Monthly Archive for January, 2009

The Sword and the Sorcerer

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by
Paul
on January 24, 2009
in Reviews
. 10 Comments Tags: , , , .

Remember how I said there were a lot of dopey-ass movies made in the 1980s? Well, The Sword and the Sorcerer is certainly one of them. I confess going into this review that I have a small chip on my shoulder as regards how Hollywood has treated the Sword and Sorcery genre (a genre of which I’m quite fond). In my estimation, there has yet to be a good S & S film made… period. When I say this, I’m not counting things like The Lord of the Rings trilogy which, while it’s a class-A production, is not, strictly speaking, a Sword and Sorcery movie. (It is, to be precise, High Fantasy. Trust me: there’s a difference). The closest S & S has gotten to being successfully translated to the screen is 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. There, at least, the physical production and the production design were quite good but, in adapting the material, the filmmakers botched things pretty badly. The character depicted in that film is not the Conan of Robert E. Howard’s pulp stories thanks, in large part, to Schwarzenegger’s limited acting chops. The Sword and the Sorcerer (which came out about the same time as “Conan”) gets a few things right — the creators were clearly very enthusiastic and Lee Horsley gives it the old college try as Talon, the movie’s hero — but the screenplay doesn’t properly connect all of its own dots and the movie, let’s be frank, looks like it cost about $1.98 to produce. With other sorts of genre pictures, a low budget isn’t necessarily a deal breaker, but in a Sword and Sorcery film where a whole world is being created, it’s the kiss of death. All in all, in regards to The Sword and the Sorcerer, I’d have to say B for effort, D+ for execution. For all of the enthusiasm on display, I’m still left without a proper Sword and Sorcery movie, and that makes me sad.

And things aren’t about to get any better… There’s currently a new adaptation of Howard’s Conan in pre-production at Lion’s Gate. The director currently attached is Brett Ratner — he of the Rush Hour films. I feel rather strongly that this new movie won’t be any closer to the source material than the 1982 original because of that fact. (I guess you can tell I’m not a huge Ratner fan.)

Frost/Nixon

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by
Paul
on January 18, 2009
in Reviews
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Frost/Nixon is Ron Howard’s best film to date (at least of the ones I’ve seen — I admit to taking a pass on stuff like The Da Vinci Code and The Missing). Howard is certainly competent, but his movies generally don’t fire me with passion at all. I admire his willingness to move from genre to genre, but in that process, I believe that he’s failed to develop a distinctive voice. Frost/Nixon took a step or two toward making me believe that Howard could transcend simple by-the-numbers film-making. A lot of what makes the movie successful boils down to the excellent writing by Peter Morgan and the terrific lead performances by Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, but there’s definitely some craft on display in the directing as well. The camera work is good, and the pacing is almost thriller-like; there’s a tension that bleeds through the whole piece that keeps you engaged and wondering what’s going to happen next. For the first time since maybe Splash or Apollo 13, Ron Howard had me well and truly “on the hook”.

Also, one can’t help but draw parallels between this bad president of old and a bad president of more recent vintage. That gives the film a certain timeliness that contributes to its success.

John Carter Update

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by
Paul
on January 15, 2009
in General
. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, Pixar’s Andrew Stanton is currently helming a live action adaptation of Edgar Rich Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series. SCI FI Wire just posted a quick interview/status report on the project. The most interesting thing to me is the fact that this will actually not be a Pixar production — Stanton is, instead, “on loan” to Disney for the duration of the project.

Click on the lovely Frank Frazetta image below to read the SCI FI Wire piece…

War Games

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by
Paul
on January 14, 2009
in Reviews
. 6 Comments Tags: , , .

You know, there were a lot of dopey-ass movies made in the 1980s — particularly movies aimed at the so-called “youth market”. Needless to say, the vast majority of them don’t hold up. In fact, some of them are downright embarrassing when revisited here in this new millennium. So, to all of you thirty and forty-somethings out there who wax nostalgic now and again, let me give you an example of a movie that does hold up (and hold up brilliantly): War Games. It was actually surprising to me just how well this flick withstands the test of time. It’s one of those rare movies that appeals to the adolescent market without pandering or insulting. In fact, I’ll go you one better: the only thing that makes this a “teen movie” is the fact that its protagonist is not yet out of high school. Everything else in War Games takes place in a very adult context, and it isn’t hard to imagine the same story with a more mature central figure. Thankfully, that’s not the route the filmmakers took since the high school world and the high-stakes adult world mesh together beautifully. Anyone seeking to make an adventure yarn for young adults would be well-advised to watch this movie. It truly is possible to tell a story with deep thematic underpinnings in which your primary characters aren’t nitwits.

