Yesteday, while making the long drive home (we were out over the weekend), came the news that singer Dolores O’Riordan passed away at the very, very young age of 46.
Those unfamiliar with Ms. O’Riordan should acquaint themselves with her songs while fronting the band The Cranberries, a band which had its greatest influence in the 1990’s. Some of their great hits:
Ms. O’Riordan’s voice/delivery were truly unique and these four songs presented above, arguably the band’s most popular, were spectacular works and it saddens me tremendously that she’s gone.
At this time, there is no information regarding the cause of her death. Given her very young age and some stories I’ve found online -nothing terribly dark, mind you- one nonetheless can’t help but wonder if Ms. O’Riordan’s fallen victim to something that preys upon too many musical artists.
Regardless, the bottom line is that one of the most intriguing voices of that generation is stilled, and that’s a real shame.
We’re into the new year and I fully expect to have the latest book in the Corrosive Knights series, book #7, be released…
As you can see from the above, Book #7 is the conclusion to the series. By that I mean the main story I’ve been working on for 6 books comes to its end with Book #7.
This book looks like it will be my longest, wordcount-wise, to date and I’m currently 2/3rds of the way through the latest draft. This draft, I’m hoping, will be the one where I get all the main details down and from that point on future drafts will hopefully involve cleaning up/streamlining the story for maximum effect.
As you can also see from the graphic above, following this book there will be a Book #8, which I call an “Epilogue”. This book will come out very soon after Book #7’s release.
Very soon after.
Why?
Those who have been around here for a while know why. It’s because I already have Book #8 written out, at least the first full draft, and what’s left to do is review it, clean up/streamline it, and it’ll be ready. I don’t anticipate that taking much more than a few months.
Will both books be released in 2018?
I can’t promise that as it depends entirely on the work I have to do with Book #7. The quicker I get that book out, the quicker I get to #8.
You remember the film All The Money In The World, right? The Ridley Scott directed film that featured Kevin Spacey but, because of the controversy surrounding Mr. Spacey’s sexual harassment allegations, was clipped out of the film and Christopher Plumber was brought in at the very last minute to replace and re-film his scenes?
Well, co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams were also brought in to re-film scenes that once featured Spacey.
Here’s the thing: Ridley Scott stated that while the film crew and Mr. Plummer were paid, he, Wahlberg, and Michelle Williams came back for free… allegedly to keep the film’s budget reasonable.
Only as it now turns out, Mr. Wahlberg was paid quite handsomely for what amounted to 9 days of re-shoots… while his female co-star -and there’s no pleasant way to say this- got royally screwed.
Hell, it would have been better they gave her nothing and left her thinking she was doing this for “art” rather than reveal at this point her co-star received such a princely sum while she got next to nothing.
Truly a horrendous story and, I should hope, Mr. Wahlberg does something on his own to correct the situation.
Wouldn’t it be incredibly gracious of Mr. Wahlberg if he were to issue a statement that he didn’t realize his co-star was receiving so little compared to him for the re-shoots and went ahead and offered her half his re-shoot salary?
Having said that, what are the odds something like this actually happening?
I’ve long, very long, been fascinated with critical opinion. My first strong experience with critical reaction must have happened in the early 80’s with the Siskel and Ebert movie review shows (they went through various names but originally were called Sneak Previews and then At The Movies).
Being a HUGE movie fan (still am!) and in those pre-internet days, it was a thrill to see someone talk about a film that wasn’t in theaters yet and offer not only clips from said film but also an opinion on whether it was worth seeing or not.
I didn’t have a favorite between Mr. Siskel and Ebert, often finding myself agreeing with either of them regarding any particular film. It was all too clear from watching the show they loved movies yet they were not shy to tear a feature down if they felt it wasn’t worthy of being seen. They didn’t always agree, and sometimes their disagreements were incredibly entertaining on their own, regardless of what I would think of said film.
One of my favorite disagreements involved an episode from 1987 wherein Mr. Siskel and Ebert reviewed both Benji: The Hunted and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. To Mr. Siskel’s shock, Roger Ebert would give a “thumbs up” to Benji: The Hunted and a “thumbs down” to Full Metal Jacket.
Mr. Siskel couldn’t understand how Ebert could give such a review and their snipping about that issue extended through the episode and went into their video recommendations…
Anyway, the reason I point all this out is because in this day and age and with the internet, everyone can present their opinion on any particular subject, quite literally, to the world.
