Genre Blender

 

Genres are cool and useful guides to what a story is about. If I tell you a story is a horror you know that you should feel tense and unsettled as it unfolds and perhaps even after it is over. If it is a romance, you will hopefully feel joy and fulfillment by the end. When two genres are combined then something truly wonderful and magical is possible. Alien the movie that launched countless imitations artfully blended science-fiction with horror, it was by far not the first to do so but its unparalleled quality elevated it above the material that had come before. My own novel Vulcan’s Forge is a combination of colonial science-fiction and 40s styled film noir.

I have started in on a short story blending two genres that are wildly different and I hope I have the skill to pull it off even halfway decently, forward-looking science-fiction and tradition oriented folk horror.

Folk horror is a sub-genre of horror fiction that fixates on isolated usually rural setting and communities where the old ways are not only now forgotten but are usually embraced and practiced with zealotry. Where strangers confronted with unknown customs and filled with derision for these communities often meet untimely fates. A perfect example of this style of horror and one of my favorite films is 1973’s The Wicker Man.

I think science-fiction, with its emphasis on the new, the novel, and the future makes for an excellent contrast with folk horror with its dedication to tradition, custom, and the wisdom of the past. I hope I can do justice to moth forms.

 

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My Latest YouTube Fascinations

 

There are lots of crappy YouTube channels pouring poison and lies into a public discourse but there are also loads of content that is educational and fun and belonging to the latter category are some of the channels I’ve discovered doing ‘reaction’ videos. These are people who are watching movies and television, usually for the first time, and reacting to the unfolding story. I’ve discovered three channels that for quite different reasons I find fun and relaxing to watch. These are presented in no particular order.

Natalie Gold A young women who works in the film industry Natalie’s videos provide the most reaction of my three favorite channels. She screams, laughs, and cries very easily but also given her vocation she has a sharp eye for performance, and artistic choices.

Millennial Movie Mondays Ashleigh Burton is a millennial whose life has zigged and zagged her past may cultural movie markers and is now experiencing many of these films for the first time. She is funny with a sarcastic sense of humor and willing to take unpopular stands on popular movies. Watching her channel can make someone feel older especially when something that used to be as culturally all-consuming as a Rambo reference is answered with a ‘Huh? What does that refer to?’

Fictionaldarling This young woman doesn’t overtly display her name and approaches her watches and they are often re-watches not first-time viewings, from a decidedly fannish perspective invested in the characters and their relationships.

 

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Movie Review: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 

After experimenting releasing major films in both theaters and on ‘Premium Access’ as a method of mitigating restricted audiences due to the pandemic, and inciting a revolt of its artists, Disney has released the 25th Marvel Cinematic Universe feature, Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, exclusively for theatrical distribution.

Shang-Chi stars Simu Liu as the titular character, the son of Xu Wenwu, played by Tony Leung, a nearly immortal warlord whose mastery of ten mystical rings grants him fantastic powers and long life. Repelled by his father’s criminal life Shang-chi flees living in secret working as car valet alongside his equally underachieving best friend Katy played by rapper, writer, actress Awkwafina. After his father’s assassins failed to kill Shang-chi his secret of revealed and he along with Katy rush to save Shang-Chi estranged sister before she falls to the killers drawing the pair into a globe spanning mystical adventure that leads Shang-chi in revelation about himself, his heritage, and the meaning of family.

Shang-Chi is a solid entry in the MCU’s ever expanding cannon. It is quite pleasing that the character’s origins have been modified, removing the stain of ‘yellow peril’ and instead centered on a more respectful and accurate portrayal, at least to my under educated eyes, of Chinese culture and tradition. I will leave analysis of the films depiction of Chinese diaspora to those more fully equipped for such examination and restrict my opinions to the movie itself and its place in the MCU.