If you haven’t seen War Games in a while, do yourself a favor and give it another look.

Why Walt Matters…

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by
Paul
on January 13, 2009
in General
. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This morning, my bro directed my eyes to a Washington Post article on how Walt Disney is being neglected in current art circles (or, more specifically, in museums). I agree with absolutely everything columnist Paul Richard has to say. Click the pic below to see what I’m going on about…

A Whole New Mind

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by
Paul
on January 12, 2009
in Reviews
. 2 Comments Tags: , .

Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind postulates a forthcoming economic and social revolution akin to the Industrial Revolution. For the past few decades we’ve been in the throes of what most people call The Information Age, a time when people were paid for their Left Brain Skills — in other words people made their living by retaining and disseminating specialized knowledge. Workers who fall into this category would be lawyers, doctors, computer programmers, etc. In the West, Pink argues, the Information Age is coming to an end. Through outsourcing and computerization, that specialized information can be retained and dissmeminated either better or more cheaply or both. Of course, one age cannot end without another taking its place, and Pink suggests that the next age will be a Right Brain Age. Skills like empathy, creativity and pattern recognition will be how the West earns its daily bread. The author — a former speech writer for Al Gore — makes a convincing case, breaking down Right Brain thinking into six distinct aspects. I won’t recreate his theory for you here in this limited space, but his ideas do make for reading which is both interesting and entertaining. Where A Whole New Mind breaks down for me is in its failure to concretize what a Right Brain economy really means. What will the worker of the next twenty years actually be doing? Apart from its rather cursory final chapters, I do feel that “Mind” is worth your time, however.

The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging

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by
Paul
on January 5, 2009
in Reviews
. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I saw Arianna Huffington promote this book on The Daily Show and it sounded mildly intriguing so I downloaded the Kindle version. All in all, I can’t say that I learned a lot (which is unfortunate given the fact the book purports to be a guide to all things bloggy), but it was a pleasant enough diversion. The informational chapters are side-barred with frequent excerpts from prior H.P. bloggers (many of them clever celebrities) so it wasn’t like this was a bitter pill to swallow.

If you’ve never blogged or you’re just getting your feet wet in the field, I’d say give The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging a look-see. You’ll get tips on building an audience (something I obviously haven’t paid much heed to here at good ol’ Crabapple Cove), advertising on your site, etc. The book’s a decent primer, but not much more than that.

Valkyrie

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by
Paul
on January 5, 2009
in Reviews
. 7 Comments Tags: .

I seem to remember hearing some really negative advance buzz on Valkyrie — something on the order of it being an unmitigated disaster the studio wasn’t sure what to do with. Now, having seen the picture, I’m left scratching my head as to where all of those bad vibes might have come from. Valkyrie is, by no stretch of the imagination, a disaster. It’s smartly-written, it’s well-acted, and it’s competently-made. I don’t regret seeing it at all, but — and here’s where we veer into negative territory — the movie didn’t exactly fire my blood either. The suspense is never ratcheted-up to an edge-of-your-seat level, and you’re never as invested in the characters as you should be. I think the best thing the flick did for me personally was clue me in on the aftermath of the failed assassination of Hitler depicted in the story. I knew that such an attempt on Der Fuhrer’s life had taken place, and of course I knew that Hitler had lived, but I had no idea just how close the conspirators had come to taking control of the German government. So, Valkyrie worked as history, but not so much as a thriller. It would be mean-spirited (and inaccurate) to say that it was only as effective as a good History Channel special, but that does give you some small idea of my thoughts on the movie.

“Morningstar” — Flash Fiction Piece #2

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by
Paul
on January 3, 2009
in Show and Tell and Writing
. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Here is the second of my Flash Fiction experiments. Obviously, I went a little overboard with the length this time (it’s something like 1800 words as opposed to 850 like the last one).

And, just so we’re clear, I’m not passing off any of these stories as be-all-end-alls. My goal at this point is to finish as many of these stories as possible and, after a period of time, find that I am happy enough with some of them to evaluate them for re-writes.

Anyway, hope you enjoy…

Morningstar:

I’d spent the morning canvassing West Hollywood – talking to bartenders, beat cops, and some friends of Lilith’s who lived on the border to Beverly Hills. At eleven a.m. sharp, a black sedan pulled up beside me and a brutish voice said, “Get in”. Actually, I’d expected them sooner.