Today there are hundreds of “professional” movies (and book, etc.) reviewers out there. In the movie business, rottentomatoes.com allows the public at large to see a snapshot of what the reviewers out there, along with audiences, think of a film on average.
But it does lead to certain questions, questions that Ben Yagoda at Slate.com checks out…
I have to say, the headline itself strikes a nerve in me.
If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, I’ve noted that when I was younger (and perhaps taking a cue from the likes of Mr. Siskel and Ebert!), I was a fierce critic of films or TV shows or books. I loved them, mind you, but I was very keen to spot what to me were the flaws in these works and arrogant enough to think that if I could spot them, the people who made said film/TV show/book/song etc. should see them too and should have fixed them before releasing them to the general public.
When you think like that, there are very few works of film that one thought of as masterpieces and, even those I felt that way, I further felt had some kind of flaw but the overall work was so good that the flaws didn’t bother me.
As the years passed and I started to work in comic books, I realized something that the younger me didn’t: There are myriad roads taken before a product is released to the general public and sometimes what is released is the best thing possible given time or budget or any other constraints.
To put it bluntly, I mellowed out. Suddenly, the flaws that were so glaring in works seemed far more trivial.
Yesterday, I reviewed the film Atomic Blonde. I liked the film well enough, it held my interest through its run time, and featured several explosive and inventive action sequences.
It also featured a plot that was mess, an attempt to be clever and show various characters being duplicitous but ultimately wound up being either too confusing or just plain silly (a mild example SPOILER: Why does Charlize Theron’s character still bother with James McAvoy’s character when she knows he called the police on her when she went to a certain subject’s apartment to investigate?).
In the past, I probably would have been absolutely vicious with such a film and yet, as I said in my review, I ultimately liked it well enough despite its problems to offer a recommendation.
While I’m not a “professional” film critic, Mr. Yagoda ponders why certain critics offer high praise for movies which ultimately land with a thud to audiences. He offers some examples of films that met with plenty of praise but ultimately didn’t thrill audiences.
Though he doesn’t do so, I suspect a prime film for consideration on the schism between critical “pro” and audience would be Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
While The Last Jedi is clearly a box office smash, the disconnect between critics and audiences is sharply pronounced, with critics in general loving the film while audiences were sharply divided.
Still, that’s the nature of art, isn’t it? There will be those who love things that others don’t. Perhaps at times we’ll let our own likes and dislikes cloud our reviews but in the end, whether we choose to see something or not, we do so nowadays knowing more about the work than we have before, for better or worse.
Like many films out there, Atomic Blonde appears to have its fans and detractors. Those who like the film enjoyed the action sequences -some of which are quite excellent- while those who don’t like the film all that much point out the fact that the plot is rather bland and, at times, confusing and/or slow.
I can see both sides, though I ultimately fall on the “liking it” side.
Directed by David Leitch, Atomic Blonde basically plays out like a late Cold War version of Mr. Leitch’s previous film, John Wick. Instead of a pseudo sci-fi set up involving assassins and their murky world, we’re placed in Berlin during the Cold War, when the city was separated by a wall and, as we find, we’re at the moment when the wall is about to come down…
…only there’s a problem: There’s this guy with a list that could prove very damaging to all the various spy agencies populating the area. The Brits send Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron, quite into the role) to go look for this list (I suppose they could call it the McGuffin list). Once in Berlin, things quickly go sideways as the Soviets seem to already have a bead on her.
She meets her contact, David Percival (James McAvoy, quite fun), but doesn’t know just how much she can trust him. She also realizes she’s being followed and dangers lurk around every corner.
Atomic Blonde is told in media res. When we meet Lorraine, she’s already out of Berlin and is debriefing with her boss (Toby Jones) and in the company of a CIA man (John Goodman, quite fun as well) of the events that happened in Berlin.
The events make for a whopper of a story, full of plot twists that border -and often pass- into the realm of the ridiculous.
And yet… I was entertained.
There are plenty of things the film could and probably should have done better yet I liked what I saw and felt Ms. Theron once again proved herself more than capable of doing the action hero thing.
So, if you liked John Wick (and, bear in mind, I did not like John Wick 2), then Atomic Blonde might just be up your alley.
Just sit back and enjoy the action and the wonderful 80’s soundtrack and don’t think too hard about all those plot twists.
