OK, pre-season. But it kinda counts!
It’s too early to anything substantial but it’s
After this first game, the team looks fast and the power play lines are without a doubt better. Just seeing one game, it boosts the confidence level of the offensive line but the
The other takeaway is that the Devils are also way better than last year. The rival games are going to be nuts. The Metro division just got even better.
Yesterday, I did another book appearance. This one was at an apartment complex in Caldwell, just down the road from the library I did a few months ago. Thanks to Frances at the Caldwell library, I got this one set up (networking!).
And it was another success! It was expecting at most 12 people at the Marian Manor and it turned out to be closer to 30! I did my intro as I normally do but added what the book was about as there were people in attendance who weren’t part of their book club so they didn’t read The Darkest Winter. From there went into the genesis of the story and how I wrote it and the goals I wanted to accomplish in the story. Then I opened it up to questions.
I received a ton of great questions! Many of them made me think much further than just surface-level “how did you come up with X” responses. I’ve found that a lot of people are very interested in the writing process: how a story comes together, if my characters surprised me, what parts of writing I do and don’t like, my process, other authors I turn to for inspiration.
I still tend to ramble on with my answers. I simple question can lead me to many anecdotes and I actually found myself forgetting what the question was and then asking, “Did I answer your question?” That’s much better than a yes or no answer, I think. Plus I’m keeping much better eye contact with the audience so I can see when I’m losing people. I consciously caught myself going on too long so I don’t think I went too overboard. I’d say I kept half the answers short and sweet, so that’s good. That gives me some wiggle room.
I’m definitely able to read my audiences better. I kept it entertaining, I walked around, was animated in my answers, and kept their attention for an hour. That time went really fast and that’s in large part because they were so good. I got a few laughs in too which is an amazing feeling. Turns out I’m great with crowd work! I wonder if watching all that stand-up comedy over the years has rubbed off on me.
Many came up to me to ask more questions, a lot of thanks for coming, a ton of compliments on not only the book but my presentation. One woman even told me that she stayed up past midnight multiple times to keep reading! That’s probably the best compliment an author can get. That and when is the next one coming out, which I was also asked!
I like doing these a lot, they’re so much fun. I’ve also noticed that going into these, I am not nervous at all. Speaking in front of my writers’ group for all these years had upped my public speaking game so well. I also attribute it to knowing the material backward and forwards, inside and out, that I can easily answer anything.
The Darkest Winter has been out for a year now. With that, this will be the final update. The whole experience has been cataloged here and it’s been enlightening, to say the least. The next project is stewing in the pot and I hope you’ll join me on that journey as well.
Escape Plan- If you take out the hyper violence and gore out of Saw, you get this movie. What’s left is a surprisingly fun watch. You see the trailer and it’s impossible not to make the comparison. Instead of being kidnapped, the group of people here are brought together under the guise of being invited to win money by figuring out the world’s most difficult escape room. Then in typical murder mystery fashion they start making connections that they weren’t randomly chosen for this and the world building of who is doing this and why comes together at the end to set up a sequel or two. Making a PG-13 Saw movie is a pretty safe bet when it comes down to getting funding for a Hollywood movie. Even if it is far from original, it’s well made and it got the budget needed to do the script justice. The cast is good, the direction is solid, and the production design is really impressive. The entire movie takes place almost entirely in just a few “puzzle” rooms and they are all hyper detailed, unique, and are really the stars of the show. I’d say this is a good movie to watch on a rainy day and you just want to take it easy.
Jungle- I watched this because Daniel Radcliffe is in it and he’s great in basically everything. Based on the true survivor story of Jossi Ghinsberg, Radcliffe plays Jossi, a young man traveling the world as he figures out what he wants to do in life. When the movie starts he’s been on the road for months, been in many places around the world and makes a new friend named Kevin in Bolivia. The two run into Marcus, whom Kevin knows from his own journey around the world. Together they meet Karl, who says he can bring them to a remote Indian village in the jungle that basically no one in the outside world has seen and Jossi is all about going. He doesn’t want to do touristy stuff and this is the perfect chance to go on a real adventure. The others soon agree and a few days into the trip, it’s clear they’ve made a mistake following Karl. Jossi gets put through the ringer and you are with him every step of the way. Well made survival movie as great care was done to make each brutal step feel like it’s own unique challenge instead of one long montage of misery.