Two hours later, they dumped me at Union Station downtown. Their car was still moving and I rolled to a stop in the gutter – tired, wet, and badly beaten. From out of nowhere, a long, well-manicured hand slid into my bleary-eyed view. I took it and it helped me out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Rance (the owner of the hand) was dumbstruck by sudden appearance. “How’d you know I was here? I was gonna call you.”

I bent my spine back until it cracked and this made my new companion wince. “They’ve been following you too. Actually, they were tickled that you were already at the train station. They said the two of us could fuck off together. Maybe share a sandwich on the train.”

“Charming. Hey, you look like hell.”

There it was: Rance’s penetrating observational gift. “It’s been a rough morning. I spent most of the last hour with my head submerged in a toilet bowl. Forcibly, before you ask.”

“It looks like your nose is broken.”

“Yeah, something about me sticking it where it doesn’t belong. These guys’ve obviously seen too many gangster movies.”

We started walking toward the station, and I was drawing some disdainful stares. A cop near the entrance was minding our business a little too closely for my tastes.

“What’d you find out before you got pinched?” Rance asked, clearly eager to get to his own findings.

“Nothing useful. I traced Lilith’s movements on Friday night; got a picture of her state of mind. People that knew her said she wasn’t herself. Her behavior was erratic; she was scared. No one saw her more than eight hours before her body was found. At least no one honest.”

Rance smiled a smile full of mean little teeth. “Looks like I’m a better Sam Spade Junior than you.” He removed a tiny manila envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “Maybe I’m the one that should’ve gotten the beating.”

“The day’s still young.” I opened the envelope and dropped a silver key into my palm.

“Goes to a locker,” Rance said. “A locker in there.” He pointed toward Union Station and seemed about to bust with pride.

“Handy. Where did it come from?”

Some of Rance’s enthusiasm melted away, and his voice dropped to a more sympathetic register. “Lilith’s stomach. The autopsy. We had a man on the inside.”

“Don’t we always? So, you’re telling me Lilith ate this key before she was killed?”

He nodded once.

I held the key up so that I could see it more clearly. Etched into it was the number six-sixty-six. The locker number and Lilith’s idea of a joke.

Continue reading ‘“Morningstar” — Flash Fiction Piece #2′

A Review and a Resolution

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by
Paul
on January 1, 2009
in Reviews and Writing
. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

As I write this, it’s 2009 on the East Coast. We still have three hours here to go on the left side, so I’m safe in squeezing in a quick New Year’s resolution — but first, a book review…

The Review:

Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver is about as “no-frills” a book on writing as you’re likely to find. Cleaver has a very simple philosophy regarding craft and he doesn’t waste a lot of time with the bells and whistles. In fact, he’s very superstitious of most of the things you’re likely to find in other books of this kind. He refers to things like beginning, middle and end; character progression; and theme as “critic words”. They’re not things the working writer thinks about (at least not unduly) when he is crafting his tales. Apart from a very straightforward rule-set, Cleaver stresses that there are no substitutes for intuition and good, old fashioned hard work. The ethos presented here strikes me as very Blue Collar. Writing is treated like a job — albeit a creative job that calls upon different personal resources than, say, digging ditches. Cleaver doesn’t shy away completely from the “touchy-feely” aspects in that he does do a chapter on Writer’s Block. But even this section of the book is direct and doesn’t overindulge in hand-holding. I do have one (relatively serious) complaint about Immediate Fiction before I move on to the Resolution part of this post… Given the “meat and potatoes” nature of Cleaver’s approach, I felt there was an unnecessary amount of reiteration in the book — almost as though the author was padding the text just so he could reach standard book length. I suppose that one could argue that reiteration is a part of teaching, but, even still, I thought there was a bit too much of it here.

Qualms aside, I was left admiring Immediate Fiction, and I feel that the philosophy it espouses is fairly close to my own nascent approach. Which brings me to the Resolution…

The Resolution:

I’m glad I enjoyed Immediate Fiction since it will be the last book on writing I will read in quite some time — at least through calendar year 2009. It’s time that I faced a few simple facts:

  • Talking about writing isn’t writing.
  • Thinking about writing isn’t writing.
  • Reading about writing isn’t writing.
  • Only writing is writing.

So then, my goal in 2009 is to become productive. I’ve already begun this process by starting with very short short stories — preferably less than 1000 words (the first of those stories appears here). I do three drafts per story and the I move on to the next one (I’m currently on story number two). My expectation is that, during the course of the year, I will allow myself to write longer stories, but I want to make sure I finish each one before I start another one. Of course, it would be terrific if I could start a novel during the year, but I will only do so if I feel like I have a firm grip on the process.

Anyway, wish me luck.