This film is neither the best nor the worst offering from the franchise’s feature catalog. It is stylish, well produced and directed with solid emotionally grounded performances from the entire cast. It doesn’t fail to have a bit of fun or occasional laugh utilizing the comedic talent of the actors while maintaining a family drama that explores the theme that we are, for both better and ill, the product of our families. A few of characters from other MCU properties make customary and expected appearances but there is one whose inclusion is a genie surprise and thoroughly entertaining. More so if one kept up with Marvel’s studio’s brief experiment run with ‘One Shot’ short films that had been included for a time as bonus material on the home video releases.

Where the film fails to reach the level of the very best Marvel movies are in the areas of the villain’s motivation, which is relatable and character driven but fails to have greater thematic importance such as will Killmonger in Black Panther, and in the a vaguely defined power set for the titular Ten Rings that leads to a climatic battle that at times feels a bit deus ex machina, not so much as to ruin the film’s resolution but enough in my eyes to undercut it. Still the writers and filmmaker avoided tired tropes and cliches such as the villain using the hero’s female friend as hostage, a tactic I would most happily hope to never witness in a film again.

There are two post credit sequences, the first more lighthearted the second more critical to further developments for Shang-chi and his story.

If you have enjoyed the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far then there is every reason to expect that Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings should provide you with a couple of hours of enjoyment the exact amount dependent upon your precise tastes.

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Remington — Sadistic Assholes

 

I hadn’t planned on two political posts back-to-back, but a bit of news sent my blood boiling and made this morning’s essay inevitable.

First off let me state that I do think the second amendment as written was intended as an individual right but like all rights that is not absolute. It can certainly be met with restrictions and regulation. So, my anger does not spring from a well of hatred towards guns or their owners.

Nearly nine years ago an evil man strode into Sandy Hook elementary school and slaughtered children and teachers.

Federal law, rightfully or wrongfully, protects gun manufactures from liability in how their products are used but parents or the gun-down children filed a suit in court not focused on the use but on the advertising used to sell the guns and a lead defendant is the arms company Remington. I do not know if their case has merit or not, I have not studied the law in the matter and that is something for the courts to determine. Remington as much as any person has a right to their day in court and to their defense.

When you sue or are sued you have a right to force the other side to retain and produce documents and evidence. IN this case the plaintiffs are demanding internal documents and such pertaining to Remington’s advertising campaigns. That’s fair, that the crux of the matter in the lawsuit.

Remington on the other hand is demand the attendance, grades, and disciplinarily records of murdered children.

How the actual fuck does any of that pertain to defending themselves over their advertising choices? I can’t see any conceivable way this at all bears upon the question before the court.

To me this stinks of nothing more than mental torture, of harassment, perhaps to cause enough metal trauma and anguish to force the parents to leave the suit.

Everyone has a right to a full and vigorous defense, everyone. Everyone also gets to reap the whirlwind of being a vicious, cruel, asshole which Remington and their lawyers seem intent on reaping.

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Texan Stasi

 

The Stasi were the Secret Police of Communist East Germany tasked, among other things, with watching the population for signs of disloyalty. Recruiting people to spy upon their friends, neighbors, and family near the end of the brutal murderous regime the Stasi had informants that comprised over 2% of the nation’s population. Turning neighbor against neighbor particularly with payments and profits is a lessoned well learned by the Republicans of Texas.

This week a new Texan lawn, one that is blatantly unconstitutional, went into effect after the conservative Supreme Court of the United States of American declined to issue a stay to put the novel legal tactic on hold. Texas made illegal all abortions, save that to explicitly prevent the death of the mother, after six weeks of pregnancy, in direct contradiction to nearly 50 years of constitutional precedent. But rather than making the enforcement of the law a matter for the state of Texas the law places enforced in the hands of the public by way of civil action creating standing for anyone who wishes it to sue any and all person involved in performing, assisting, or in any way aiding the abortion of its procurement. The law also creates a floor of ‘damages’ with this standing of $10,000, allows for the plaintiff to recover their legal expensive should they prove victorious in court while also disallowing the defend to recovery their legal costs should they prevail. By removing the state as the enforcement the Texan GOP hopes, and so far, has been correct in their plot, to make this difficult to review, halt, or reverse in the courts. Resolving this by way of the courts could take years and lots of money and contrary to Conservative propaganda most abortion services providers are far from rich.