Sitting here with what I suspect is a chest cold and dealing with plenty of phlegm and weakness. I suppose it could be worse but man do I hate being sick.
Yeah, sure now. Show me someone who likes being sick!
One of my favorite actors is Robert Redford and if all you know him from is his villainous turn in Captain America: Winter Soldier (a very clever bit of casting if you are aware of his past roles!), then you don’t know nearly enough about him.
Check out Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, All The President’s Men, or Three Days of the Condor and you’ll get a great idea of how versatile and charismatic he is!
For years, even before Apple became the juggernaut it now is, one of the things the company’s proponents pointed out to as being a positive of their products versus the Windows based platforms was that they were safe.
While the Windows based desktop/laptop systems had to use some kind of software protection(s) from viruses and malware, Apple products weren’t affected by these silly problems. Thing is, I always felt this bit of bragging was misdirected. At the time the Apple defenders were saying this the most vocally, Apple was a much smaller company and their computers were not being used as much as the ones that had Windows in them.
To me, it was about numbers. The Windows systems were incredibly popular and almost everyone had them. Why wouldn’t hackers go after richer targets?
A few years later and here we are: Apple is a juggernaut. Apple is incredibly popular and used by a large number of people.
And guess what?
Flaws are being found.
Granted the flaw isn’t necessarily Apple’s fault and it affects just about every computer out there, including those who use Windows or Android systems.
This points out another problem with computers in general: We’re all for them and leap from system to (hopefully better) system and when one hears information like this one can’t help but wonder how much care the companies behind these systems have done to make sure there is safety in their products from malicious eyes.
Lately, these same companies are trying to create some kind of credit card pay system, wherein you just flash your phone or watch or whathaveyou and don’t worry about paying for anything with those pesky credit cards or even peskier cash.
Hmmm.
Given this bit of news, I might wait a little before taking that particular leap.
Over at the Daily Mail, Sebastian Shakespeare (what a name!) offers an article and a Q&A to Barbara Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films, concerning who might be in line for the role after Daniel Craig…
Nowadays, the idea of changing the gender, race, age, etc. etc. on long established characters (film or novel/story) is at least somewhat in vogue.
One of the earlier attempts at doing so was the film version of The Wild Wild West, a TV series which featured Robert Conrad in the titular role as secret agent James West…
…and the film version featured Will Smith in the role…
In the case of the movie, it was bad no matter who played the title role, but in this case, the changing of the character’s race was even more troublesome given the time frame the TV show/film exists in (ie post Civil War America). To be very blunt: It was difficult to accept the idea of a black man, dressed to the hilt and obvious to anyone who looks his way, could somehow walk around post Civil War America and function successfully as a secret agent.
Nonetheless, I’m not against the idea of changing long established characters, so long as the end result is positive.
We are dealing with entertainment after all and the ultimate judge of success in a movie, book, or story is how audiences react to it.
In the case of James Bond, I feel the article is a little… misleading. This is the important stuff from the article:
(Barbara Broccoli) was asked if we could expect to see a female Bond or a black 007.
‘These films tend to reflect the times so we always try to push the envelope a little bit,’ she replied. ‘Anything is possible.
‘Right now it’s Daniel Craig, and I’m very happy with Daniel Craig, but who knows what the future will bring?’
So, basically, she gives a non-answer here. Sure, in the future, there might be a (insert pertinent race/sex/gender here) James Bond but right now we’re focused on Daniel Craig.
So there’s less to the article than appears… except for one thing. Toward the end of the article we get this quote from Roger Moore concerning who should play the character:
Sir Roger, who died in May at the age of 89, told this newspaper in 2015: ‘I have heard people talk about how there should be a lady Bond or a gay Bond.
‘But they wouldn’t be Bond for the simple reason that wasn’t what Ian Fleming wrote.
‘It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist — it is simply about being true to the character.’
He does make one very salient point regarding the idea of changing a well-established character’s sex/race/age: Should we be so quick to do these changes with characters that were never written by their creators in this manner?
One should, at some point, respect the original author’s vision.
Perhaps a better option would be to create a new character?
One of the bigger surprises in film last year was Wonder Woman. A box office hit and (for the most part) critic and audience darling, I liked the film and felt Gal Gadot, like Christopher Reeve with Superman, proved for a second time (after Batman v Superman) to define the character of Wonder Woman… and I say that with no disrespect to Lynda Carter!
