Monthly Archives: August 2018

What’s going on?

Life, Movies, Music, Netflix Original, The Darkest Winter

It’s the last day in August and with the holiday weekend this feels like the end of summer. Sure we can expect warm weather for quite a bit longer but mentally when September hits it feels like winter is standing on top of us already.

So with the pending winter blues approaching, what’s going on?

The obvious is my book, The Darkest Winter. I’m waiting to hear back from Amazon about getting approval for the paper book files. When that happens, I order the proof to make sure everything is fine and dandy for public consumption. While I wait for the proof, I’ll get the ebook in order. I expect my business cards to come in next week so I think the end of next week is looking the most likely for launch. There are a ton of moving parts I’m now navigating and I’m itching to show the end result to everyone.

With September hitting, that means TV is about to pop off. Netflix dropped Ozark season 2 today and the first show on the doccet for cable TV is season 13 of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The promo looks insane so I have high hopes. That’s on Wednesday I think. Then Bojack Horseman on Netflix! There’s a huge list of programming about to start and I’ll do updates as they start (5 weeks away from hockey season!).

Better Call Saul is going well and Ink Master just started so those have been keeping me warm along with some movies and stand up specials on Netflix that I’ve been knocking off my list:

  • Moonwalkers (good)
  • Hardcore Henry (nauseating, turned it off)
  • Wheelman (liked it a lot)
  • Bert Kreicher: Secret Time (hilarious)
  • The Standups- Deon Cole and Kyle Kinane (both hilarous)
  • Train to Busan (loved it)
  • Iliza Shlesinger: Elder Millennial (very good)
  • Demeri Martin: The Overthinker (very good)
  • I Am Not a Serial Killer (good)
  • I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (good)

I’m listening to Twenty One Pilots new track “My Blood” right now and I dig it. Their new album comes out soon and I’m sure it’ll be a smash. Eminem dropped a new album out of no where and I’m about to check that out.

The Darkest Winter Update 8

The Darkest Winter

A major milestone was reached today. I submitted the book to CreateSpace. They are the part of Amazon that does physical book printing. A humanbeing is now reviewing the files to make sure everything is suitable for print. I should be contacted tomorrow. Assuming everything is ok, I order a proof and that gets delivered to me for review.

That proof is the book in my hand. I’ll check it out to make sure it’s printed right and nothing is wrong with the physical copy that will be printed whenever someone orders the book off of Amazon. This step is to insure the book I intend people to hold in their hand is being made.

So this is project is rapidly coming to completion. Release is very close, I’m thinking in a week depend on how fast I get the proof (and it passes my standards).

I still have to prepare the ebook file for Kindle. That’s a separate arm of Amazon. That is a much faster process than the physical book and I believe that will take a day or too to get sorted. Since today is Wednesday, I’ll probably get that done Friday.

Then it’s marketing time. So everything is coming together and I’ll have a release date for you soon.

Disenchanted

Netflix Original

From the creator(s) of The Simpsons and Futurama!

I liked this so much I watched all ten episodes this weekend. I haven’t watched The Simpsons and years and consider myself a bigger Futurama fan. That worked in my favor as the writing skews more towards Futurama.

I think the easiest way to describe Disenchantment is to take Futurama and change the genre from sci-fi to fantasy. The main character here is Princess Bean of Dreamland. She’s a bit…rebellious let’s say about the whole princess gig. She doesn’t have a problem getting into trouble but when she meets Elfo, an elf also trying to figure things out, and Luci, Bean’s very own personal demon, things get kicked up a notch or two. Oh, and her Dad, King Zog is on a desperate hunt for the elixir of life.

I can’t really think of anything I don’t like about this show. I laughed like I did when Futurama first came out. It’s absurd, rude, and sincere all at the same time. The casting is perfect and I love the main trio of Bean (Abbi Jacobson), Elfo (Nat Faxon), and Luci (Eric Andre). Elfo is my favorite, a kind of magical mix of Homer and Fry. There were a few times where I swear he said exactly what I would have if I was in his situation. I even love the opening credits music.

The show covers a lot of ground in just 10 episodes. We get to see in and out of the Dreamland kingdom and while they ring the bell on the fantasy tropes for expected gags, they also do some great world building. When the main arc of the elixir comes around to its end in the last few episodes I was left wanting more. The worst part of the show is that there are only ten episodes!

The set up for season 2 looks ripe for all new adventures and I can’t wait to see where they go with it.  I avoided just about all the promo material for this so I think I’m going to go on the hunt for the interviews to dig further into the makings of one of my new favorites.

Face Off has come to an end

TV

I’ve adored this show since it’s debut in 2011. After 13 seasons, one of my favorite shows is now finished.

I love the creativity, the artistry, and the professionalism that Face Off gave it’s viewers. Everyone they get for each season is so talented and my love for movie magic got to be treated every week. There’s no nasty garbage on this show too. Everyone is cool, there is no fighting and whenever they are able to, the contestents jump at the chance to help another fellow artist. This season was another stand out, bringing back artists who didn’t make it all the way through their season. A try at redemption on this pressure cooker of a contest, the final three artists were all very strong. I think the judges picked the right winner, so that feels like a satisfying way to go out too.

I hope Face Off is just on an extended hiatus (a lot of programming was made in 7 years) amd comes back in time. There’s nothing else like this on TV and I think aside from being entertaining, this show has been inspiring the next generation of practical special effects artists.