Glass- I loved Unbreakable when it came out and M. Night Shyamalan turning that one off into the start of a trilogy all these many years later has been a lot of fun to watch.
Captain Marvel- This is what you’d call a cookie cutter Marvel movie. No surprises in this comic book movie. It’s not that it’s bad, just kinda…there. It certainly looks good, the special effects doing their part to make the fantasy elements look real. But acting-wise, it falls short. Samuel L. Jackson is his charming self, happily glowing and sashaying through all his scenes. Brie Larson as the title character more or less sleepwalks her way through this. Most of the time it doesn’t seem like she’s having fun on set. She’s monotone through the whole movie until the last act where Carol Danvers shows some kind of personality. Everyone else felt pretty forgettable to me too. In the Marvel library, I think this is going to be a one and done for me (along with Black Panther and the first 2 Thor movies).
The end of the summer months means the TV schedule is pretty light so that gave me room to catch a few movies. Netflix keeps rolling out the hits and the fall TV season is starting soon so that means movies will be put on the back burner. Let’s get to it.
If Beale Street Could Talk- A beautiful but heartbreaking film. It’s the early 1970s New York City and 19 year old Tish and her 22 year old boyfriend, Fonny, are madly in love. One day Fonny is wrongly accused of a terrible crime and detained. While waiting for trial Tish tries everything to get him free while preparing for their first child to be born. Exceptional acting and cinematography bring this love story to poetic life but there are some strange decisions in the presentation. This half love story and half political/social justice strife tale is stitched together with stage production and voice over narration. Whenever the switch happened it took me right out of the movie and I lost interest. It feels like the movie abruptly changes genres (mediums, really) with melodramatic lighting and character exposition. Oddly awkward moments that mar an otherwise great movie.
Alita: Battle Angel– This turned out to be way more fun than I thought it was going to. Based on decades old manga series, director Robert Rodriquez helms this action fiesta. Alita is a cyborg that was found in a dump and revived by Dr. Dyso Ido. With her memory wiped, she comes to learn who she was and who she is as she gets tangled up with cyborg assassins and the mega corporation that runs Iron City. They used the Avatar motion capture technology to make this movie and as a result the visuals are amazing. Some of the best CGI around makes for some fantastic anime-action come to life. Alita is a lot of fun to follow around, there’s some neat world building that sets the stage for a lot more that I hope we’ll someday get to see. As far as action movies go, this is one of the best in a many years. Plus it’s a brand new world for Hollywood to explore so that makes it stand out more. Nothing else looks like this.
Creed II- I loved the first movie and this absolutely a worthy sequel. Adonis Creed is the heavyweight champion and as such he must defend his belt. From the other side of the planet comes his biggest threat–Viktor Drago–the son of Ivan Drago. While Rocky’s career went skyward after their astonishing fight in the 80s, Ivan went home a failure and his boxing career basically ended on the spot. Now, Ivan has been training his son to go win the success he never did by taking on the son of the man he killed in the ring 30 years ago. The challenge comes to Adonis as a sense of pride and revenge, how can he turn down a fight with this kind of legacy on the line? When Rocky steps away, wanting nothing to do with petty revenge, possibly repeating history that’s haunted him all this time, Adonis looks elsewhere for a new cornerman. A great movie on many levels, Dolph Lundren returns as Ivan and the guy they found to play Viktor, Florian Munteanu, is a hulk of a human being. He and Michael B. Jordan standing toe to toe perfectly
Baskets and Legion ended their runs this month and while the above posters make the shows look completely different, they actually have a lot in common.
Both are about men who are lost, a childhood irreparably damaged followed by adulthood fr
Baskets
That said, Baskets takes place in Bakersfield. California which offers its own levels of wild characters.
Through four seasons, Chip Baskets struggles for success. He fails out of a prestigious French clown school and his marriage disintegrates too. Clowning is his life’s passion and that profession is hard to get respect in even the best of circumstances. Being a starving artist is rough and when everyone thinks you’re a joke, having a healthy amount of self-esteem is even harder. Plus his love life is a failure too, so Chip has to crash back at home where his mother does her best to keep him going. In a constant battle with his twin brother Dale, Chip is always fighting for air. While Dale has seemingly done better at life that Chip, he has his own mountain of problems to overcome.