Never create a political power you aren’t willing to give to your political opponents.

There are already rumblings, though I fear it will never come to more than talk, of ‘Blue’ states retaliating in kind. Pass blatantly unconstitutional gun control laws and put enforcement into the hand of the public with ruinous ‘damages’ and expensive court fess.  Frankly I wish this would happen. Not because I am an avid supporter of gun control, I have dear friends that are gun collectors, enthusiasts, and merchants, but I also have dear friends and family that are women and whose right are being trampled for utter bullshit and if this is the sort of pain that must be inflicted to protect them, then so be it.

 

 

 

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Things That Bug Me in the Alien Franchise

 

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Alien and Aliens, (Cubed can be dropped into the sea with the tesseract and Resurrection feels like a beta-edition of Firefly), I watched the first film during its

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

premier run in theaters and aside from the chest-buster in the moment before it sped away reminding me of Michigan J. Frog it excelled as a horror film, but there are elements in the pop culture surrounding the films that rub me the wrong way.

Xenomorph: I hate, hate, hate that people call the titular alien Xenomorph. First off Gorman used the term in Aliens, ‘a xenomorph may be involved’ clearly as a generic classification for any alien lifeform since aside from Ripley no one had ever seen or reported this beastie before. So, Bob, I hear you cry what should we call it? In the years before ‘xenomorph, hell before James Cameron’s Aliens was released me and my gaming group had a quite rational name for this thing, the Zeta Reticulan Parasite, since it was discovered at Zeta 2 Reticuli.

Flame Throwers: In the sequels that followed the titanic success of the first film there has been repeated reliance on using flame as a weapon to corral and herd the parasite. Good God people flame and flame throwers are useless against the creature. You can see how well they helped the first crew. Fire didn’t save one and there’s a very rational and simple reason for this. Ash was a fucking robot out to do the company’s bidding and when he suggested fire he was lying and not giving actually good advice. He already understood that it layers of silicon would help protect it against flame and fire.

A Killing Machine: From Cubed onward through Resurrection and the crossovers with the Predator franchise the parasite has been reduced to a slasher, killing to kill without motivation or purpose. In Alien and Aliens, it was following its lifecycle, not killing save when it was forced to or cornered, but breeding, reproducing. While Cameron deviated from O’Bannon’s original intent and planned lifecycle with the introduction of the Queen, O’Bannon had planned that captured organisms were cocooned and slowly transformed directly into the eggs that Kane has discovered, it still worked quite well as a highly unlikely but still credible cycle for the organism to follow. However, in the following movies the beast kills to kill and provided shock in place of horror.

Well, that enough ranting to kick off September.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Folk Horror Inspiration

 

Recently, I stumbled across a YouTube video from The Evolution of Horror exploring the cinematic subgenre of Folk Horror. The video had a very nice overview of the subgenre and presented one filmmaker’s, Adam Scovell, essential elements of folk horror the chain of Rural Setting — Isolated Groups — Skewed Morals or Beliefs — and Supernatural or Violent Happenings. Several of my favorite horror films are often classified as Folk Horror including the original and incredible The Wicker Man and I instantly saw the possibilities of Scovell’s analysis.

This prompted me to ponder could I craft a science-fiction story that followed the chain and landed successfully as a folk horror tale? I mean sure you could grab bag plot and character elements, follow the chain, and produce something that met the criteria but that’s nothing more than copying someone else’s work much like all those terrible slasher movies that followed in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween. I wanted something more than a copy, a paint-by-numbers execution I wanted something that at least spoke to me individually.

