Not Dead, Dying, or Seriously Ill

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This blog has been fallow since Sep 11 because my mind has been a wandering and not very blog productive. I am half-way through my folk/cosmic horror novel, but production of that project has now stalled.

I started this manuscript with just a bare idea of who the characters were and crude arc for their passage. This is the most I have ever ‘pantsed’ a book and overall the results so far have been surprisingly good. The voices of the point of view characters, three in all, came easily and strike me as distinct. (Whenever I turn to Sabrina the langue gets very salty. She’s got a moth on her.)

However, the motivation I gave the protagonist for traveling to the island commune feels too weak, too little to sustain her momentum until the hard plot kicks in. I need to find more personal motivations with more to lose that will drive her actions rather than having events influence them.

I have come ideas, and it feels like they are about to fall together into something I can use but there is an element or two missing still.

For the blog I could have been writing about the current and terrible political landscape but at this point it feels terribly repetitive. I did not watch the presidential candidate debate because it is almost inconceivable that Harris could have made a gaff that would have cost her my support and vote, and it is utterly inconceivable that Trump could do anything at all that would win any support from me at all.

I have been thoroughly enjoying on YouTube watching a pair of Canadian Gen Z’ers working through way through Star Trek the original series. Being an old fart who has seen these episodes countless time it’s quite a thrill watching someone get surprised that Korby is a freaking robot, that it was Kodos’ daughter that was murdering all those pesky witnesses, and that Finney wasn’t actually dead.

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Voice Actors are not Interchangeable

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I had intended to write this yesterday but when you wake in the morning in the midst of a migraine your day is pretty much trash.

Monday, we learned that the talented performer James Earl Jones passed away at 93. With a career and noted performances well before his ascendency to fan stardom as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, Jones was a unique talent.

Jones was also not the person Lucas had in mind when he wanted someone to vocally perform for his space fantasy adventure, his first choice was Orson Welles. Jones proved to be the right choice. His voice was lesser known but nothing in the man’s multidecade history indicates that he was ever difficult to work with. Would Star Wars have reached the same heights with Welles providing the voice? Probably. The nation culturally was ready to turn the page on the cynicism of the 70s and Star Wars provided that new direction and escape, but I do think that Vader would have been lessened with another voice actor.

Vader wasn’t the only character transformed by their vocal performer.

C3PO is famously vocally performed by the character’s suit performer Anthony Daniels but that was not the intention.  Daniels had been hired to be the body on set, much as David Prowse had been Darth Vader on set.

Instead of a prissy English butler, C3PO’s conception of a character was closer akin to an untrustworthy used car salesman. Go back and listen to his dialog in the original film and note just how mean and cutting it is. 3PO is not a nice and likeable character as written, but only becoming endearing due to Daniels’ performance. It is my understanding that when they tried to record the lines as originally envisioned, everyone heard the disaster it was, and the role was then given to Daniels.

We often think of voice actors as lesser. That is unfair and probably due to the preponderance of terrible dubbing of foreign language films. In those case the artists are rarely given the time or direction to craft a real performance, a gross disservice.

Voice actors deserve the respect and admiration of the audience, and they are never interchangeable.

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Series Review: The Decameron

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It is 14th century Italy, and the black death is ravaging the cites. The scope and scale of the pestilence is breaking civil society, and many believe that divine judgement is upon humanity and the end days are close at hand.

In this setting a collection of nobles and their servants greedily accept an invitation to fortified country villa to be the guest of Visconte Leonardo to either wait out the pestilence or spend humanity’s final days in comfort and luxury.

Netflix

The Decameron, very loosey based on the 14th Century manuscript, is a black comedy satirizing class structure, religion, and the endless human need to gain the upper hand on one another even as everything falls apart.

All of the characters of the series are duplicitous, scheming, and concealing secrets from one another. The humor is dark with death ever present. The tone of the show is not for everyone, but I enjoyed taking the series to be sort of a dark twisted comedy version of Corman’s adaptation of The Masque of the Red Death.

While very few of the cast were known to me save one secondary character, the actors performed their parts well and brought in my emotional engagement. The only thing that marred the production value of the program was the CGI flames utilized in some scene in the final few episodes, but I will not begrudge any production that errs on the side of safety.

The Decameron is pleasant, funny, and not without a few points to make. It streams on Netflix.

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Booths are for Cruising.

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When the story broke that the MAGA and Trump backed candidate for Governor of North Carolina Mark Robinson, a pol that frequently rants about pornography, was in fact a loyal customer of porn shops in the 1990s and early 2000s I had little interest. The story struck me as merely another example of the blatant hypocrisy so often seen in crusading extremist politicians. But then one detail came to my attention, not only did he visit these shops five or more times a week, but he was a regular customer of the booths.

Now, for several years in the 1990s I worked in a adult shop selling toys, magazines, and renting out porn to the customers. Like any business we had our regular customers and for someone to shop there five or more times a week would certainly be memorable. Also like nearly all of the adult shops we had the ‘arcade,’ a dozen or so closet sized private booths. A couple or the booths were fitted so that someone could rent a video, we’d load it into the player, and they would watch it in the booth, but that was not the majority of the booths. Most played an endless loop of porn on a number of channels and the customer just fed money into the machine and cycled the display to what struck their fancy.

But the real purpose of the booths was not to watch porn.

After all this was the 90s, video tapes players were in nearly every home, rentals were easy, and a cramped stuffy booth was hardly comfortable. Anyone interest in the porn would be far more comfortable at home.

No, the booths were for cruising.

Cruising is anonymous sex in public and semi-public places. Public Parks at night, airport bathrooms, and video store booths. Men, and it is always men, make their discreet eye contact and then follow each other into a booth, feeding the machine for the privacy to engage in sexual activates, afterwards going their separate ways.

Mark Robinson, in addition to his rants about pornography, his holocaust denial, and other unpleasant public stands is also blatantly homophobic.

I do not know that Robinson cruised the booths but it would hella shocking for someone that dedicated to the booths to not have.

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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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