Always in the backseat of the decision making, season 3 saw Chip get real responsibility as the CEO of The Baskets Family Circus. He’s able to dabble in clowning as well as run the show. For a guy that’s struggled to grow up, it’s the most responsibility and control he’s ever had. He jumps at the chance to be seen as an adult to everyone around him. Season 4 sees that opportunity get difficult and he seeks council elsewhere with a life coach he finds (hijacks) from his friend from Martha.
All in all, Chip just wants to be independent. The ability to control his own life can come from that and he desperately wants it. So this guy who lost his father at a young age, always in the shadow of his mother and brothers, keeps fighting for it. For years he’s kicked as hard as he can to keep his head above water and in this last season, it all comes to a head. When he tries to save the rodeo and his mother takes control away from him, he breaks. It’s a testament to who he is that the people around him come to save him, they don’t let him drift away. There’s no clean ending to Baskets but we do get to see that Chip gets back up and continues to get his own pride, independence, and chance to be happy.
In Legion David also struggles for identity. His father abandons him as an infant, his mother dies when he’s very young and his sister does her best to raise him. Soon he’s diagnosed as a schizophrenic and institutionalized. He’s told that he’s crazy–that the things he’s seeing and the fantastic things he can do aren’t real–turns out that he’s anything but. As David discovers, he was inhabited by a powerful evil force when he was an infant and he’s a mutant himself. The son of Charles Xavier, one of the most powerful mutants, David has unfathomable powers.
Like Chip Baskets, David was drawn a bad hand from the start and his life is a struggle because of it. Resentful of his father abandoning him–left to deal with these terrifying powers and a legit monster inside of him on his own–for a long time David doesn’t know which way is up. He ends up killing a lot of people and harming the ones who at one point fought at his side.
The comic book origins of Legion offered the writers a lot of outside the box storytelling possibilities. This show frequently goes off into the deep end to show if it’s concepts and ideas. The production is unbelievable with it’s editing, set design, direction, and cinematography. There’s no other show on now that looks or tries to do the stuff that Legion does. The budget keeps the action scenes from being huge, but what they do is really effective (something The Walking Dead needs to learn from). It can get confusing to watch, there’s a lot of heady concepts being thrown around in untraditional ways (looking at you season 2). Now that the series is complete, I think being able to watch it all without having to wait will be a big help in understanding the story.
David’s story is one of redemption. He has terrible visions from a powerful being that makes him dangerous to others. He desperately wants to fix what’s wrong with him and on that journey, he finds out a lot of painful things about his past (things that he had no control over). His father let all this happen to him and his family and that makes the anger in him grow even more. Once excised of the demon, it doesn’t change his mentality. He starts a cult where he brainwashes everyone into loving him and it does nothing to help him. It’s all phony and he knows it. By using his powers to try and fix things, it’s made him just as dangerous as before, but now he can aim his powers where he wants them. A threat to mankind, his old friends come after him to shut him down. When all his plans to make his life better fail, David becomes obsessed with changing the past.
And that’s where David’s redemption comes in. In this last season, he finds Switch, a mutant with time travel powers. The end becomes a race between life, death, and morality.
Both of these shows are about a broken person and their relationships. They take very different paths in exploring their concepts but they both do extraordinary things with their character studies.
When the people around you are involved in crime, it seats you next to them in the life raft, whether you know what they are doing or not. Being an accomplice or guilty by association can have the same amount of blowback, just from different sides of the law. In Widows, four women are left with the debt their dead husbands left behind after a heist goes wrong. They are forced to fight for the future when the most dangerous people in Chicago come to get their money back.
Heist movies are a lot of fun and when they are done right, it’s some of the best storytelling around. Widows
Veronica, Linda, Alice, and Amanda don’t know each other, but their husbands do. The trouble comes to these women when the men are all killed stealing $2 million from Jamal Manning, a man with deep ties to the criminal underground and growing ties to the political world of the city. With the men dead, it opens a new dangerous void. Linda’s business is taken from her, Amanda is left as a single mother, and Alice is left adrift having been dependent on her husband’s cash flow. When Jamal comes to Veronica, threating her for the money–which was destroyed in the heist–Veronica is forced to take charge and put a plan into motion. Her husband, Harry, was the leader of the group[ and planned all of their work. He kept detailed notes and she finds them, detailing a $5 million payday. She contacts the other women and the layers of the story build and unfold from there.
