see it all together, freak out and cry No Way, I’ll go back and erase and rewrite.

I think this may prove a wise purchase.

All rights to the journal images remain with current holder (I don’t know it’s unique enough for that to be an issue, but just in case). #SFWApro

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February 8, 2018 · 5:10 am

Should we worry?

So an article in Vanity Fair by Nick Bolton argues that computer technology is going to wipe out Hollywood. Already people are using streaming services and bootleg streaming rather than going to movie theaters (note: “I steal movies because Hollywood didn’t put them out when I wanted” is yet another bullshit argument for piracy. I’ve known restaurants that took forever to bring out my food, but I don’t think that entitles me to snarf from the buffet and walk out without paying), and the trend will only increase. Not only that, computers will eliminate lots of Hollywood jobs. Given a few years they’ll be able to edit, write a screenplay (a crappy one, but lots of movies are crappy), and with CGI maybe dispense with human actors.

These possibilities are not new ideas. Eric Frank Russell’s The Darfsteller has robots replacing human actors, and that was back in 1955. Connie Willis’s 1994 Remake imagined a Hollywood where the movies simply reuse the images of famous stars rather than real actors (you may be old enough to remember a few commercials doing this some years back).

Where I disagreed with those stories was that they assume a 100 percent changeover, and I don’t buy that. There will probably always be directors who’d sooner use real actors than computer effects. I suspect there will always be indie movies that do it the old-fashioned way. In Hollywood itself, Bolton might be right — anyone who’s not an A-list star will simply find no roles available. And rather than pay screenwriters, studios will simply use software programs to churn out mindless bit special-effects action epics. I doubt we’d get anything the caliber of Star Wars IV that way, but eliminating all the people would undoubtedly make it bottom-line attractive to the studios.

So what about print writers? I’ve heard speculation that within a decade or less, it’ll be possible to have a software program write a readable novel. Again, I doubt we’d seen anything truly inspired, but plenty of us like mindless pap (I’ve certainly read my share). It might very well be profitable, and all the profits would go to the publisher. Then again, it’s not like royalties are bankrupting publishers now. And the other costs — laying out the book, printing physical copies, proofreading — would still be there.

If it did happen, whither those of us who are not the A-list (e.g., John Scalzi, JK Rowling)? Even if there’s a market for us, would bottom-line thinking convince publishers to drop everyone who’s not a big gun? Indie publishing is an option if that happens, but what if the publishers simply flood the market with cheap computer-written books? Would that make it too hard to sell our books at a price worth selling for? Or would quality win out (assuming that’s the case)?

I imagine in the coming years we will find out.

Cover by Curt Swan, all rights remain with the current holder. #SFWApro

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February 7, 2018 · 5:03 am

Some days you get the blog post …

But yesterday I was too tired to say anything deep. So as I hate breaking my post-a-day streak, here’s a couple of covers:

I’m actually interested in picking this one up sometime. Cover by Jeff Jones, with a psychedelic flair that seems to fit the subject matter.

Cover by Robert McGinnis. A good example of a Sex Sells hardboiled detective cover.

This one by Schoenherr just works, I’m not sure why.

Below, obviously, is not a cover. It’s a map from Silver Age Harvey Comics showing how all their various series (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Little Dot, Baby Huey, Wendy the Good Little Witch) all coexisted in the same valley. Even though i wasn’t a fan of them, I find it pretty neat. No clue as to artist.

All rights to all images remain with the current holders. #SFWApro

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February 6, 2018 · 5:10 am

Is Our Writers Learning?: Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger

Mostly what I learned from Paul Krueger’s LAST CALL AT THE NIGHTSHADE LOUNGE is that some books simply don’t work for me. That’s not a reflection on the book’s merits, just that some books are pitched at a frequency I don’t pick up. Usually that’s a matter of the genre being one I dislike, but this book shows it can be other things too.

THE STORY: Bailey, a Chinese American newly graduated from college is stuck living with her parents and working as a barback in the Nightshade. Then she discovers bartenders are part of an ancient society of “Alechemists.” Drunk humans attract evil spirits, the tremens; bartenders brew magical cocktails that give them superpowers to fight the demons. Bailey becomes a rookie in the Alechemists, but is that what she wants for a career path? And is the organization really on the up-and-up?

WHAT I LEARNED: Like I said, some books are just not a good fit for me. I suspected it might not be when Krueger described the premise at Illogicon, but it seemed a shame not to try a fantasy by someone I’d actually met.

The reason I doubted Nightshade Lounge would work for me is that I’m not a drinker. I find most booze tastes awful, it stimulates my acid reflux and I don’t get buzzed, just depressed and numb. There’s no fun in it for me. And as I suspected that took the fun out of the premise. There are several sections from an Alechemist’s grimoire discussing the lore of the various drinks and while a lot of readers loved them, I just skipped over them.

That said, the book might have held me with the characters, who seem an appealing lot. And I like that there’s a fair mix of diversity in the cast (one trans person, one deaf, Bailey herself) just treated matter-of-factly. But unfortunately the book is “New Adult” (unlike the premise I didn’t know that before picking it up); the character arc is primarily Bailey, the new graduate, struggling to get a life.  And that just didn’t interest me — not because Krueger did it wrong, coming of age stories leave me cold, whether they’re tweens, teens or twentysomethings.

Possibly this reflects my being, well, old. My twenties are far behind me. Though I don’t recall I’ve ever liked coming of age stories in print (on TV or in movies, they can work for me) at any age. Certainly my own stories with twentysomething protagonists don’t deal with the real-world challenges of having to start adulting. It just doesn’t grab me.

