I finished reading and writing my revisions to draft 11b of the latest Corrosive Knights novel, #6 of the series, now will turn to putting those written fixes into the computer.
The reason I labeled the draft 11b (and the previous draft 11a) was because these were not full novel revisions. In the case of 11a, I read/revised a little over one half of the book, mostly the second half, because I felt the first half of the book was good as is.
With 11b, I was able to cut down the number of pages even more and found myself reviewing just a little under 1/2 of the book this time around. I could have cut that page count even more but I wanted to read a “block” of the book to make sure one chapter flowed into the next.
As I was about to start draft 11b, I worried there might be a need for an 11c review.
This is where the “very good day” thing I wrote above comes into play:
After finishing up this latest draft, I’m happy to report the novel is pretty much done.
I found a few things that needed clarification/elimination but overall I feel the second half of the novel, the part that needed this extra look, is finally ready to be “locked down”.
So, what’s left to do?
After putting the corrections into the computer, I’m going to print the whole thing out and give the entire novel one more read through which will be draft #12. Hopefully, following this read through and after correcting whatever grammatical errors are left, we’re done.
Finished.
Finito.
Not long now, friends. Just have to get through Hurricane Matthew and we’ll be fine…
On Friday I discovered my VUDU digital version of the 1979 cult horror film Phantasm was replaced with the new, J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot “remastered” version for free. Further, because I already owned the film, I also had access to this remastered version four full days (at least up to the point I discovered the upgrade!) before the movie’s official remastered release on October 4th and two days from now.
Yesterday I wrote about my find and promised to see the film and give it a review. Last night I did just that and here you go…
To begin, the movie looks great. I’m reminded of when I picked up the BluRay release of John Carpenter’s The Fog and was blown away by how clear it looked versus the (ahem) foggy version I was used to seeing.
While not quite on that level of visual brilliance, the remastered Phantasm nonetheless does look damn sharp and the trailer for the remastered version cleverly points out how we old timers first experienced the film versus what it looks like now…
So for those like me who like the film and remember being absolutely terrified by it when it was released back in 1979 (I think I first saw it in 1980), getting and seeing the remastered version is an absolute no-brainer.
However…
While watching Phantasm today versus 1979 (or 1980), it is clear the passage of time has dulled the terrifying shocks I felt while watching the film back in the era it was originally released.
It’s so damn difficult today, nearly 40 years later and after thousands upon thousands of horror films and TV shows having been released which depict all manner of “creative” gory death, for something this small scale to shock us like it did back then. For today’s viewer’s, I suspect the movie’s most shocking scene, the death by Silver Ball, will elicit at best a shrug while I distinctly remember trembling after seeing that scene way back then.
And with those shocks not resonating quite as well as they did back in 1979, we’re left with an obviously very low budget film with a for the most part meandering story and so-so acting.
Well, with the notable exception of Angus Scrimm as the movie’s villain, the Tall Man. Clearly he’s having an absolute (ahem) ball with his villainous turn. In fact, Mr. Scrimm’s very first appearance in the movie looked like it was cut just as he went a little overboard in his facial expressions.
I strongly suspect the Tall Man’s character was a modernized version of Max Schreck’s Nosferatu, the very first film version of Dracula which was released in 1922. In that movie, Nosferatu was presented as tall and shadowy and scary as all get-out…
Like Nosferatu, Phantasm gives us the Tall Man in very small doses. In Nosferatu, the villainous Count appeared for only 9 some minutes in total in the film and in Phantasm I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tall Man appears for even less. Yet it works. It leaves us wanting so much more.
Having said all that, Nosferatu remains, even after nearly 100 years since its release, a genuinely creepy film while Phantasm, unfortunately, is a far more muted affair, at least IMHO. In fact, the pleasures I derived from it had more to do with the way it depicted life circa 1979, when I was roughly the age of the movie’s protagonist.
I’ll always treasure the scares the film gave me back when I originally saw it and will also treasure this new, crisp and beautiful remastering.
However, I must also be honest and say that while Phantasm delights me for its nostalgic pull which includes the pleasant and scary memories it offers me, I genuinely feel modern audiences may not take to it like I do. While the film still works as a mad living nightmare, to some it might be a little too slow to bother with.
Yesterday, for no particular reason, I was looking over my digital movie collection on my iPad.
While one can have their own personal movie collection through various services, including Amazon and iTunes, mine is primarily through Walmart’s VUDU (you can check the service out here), which works -for the most part- concurrently with Flixster (you can check that service out here).
The primary reason I chose VUDU over almost all the other big digital video services was because I have a very large DVD/BluRay collection and the idea of buying all those films again weighed extremely heavily on my mind -and wallet, of course- and when I discovered VUDU allowed you to port most of your movies from their physical form to the VUDU system for basically $1.00-5.00 (the rate depends on whether you’re converting DVDs vs. BluRays and when you do more than 10 at a time the price is slashed in half!), I went on a tear going through my collection and “digitizing” it.
While VUDU didn’t allow me to convert all of my films to Digital, one of the ones it did allow me to do was my old copy of Phantasm (1979). Recently, it was announced that J. J. Abrams and his company have remastered the film and this is the trailer for the upcoming release, scheduled for October 4th (ie, three days from now):
I’m a HUGE fan of the original Phantasm and the remastered film was certainly on my radar so imagine my surprise when, while going over my VUDU films yesterday, I noticed the graphics for my digital copy of Phantasm (you know, the mini-poster you click on to see the film) had changed to this…
In this larger graphic you can clearly see the word “Remastered” below the movie’s title but in the very small images you have on your VUDU movie listings, I couldn’t see it.
Curious about the graphic change, I clicked on the movie and to my delight, my original, non-remastered copy of Phantasm on VUDU was, indeed, replaced free of charge with the remastered one and four days before the official release, to boot!!! I knew it was the remastered version because the “Bad Robot” logo (encased in one of those Phantasm Balls o’ Death) appeared in the film’s opening credits.
So, if you already have a copy of Phantasm via the VUDU system and are eager to see the movie in its remastered glory, check to see if you too have the new version available.
Now, I haven’t seen the full film yet and intend to do so today. However, of what I have seen so far, up until the point where Jody picks up the mysterious Woman in Lavender and head out to the graveyard, looks really gorgeous.
If you’re like me and are a fan of the original film yet you didn’t have the VUDU version and therefore have to wait for the upgrade, fear not. The official release is on October 4th.