The pacing of Widows is remarkably done. Not just in terms of plot points and progression, but with character traits. Each scene seeds what happens next, small character details and actions that don’t seem to be important come back to make a big difference. I also like that the women are all normal, there are no superheroes or highly trained professionals fixing things. They come from different backgrounds and are at very different points of life. The thrills come from watching these characters work their own angles, using their own talents to make the heist happen. No one stands still in the story, they are all important. When problems come up, when ideas don’t work, it ratchets up the fun and excitement perfectly. The crisis level never gets outlandish.
It’s a very believable move too, enough is done to make everything plausible. A lot of world-building is done in a short amount of time and it all feels natural. This great script comes to life with the fantastic direction of Steve McQueen. The camera placements and movements are carefully and artfully done. All the detail of the story isn’t told in dialog, it’s subtly expressed with the scenery. My favorite shot is the one after the press conference in the projects with Jack Mulligan. He does all of his talking points about his small business initiative and then flees in a town car after a reporter pressures him on some of his scandals. The camera is placed on the hood of the car, pointed to the left, towards the windshield so we can see everyone standing in this dilapidated block as Jack gets in. The car drives away from the projects and the characters talk in the backseat in one complete take. We never see them talk, just voice over. As a powerful man whines about his political world, the environment changes. In about two minutes, the borders of a few tax brackets are crossed. The camera has panned to the right, the car stops in front of a big beautiful home, Jack stops ranting, and he exits the car.
I wish I had seen Widows sooner, I completely missed it when it came out. Easily one of the best movies of 2018.
Out of left field comes this monster of a track! No other band on the planet could make this song. I mean come on.
The creepy, weirdo vibes of yesteryear come roaring back. All my favorite Korn elements are in here, it’s like they smashed every album into this one song. They have been this creative in years, I’ve been dying to hear them do stuff like this. It’s definitely a love it or hate it song, it’s in your face obnoxious and brash.
It’s simple and complex. Slow and ferocious. The very beginning is a classic slow thumper that the band is known for (Here to Stay comes to mind) and then it just cracks open like a volcano. Simple riffs transform into absolute shredding and whatever the hell that spiraling wave effect is at 2:37 gives me chills. A bunch of tempo changes, beautiful melodies, and there’s funk in here too! It’s bouncy and the breakdowns (1:05!) are absolute neck-snapping headbangers. It’s impossible for me to stay still when I listen to this.
Every element is amazing, everyone playing at their best. Ray’s Doctor Octopus style playing from Korn III: Remember Who You Are makes a triumphant return. Jon’s vocal layering is
I cannot wait to hear what the rest of The Nothing sounds like.
I’ve done some movie watching. It went alright.
Robin Hood (2018)- I like the story of Robin Hood. I think most people do, it’s been around for a long time. Rob from the rich and give to the poor. If you’re going to crime it up, giving back takes the edge off of it for most it. It’s rather noble. Every once and awhile Robin Hood comes back to the film world with an attempt to twist the knob a bit to make it another story worth repeating. All the staples are present and account for: Robin of Loxley, Little John, Friar Tuck, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Marian. The story also starts strong with Robin being introduced as a playboy, having a good time living it up with a family name attached to wealth and status. Things are going great with his lady
At this point I’m all in, I like Robin he’s a good dude, John becomes an ally for change and the Sheriff is a well-established crumb bum. And then the movie becomes less interesting as it falls into the well established Hollywood script mold. All the beats are predictable, right down to an (unnecessary) training montage. It’s not that anything is truly bad, it’s a well produced movie, but nothing new is brought to the table. My biggest complaint is with the action. It feels way too modern, way to slick and overproduced. It gets so over the top that the visuals stop being grounded. I guess it’s just the nature of where action movies are today, the competition is off the charts. If you don’t try to do anything mind-boggling no one will pay any attention to you. At one point during an elaborate escape sequence, things are blowing up for no reason. There are these gigantic columns of fire repeatedly shooting out of nowhere as if they are running from Pompeii erupting. They’re all coming out from behind large castle pillars so it looks like obvious camouflage. These gasoline-powered mortars are stuffed all over the place waiting to be triggered like it’s a KISS concert. It looks stupid and is more distracting than anything else. Michael Bay fatigue is a real thing and should be avoided (but what do I know, the insanity of the Fast and Furious franchise makes a fortune). If you skip this I don’t think you’ll miss anything.
