Monthly Archives: August 2024

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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A Few Quick Thoughts about the Looney Idea that Trump Staged his Assassination Attempt

Conspiracy theories are seductive. The promise a world of ordered reason and with easy explanations but the world is a vast messy chaotic place with events often having no direct reason.

In the wake of the attempt on Trump’s life a number of people cling to the idea, a foolish one, that this was some orchestrated and staged event to bolster Trump’s electoral chances.

First off, he got very little in term of gained ground electorally from the event. So as a plot to gain sympathy it failed. But moreover, it simply was not a staged event.

Fact: real bullets were fired at the event.

Fact: real people died due to those bullets.

Fact: counter Snipers killed the shooter.

For this to be a staged event you must believe the following assertions to be true.

Trump possessed the emotional and physical courage to stand down range and let someone shoot close to him. Nothing is his biography indicates that he possesses anything approaching such will power.

That Trump stood down range, knowing shots were going to be fired, and perform perfectly naturally. We have seen the man ‘act’ he has no talent for it.

That the shooter, knowing that counter snipers would engage, was perfectly willing to lie there and be killed and yet leave no trace of his devotion to Trump for anyone to find.

That the collection of people around Trump, known for their inability to keep from talking to people on background, managed to secure this secret with perfect cohesion.

That these same people are perfectly willing to be under the threat of murder charges for Trump.

This simply is beyond the bounds a reasonableness. A conspiracy of such magnitude and managerial perfection is simply inconsistent with everything we know about Trump and the people that surround him.

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A Film I will Not Finish: Jackpot!

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Awkwafina and John Cena are both far too good for the material thrust upon with the sagging unfunny action-comedy Jackpot!

Amazon Studios

An aspiring actor returning to Los Angeles Awkwafina’s Katie becomes the subject of a lethal lottery when she wins the big prize in California’s monthly mega lottery. The wrinkle is that this new lottery will grant to prize to anyone who murders the person with the winning ticket if that murder happens before sundown and no guns are involved. Unaware of what has transpired with her winning because Katie has been living in Michigan dealing with her mother’s end of life care, she ends up with the services of John Cena’s Noel who is going to act as her bodyguard for 10 percent of the winning. There is a competing protect services offered by Simon Liu, but I did not get far enough into the film to see his character’s entrance.

Jackpot! fails on both of its critical levels. It is a comedy that provokes no laughter and an action movie with dull, uninspired, and poorly photographed stunt and fight work. Stunts, like dance, needs to be photographed so the audience can see the performers amazing physical prowess, not hidden behind fast choppy editing.

My sweetie-Wife and I gave the film 30 minutes of our time and we have no plan to return to see the remaining hour plus of the dull and uninteresting movie. Perhaps it gets better, perhaps it become more credible, but I harbor serious doubts based upon the movie’s uninspired start.

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Movie Review: Alien Romulus

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The seventh film in the Alien franchise Alien Romulus is set between the events of Alien and Aliens. The film is directed and co-written by Fede Alvarez and produced by Ridley Scott’s production company ‘Scott Free’ and Walter Hill’s ‘Brandywine.’

20th Century Studios

Romulus returns to the theme of ‘blue-collar’ workers in dire trouble established by the original 1979 feature film. In this story a collection of miners and other assorted low-value labor board a derelict station in hopes of obtained hyper-sleep pods that will allow them to escape their indentured servitude by making the 9-year voyage to the nearest planet not controlled by the corporation. the station however harbors secrets and dangers the characters are wholly unaware of and what started as a quest to escape rapidly become one of survival.

 

 

In my opinion Romulus ranks third in the franchise, directly after the original and Cameron’s direct sequel. Fede Alvarez and production designer Naaman Marshal have done a quite admirable job is creating a film that feels as though it is part of the world established by the original film and its sequel. Graphics recreated from those movies do not draw attention to themselves but create the familiar environment of those production. For the most part story beats and scenes that do call back to earlier movies do not feel as though they were forced into the film as some sort of obligatory ‘fan service.’

For the most part.

There are sadly several bits that do feel forced and contrived. I think in general it is preferrable to reference earlier films in a franchise with production design and props but not dialog. The dialog spoken by previous characters is theirs and it is unquestionably better to find the right words for you characters rather than take them from another.

The weakest section of the film for me is the final ten or fifteen minutes. Not only does it not feel earned and rather forced it extends a film that had reached a natural and satisfying conclusion with references to substandard entries in the franchise and caused the movie to end with more stolen dialog.