I did like the emphasis on the hard work the bartenders put in on the job, and Bailey’s distaste for a couple of friends whom she sees treating bar staff with contempt. I’m glad that despite the “new person enters supernatural world” Krueger didn’t bury me in exposition (I’ve seen that happen often enough). I didn’t particularly like the tremens, who are uninteresting horrors. But overall I don’t really have a critical analysis to offer, only personal taste.

I don’t think Krueger made a mistake building a fantasy novel around drinking, something which I’d guess the vast majority of readers indulge in. Several of the positive reviews I’ve seen were “What would be really fun is reading this book over cocktails!” so they obviously felt the charm. But for me it was a no-go.

Cover design by Timothy O’Donnell, all rights to image remain with current holder. #SFWApro

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February 5, 2018 · 5:10 am

Hypocrites and Pharisees, i.e., Republicans

As I’ve mentioned before, pointing out Republicans don’t live up to their own supposed standards sometimes comes off as if that’s the problem with Republican policies. It isn’t. Even if they walked the walk, their policies on abortion, birth control, taxes, etc. would be horrible — their personal virtue or lack of same doesn’t affect that.

But that said, as they are so quick to crow and puff themselves up about having the moral high ground, it can’t help to point out that the congressmen (and President Shit-Gibbon) have no clothes — for example, they’re perfectly fine (as they were throughout the W years) with warrantless spying on Americans, just not on themselves. And they’re perfectly fine overriding states’ rights if it’s in their interest [update: Alito ruled against the appeal, so I apologize for thinking the worst of him]. Or if it will ban abortion. Or Jonah Goldberg arguing that liberals are the real white nationalists so how can they criticize Trump (I have actually had a Republican friend cite Woodrow Wilson’s unquestionably racist views as if that really proved 21st century liberals are the real racists). And for that matter libertarians talk a lot about freedom but some prominent ones are fine with rallying behind Trump. Why wouldn’t they?

Then we have Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” in DC of corruption. Yet we end up with a CDC head who buys stock in tobacco and pharmaceutical firms — no way that could be an issue, right?

And for all they talk about freedom and their love for the bill of rights, conservative pundits is always happy to demand government treat Trump critics and “disloyal” government officials as traitors. Though there’s nothing new in this, they were making the exact same arguments while W was president. And they’re also hoping to go back to the spoils system where federal workers can be fired and hired based on political loyalty. Again not new — the Iraq occupation was much more interested in recruiting conservatives than anyone with relevant qualifications.

Then we have the Religious Right. Supposed moral voice Tony Perkins insists it’s perfectly reasonable not to hold Trump to moral standards such as “thou shalt not commit adultery.” Which makes perfect sense as a political tactic, but it also says Perkins and all the other religious rightwingers rallying to Trump aren’t actually moral voices unless morality translates into ” oppress gay people” or “oppress women.” Similarly, you can’t pretend your concern is “moral decline,” and then defend Trump. No, they support Trump as a political move that gives Christians more power in government, even though they pretend they don’t want a Christian state. Just as some white nationalists don’t want to admit they are.

But it’s not just religion: NRA sock-puppet Dana Loesch has gone from condemning people who trash Trump opponents (back when Loesch was in Ted Cruz’s camp) to trashing Trump opponents. This is, of course, pretty common. David Brooks enthusiastically supported the Iraq war, then wrote a column about how our leaders totally misread the situation, and didn’t mention his own misjudgments. Syndicated columnist Ron Hart gushed about how utterly, utterly awesome Sarah Palin was, then as soon as she lost only referenced her as an obvious incompetent. I don’t recall him ever explaining the switch, other than political convenience.

And we’re still stuck with a media where many reporters and pundits struggle to make it look like both parties are equally insane. Which is not really hypocrisy, but it’s definitely false. And by trying to treat Republicans as if they were anything other than a white supremacist/1 percent-supremacist party, ignores how rotten they are.

And to end with something that’s not hypocritical at all, but is extremely stupid, we have a religious conservative recommending we not get flu shots — Jesus is our flu shot! Given my health issues, needless to say I disagree.

 

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February 4, 2018 · 5:11 am

A superhero no more, menopausal superheroes and witch hunters: books

NEXUS OMNIBUS Vol. 6 by Mark Baron and Steve Rude marks the point at which Horatio finally decides to be Nexus no more. Which is, of course, a staple in superhero stories, but usually it doesn’t take. Here it had serious repercussions, such as Horatio’s patron, the Merk, recruiting the murderous Loomis girls (in the Next Nexus miniseries) to replace Horatio. As always a good read.

I was relieved how much I liked GOING THROUGH THE CHANGE: A Menopausal Superhero Novel as I know the author, Samantha Bryant, and I’m always afraid I’ll read a friend’s book and hate it. The premise here is that four women in their forties and fifties start manifesting metahuman powers after sampling a seemingly kindly doctor’s alternative medicines (it’s obvious to us before it’s clear to them). One starts to hulk out, another finds herself defying gravity, one becomes a studly younger man, one can throw fire … The story moves slowly (it’s very much the start of a series) but the characters and their coping with their new powers (not to mention their everyday lives) are absorbing so that’s not a problem. This was one I’d been meaning to try for a while, and finally picked it up at Illogicon last month.

WITCHFINDERS: A Seventeenth Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill reminds me of Stalin’s observation that one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. The horror of the individual witch trials becomes tedious as Gaskill recounts case after case, all identical except for the names. While Gaskill does a good job showing the cultural and social forces that fueled the witch hunts, and busting some of the myths about “witchfinder general” Matthew Hopkins, this ultimately got too plodding and monotonous to enjoy.

Cover by Steve Rude, all rights remain with current holder #SFWApro

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