More, please!

Mission: Impossible-Fallout

Movies

The Mission: Impossible movies have been pretty reliable for entertainment. Especially with the release of Ghost Protocol, the franchise has found it’s groove and brought some real unique and exciting action set pieces. Fallout continues that trend.

Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie returns for his second term helming the ship and this guy knows how to make movie magic. Solomon Lane continues to be a bother, his followers forming a new organization under new leadership. They’ve got their sights set on causing mass destruction to create a new world order and it’s up to Ethan Hunt and his IMF team to once again save the world.

Right out of the gate, the plot gets pretty convoluted. There’s a lot of double-crossing going on and it gets hard to keep track of it all. New characters get quick introductions and it’s not clear who they are, where they come from, and who they work for. Being a spy series that’s expected to a degree but it feels like a lot is glossed over and the viewer is expected just know the characters name and be willing to be whisked away to the next scene(I’m thinking of The White Widow in particular). I’m sure some confusion can be cleared up with more viewings and revisiting earlier films for a refresher (Sean Harris’ Solomon Lane was introduced in Rogue Nation). Another point of confusion for me is name confusion. Solomon Lane and John Lark have similar last names and they are often referred to only by their last names. Sometimes I wasn’t sure what name the actor said and would get confused about who they were talking about. It’s also found it weird that once again, the IMF team are cut off from their resources and government help. “We gotta do this alone!” is turning into a well-worn crutch for this series.

While those are some bothersome problems, it doesn’t ruin an otherwise fantastic ride. McQuarrie knows how to frame a scene and shoot action. This movie is oftentimes gorgeous and the action set pieces are mostly all Raise the Bar of the Entire Industry level. This is one of the few movies I’ve seen in a while that demands you go to the cinema to get the most out of it.

Every inch of the frame is utilised. They must have used some crazy new wide angle lenses because the picture looks so expansive. Gorgeous framing with eye-popping cinematography. London and Paris wrap themselves around the viewer and asks you to take a bite.

This wide-angle look is continuous throughout the movie. If you’re watching the team come up with a plan, walking through a location or on a crazy chase through a city or mountain range, you have a view of it all. Action scenes aren’t crammed in tight and cut at warp speed. You can see where everyone is and what they are doing. The positioning is clear and you can follow the madness, often feeling like you’re there.

I watched this in a Dolby Cinema room and I think that’s a big part of why this movie popped so much for me. Monsterous screen, gorgeous picture quality, and a stupidly expensive sound system. Like I mentioned, McQuarrie shoots most of this action wide so when he sticks the camera on the side of a vehicle, or inside of it, it felt like I was right there. This is especially effective in the helicopter scene where you bounce back and forth with a character shooting out of the sides. You can see a ton of landscaping flying by and it totally sells how high up you are and how small the inside of the helicopter is. Watching the actual Tom Cruise clinging to the bottom of the helicopter is memorizing and pushes a sense of realism a lot of action movies these days don’t do. Speaking of realism, the sound work on Fallout is also incredible. The report from handguns was a real stand out and kicks and punches sound so brutal.

The ads show crazy glimpses of a bathroom fight and it totally lived up to the hype. I think the last fight scene that really knocked people out is the hallway fight from the first season of Daredevil on Netflix (something that production as tried to duplicate and never achieved again, so far). It is nuts and needs to be seen. It legit looks like they are beating the stuffing out of each other. Henry Cavill looks like a monster brawler. I didn’t think they’d top that fight and then I’m served up with an absolute slobber knocker of a fight in a cabin that was riveting from start to finish. I think the helicopter chase scene will go down in history as one of the best action sequences ever filmed.

I found a lot to like here and it makes me continue to look forward to more. I think another change of pace, the likes of what Rogue Nation did, is now needed to keep this series on top. Clean up the plot and avoid those M:I cliches. On the action front, I don’t know how they can top this, but hey, that’s not my job. If it was, I’d hire every action choreographer and stunt person from this movie to do it.

The Darkest Winter Update 7

The Darkest Winter

I hit my two week deadline and completed my final edits. The text is done! That’s a major milestone, it means the book is done, the story is there, and I’m never going to edit those words again.

It’s been a long journey. I’m so familiar with the story having worked on it for so long that it’s rather mundane to me. These past 2 weeks I took a slow pace to keep myself from rushing and skipping over parts. Even though the story is old hat to me, I still really love the work. I had some much needed help in this last stage from two people to  stomp out typos and continuity errors. I’m very proud of what I’ve written and I think it’s a great first novel.

Yesterday, as I was bringing it to a close I went back to some final notes to make sure I was happy with those parts. I came to realize that those last bits were nit picking. I was looking for things to change based on very little. Can I write this sentence better? Does it need to be altered? Should I change it? Will someone get hung up on this sentence or word choice? Often times when I tried to change something for the better, or an attempt to make it better, I was just changing it to change it. Or, I was making it worse. Stuffing too much detail in and making it more complicated than it needed to be. Overthinking things can make it feel like you’re drowning. With that feeling coming back more and more, I relaized the book was finished.

The cover isn’t complete, but it’s very close. I have a lot of details to hammer out, but the bulk of the work is done. I’m confident I’ll have the book for sale this week and it’ll be a hell of a day to share with you.