I find it ironic that the most enduring thematic element in the franchise is the one that screenwriter Dan O’Bannon objected to the most when it was inserted into his original script for Alien. The entire corporate conspiracy sub-plot, that the ship had been diverted deliberately and that the crew was considered expendable O’Bannon never liked but has become the defining theme of the films. It lives strong and proud in Romulus.

The next element of my review contains a spoiler so here’s a few thoughts before I continue.

Alien Romulus is a decent if somewhat flawed film that earns at least one viewing.

***SPOILER WARNING***

Through extensive and fairly well deployed CGI the filmmakers recreated on the screen Ian Holm, portraying another android in the same series that ‘Ash’ belonged to. There were some minor ‘uncanny valley’ issues, but they were well managed and actually fit the style of the film for an ‘artificial person.’

The fact that the plot revolves around a soulless corporation pushing workers to their death and seeking a way to extract value even beyond their death while the film literally extracts value from a deceased laborer is deeply ironic.

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Thematic Cohesion and the Challenge of Sequels

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Over on threads a response I made explaining why Alien 3‘s opening sequence is a mistake had prompted a little push back from fans of the 3rd film in the franchise.

What is posted was; ‘It’s worse than that. It’s telling the audience from Aliens that they were suckers for investing any emotional energy in Newt or Hicks. All of your emotional strain and joy — wasted — because we can’t give an ef what you feel.‘

The response that has intrigued me the most goes like this; ‘That’s life man. No rhyme, no reason, no ef’s given for your feelings. The people you love sometimes die in accidents, that doesn’t make you a sucker for loving them. Alien 3’s opening is gut-wrenchingly real.’

That response is a clear example of nihilism, that life and existence is essentially meaningless. The vast cold universe is utterly uncaring of your little concerns and your efforts to impose order and meaning are futile.

I myself am not a nihilist but it is a valid philosophical disciple, but does it negate the point I made about the betrayal of the audience with the uncaring killing off of the characters of Newt and Hicks?

Nihilistic art has its place and a long tradition even in cinema. The French film The Wages of Fear is famously nihilistic and its ending a somber examination that a person’s fight for life is futile and that death comes for all of us is woven into the films story and mood.

Alien and the direct sequel Aliens are not nihilistic pieces. Ripley survives the first film triumphant. Ridley Scott did not invoke The Wages of Fear and have an asteroid slam into Ripley’s shuttle after her defeat of the alien to demonstrate the futility of existence. James Cameron’s script and film for Aliens is a voyage of healing and becoming whole after a traumatic event. It contains not only message of hope that healing can be had but message against racism with Ripley’s acceptance of Bishop after her near murder by Ash. It is far from nihilistic.

This is what makes Alien 3 the sequel rejected by so many fans. The franchise had not been nihilistic. The series itself, born in the cinematic garden that followed Star Wars in rejecting the overly cynical mood of the 70s for a more upbeat and optimistic vision. While Alien and Alienscontained the sub-plot of the ‘Corporation’ and its corruption providing motivation for events absent in the original drafts of the script the overall tone of the films are is not cynical. The 1980s were not fertile ground for cynical stories, the audiences had experienced enough of them in the 1970s and wanted adventure and escapism, hence why two film now considered classics and masterpiece works, Blade Runner and The Thing failed utterly at the box office.

Alien 3‘s sharp turn to cynicism and nihilism is at odds with the previous films and with the mood of the audience. It is thematically divergent from the franchise and while each film must hold its own unique vision and theme to work within the franchise they must hold the encompassing theme of the greater work.

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A Third Done but What’s My Destination?

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So, my folk horror novel just passed 30,000 words and I am expecting the beast to land at a slim 90 thousand. At one third drafted what kind of mood am I am?

Well, a little befuddled to be honest. This novel is cruising but I can’t be certain that it is on the right course. I outlined the first act and that went fairly well, I partially outlined the second, which is just now wrapping up and I am pleased, intrigued but also uncertain.

I have a grasp of the core elements that the third and fourth acts require and only a vague notion of precisely where I want to end up.

It is that last elements that has me the most ‘lost at sea.’ My conception of the ending is far more hazy than any other novel I have written, much less the mechanic of how it all works out. My previous novel dealing with werewolves I had a very solid idea of the final state for the characters and only needed to path to get them there. Here I still need it to be revealed to me.

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