Pieces, fragments, began coalescing in my imagination and the unique constituent that would drive the mystery and horror arrived and I knew that had the skeleton framework of a new short story. Everything is not there yet, there are ineffable elements still cooking but for the first time in years I have a short story cooking and it is going to be science-fiction folk horror.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Streaming Review: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

 

This is a movie I haven’t seen since the late 70s when it appeared on HBO and was curious to revisit.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, henceforth referred to as Little Girl, stars a young Jodie Foster, the same year she appeared in Taxi Driver, as 13-year-old Rynn who lives with her curiously hard to meet Father, a commercially successful poet so you already know that we are in a land of fantastic events, in a small isolated, insular, and close New England village. Rynn’s clear brilliance, stubborn independence, and refusal to cowed by adults merely because they are adults provokes suspicion and attracts the attention of the village’s notorious but politically protected pedophile, Frank Hallet, played ably and creepily by Martin Sheen. With nosey neighbors and sexual predators pressing in Rynn’s secrets are soon exposed.

Little Girl is often genre classified as a horror film and horrific events do transpire but lacking any supernatural events and without an ever-escalating body count, not that isn’t one only compared to most horror movies this one’s quite modest, it may be more fitting to place the film within the thriller genre. Given the caliber of performers involved it is of no surprise that the acting to on-point and excellent with Foster displaying the sharp intellect often associated with her characters and Sheen exuding menace with bland conversational dialog. The film is hobbled by a score that at times feels incongruous with the movie’s tone sounding more jazz than suspenseful.

The movie is also disturbing, like Taxi Driver, for its open sexualization of its under-aged character. In addition to the threat of sexual assault from Hallet Rynn is proactively sexually active but viewers can rest assured the one from behind nude scene is of a 21-year-old body double.

With a brief 90-minute running time even with its slow pacing, Little Girl, requires only a small investment of time and is an interest example of contained horror before slashers ruled the coming decade.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is currently streaming on Shudder.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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I’ll Take The Earthquakes

 

My family in Florida often comments that they could never live in California, terrified of the earth suddenly moving under their feet. I’ve ridden out a few earthquakes including one that sent waves rippling along the wall of a Denny’s I was sitting in and they are frightening but not as scary as the governor of Florida and willingness to slaughter the people in his quest to become the next leader of the Turd Reich.

Last year, at the very start of the year, I was planning a trip to Florida to see my family and celebrate the release of my first novel, Vulcan’s Forge. The pandemic killed those plans, my sales, and north of 600,000 Americans. Despite this Florida’s governor not only will not implement the simplest anti-covid measure but actually threatens those who do. California may have vast wildfires and earthquakes but do not elect our deadly disasters.

Yes, my current governor is subject to a specious recall and may be a Nexus 5 Replicant but he is not actively acting to slaughter me and my family.

 

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Series Review: Marvel’s What If …?

 

 

Among the Marvel Cinematic Universe programing produced and released on Disney+, WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Solider, and Loki, Marvel’s What If …? is the only animated entry. Centered on alternate version of established characters and stories What If …? is anthology series with each episode a stand-alone and unique entry. Episode one explored an alternate universe where Agent Peggy Carter received the Super Solider treatments instead of Steve Rogers and the next episode brought us a version of The Guardians of the Galaxy where T’Challa (The Black Panther) was abducted as a child instead of Peter Quill creating a very different team of heroes that included a reformed Thanos.

I have been mildly entertained by the series so far but it is the third episode that in my opinion is so far the best. Titled What If .. Earth lost its Mightiest Heroes? the episode focuses on Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, having a very bad week as an unknown force or assassin murders all of his potential recruits for the yet formed Avengers. Where the preceding two episodes drew nearly all of their entertainment value from the novelty of the changes, Captain Carter instead of Captain America the stories were not that engaging nor that challenging. This episode moves with a proper mystery and a central character that engages the viewer as they struggle to find and requisite answer.

Marvel’s What If …? utilizes as voice talent many of the stars from the MCU, Samuel L. Jackson reprising his role as Nick Fury, Clark Gregg as fan favorite Phil Coulson, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, but some of the beloved actors are conspicuous in their absence with the replacement voice talent quite obvious. I do not know animation well enough to say exactly what style the series is produced in but the animation loos great and has a consistent style across episodes.

While I doubt Marvel’s What If …? is likely to become anyone’s favorite element of the vast MCU it does make for a pleasant and enjoyable half-hour of relaxed television viewing.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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