The Mule– I couldn’t get over how stupid this movie is to enjoy it. Clint Eastwood plays Earl Stone, a 90-year-old horticulturist (yes you read that right) who runs drugs across the border for a Mexican cartel. On the surface that makes sense, Earl doesn’t fit the profile of a drug mule so he’s perfect to travel around without getting stopped. As a flower guy getting pushed out of business by the internet (shakes a fist at technology!), Earl’s monetary savings aren’t what you’d call positive so he fits the mark of “I really need money.” The fast cash would be attractive to him (which is why anyone sells drugs).
But why did I watch Clint Eastwood do his best impression of Mr. Magoo? I don’t want to see that! Does anyone? Earl aw-
He’s old! He doesn’t know how to use a cell phone! He’s old! Why would he know what the guys with the guns could be putting into his trunk for a ton of cash? He’s old! So he wouldn’t waste a tenth of a second to question a thing when he does end up looking! Watch as he drives around slinging casual racism for no reason because he’s old and doesn’t know why anyone would have a problem with what he says! He’s so innocent and squishy (read: old) looking he makes friends with everyone! In the end, he’s a good guy, no matter what. Woof.
Bohemian Rhapsody– A.K.A the Freddie Mercury show. This movie isn’t a documentary, Freddie was the frontman for Queen and did get all the attention in real life. That’s important to think about, watching this ultra condensed story, so I can see why they’d take the approach they did. And let’s be real, this movie would have died before it hit the screens if it wasn’t for Rami Malek. He absolutely kills it as Freddie Mercury. He’s one of my favorite actors and he absolutely transforms in this movie.
This is a great movie that feels held back. Each moment feels a bit too perfect, too concise, too sanitized. The band Queen comes together really fast. No struggle is shown as it comes off like they blew up in about a week. Songs are shown being put together at lightning speed. Freddie’s personal struggles are stepped on for mere moments before moving on. I guess pacing is my biggest problem.
A two hour+ long movie isn’t short and in the end, I wanted to see more. I would be perfectly happy to have ditched the remake of Queen’s 1985 Live Aid show for more story. That would have freed up I think 15 minutes or so. I wanted to see the band interact more, watch Freddie navigate more of his personal and professional relationships. The best parts for me was when they were dealing with pressure and their personalities pulling at them (Freddie’s house party is probably the highlight of the movie there, that scene at the best character developments). Sure, we see the band argue about decisions here and there but it’s so fast and spotty it always came off as rudimentary and cleaned up. Why not show their inspirations, how did they write this music that’s stuck with people for 40 years now? Freddie was at ground zero for the rise of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, why not better show how the world reacted and addressed it? We’re still going through that (and more) today. I liked seeing Freddie with his family and ther were very few scenes with them. A lot (character) came out of the scene where the band meets Freddie’s family for the first time and they got the call they were signed to a record label. There must have been more moments like that to show.
I guess more than anything, Bohemian Rhapsody made me want to dig deeper into history. That’s not a bad thing to be left with.
Look how cool that poster is! The whole movie is just as fun and exciting. The short review: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the best animation films of the decade.
The cinematic debut of Miles Morales, Spider-Verse is about this young man’s journey into great power and responsibility. Miles is just a kid at the start of a new boarding school in the city. Smart and talented in art, Miles has a lot to figure out. His police officer father wants him laser
The movie doesn’t take long to kick off with Miles being forced to take over as Spider-Man to try and stop Kingpin from doing unbelievable amounts of damage by messing with other dimensions of reality. This scheme brings five other Spider-People into Miles world and where the original Peter Parker left off, the others mentor him to become a greater person than he ever imagined he could be. There are a lot of trials and tribulations along the way.
Spider-Verse is a stunning achievement in animation. New animation techniques, a mish-mash of styles, and all the colors known to mankind are utilized to make one of the most unique looking movies I’ve ever seen. Words can’t explain how crazy this movie looks. Great character designs, a solid voice cast, and a snappy script make this a treat to watch from start to finish.
There’s very little to knock here and I have to really nitpick to come up with anything: Miles is clumsy through the entire movie until a switch suddenly flips and becomes unstoppable. The ramp-up to become confident and comfortable in his skin (so to speak) could have been done a little better. The way he gets the powers is also devoid of any creativity. Sure, there’s only one way to get the spider powers (Peni Parker’s backstory actually does a great twist on it) but this spider (which I think is mechanical, not biological?) just seemingly walks from Kingpin’s dimension collider on a mission to specifically bite Miles, which it seemingly knew when he’d be down in the sewers.
Still, none of that makes a significant dent in how great Spider-Verse is. Miles is awesome, the way all of these deep cut comic book Spider characters come together and the action scenes are fantastic. Everything you want from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is here.
As I write this, I feel adrift. Beau has been sick for a few months now and the day I’ve been dreading has arrived. The sadness comes in waves. I’m fine one moment and this feeling in my chest appears and I remember he’s gone. The world keeps going like nothing happened and I lost a soul in my life.
Since he was a puppy, Beau was a character. A trouble maker from the start, most of his nicknames came from his mischief. Bug,
Barking at nothing was a favorite past time. Chasing squirrels, rabbits, deer, and chipmunks a game he loved and always lost. The critters in the backyard just got a break, to say the least. He’d even eyeball and bound after planes that flew over the house.
He hated the rain but adored the snow.
I came home for the first time today and he wasn’t there. Unless he was deciding to be a sleepy pup, I could count on him greeting me. Routines that I’ve had for more than a decade suddenly stopped. The clock in the kitchen sounds bizarrely loud now, the ticks of every second now have extra space to echo in.
One of my favorite things in life is when it’s just you and your dog. He’s lounging around and notices you looking at him. He wags his tail in response, simply happy that you’re together. “It’s good to see you!”
Bug, I love you to the moon and back.
An adventure above and below the ocean’s surface, Aquaman is one of the best DC films made to date. Jason Momoa first portrayed the character in Justice League and the wait to see him really strut his stuff was well worth it.
Aquaman is a pretty goofy character on paper, after all, he can talk to fish. There have been many good comic book runs for him over the decades and there’s a reason why he’s a longtime member of the Justice League: the guys a hero. It’s been a long time coming for Arthur Curry to get his own movie and the technology to make his world believable is here alongside director James Wan to give it much needed flair. Aquaman runs the fine line of being weird but not too over the top and serious without taking itself too
I think this movie succeeds in all the right areas. The introduction to the main character’s background is well done and paced well. Half human and half Atlantian Arthur grows up without his Atlantian mother because she broke the rules running from Atlantis and falling in love with a man from the surface. She must leave her young family to keep them safe and when Arthur finds out she was executed for her “crimes” he becomes bitter to the world. Not to say he doesn’t succeed and grow up with his father but it makes a lasting mark on his psyche. While he does accept training from an Atlantian named Vulko when he discovers he has extraordinary powers, Arthur is pretty reserved when it comes to helping others. He’s not one for the spotlight despite his boisterous personality. And then Atlantis comes knocking on Arthur’s door when a war on the surface is called by his half-brother King Orm. Having sworn off having anything to do with Atlantis, as heir to the throne Arthur is forced to act.
And the
This movie could have been a complete disaster if the SFX were done poorly. Plenty of time for pre and post production was clearly given as I can’t complain about any of it. The underwater visuals are done fantastic and that’s about half of the movie. There
I feel like this movie was the perfect length, even if parts of it feel rushed. There’s a lot of quick setups just to get to the next scene and how Arthur and Mera travel the world with seemingly no resources is never considered. But I liked the overall story arc, watching Arthur basically grow to become a hero for everybody. When he dons the classic yellow and green suit it feels earned and amazing. I think my only big knock on the movie is the odd music choices that don’t fit the mood or the action of the movie.
Aquaman is a great example of getting the right people on a project. A lot of love and care was put into making this and it shows on screen.
September 13th!