Second Metropolis (1927) piece. It’s based on one of the many posters created for the movie way back when!
Monthly Archives: July 2018
Corrosive Knights, a 7/22/18 update
Last posted an update on 7/13/18 (you can read it here) and figured it was time to post another update.
I was hopeful I could make it through the computer corrections of the latest draft of book #7 in the Corrosive Knights series in a matter of two weeks or so.
Things are moving along but perhaps a little slower than I was hoping. Right now I’m on page 128 of the draft and, given the total page count is 233 pages (single spaced, 10 point font size), it means I’ve got 105 pages to go.
On the plus side, I’m more than halfway through the whole thing. On the minus side, it’s been nine days since I started and there remain those 105 pages left to do and currently I’m in a sticky point that will require some creative thought/story reworking.
As I get closer to getting a novel “done”, I start to pay really close attention to the various details that make the book’s story “work”.
If you’ve read any of my novels, they tend to have complex (but hopefully not complicated!) plots that require a lot of moving parts to mesh together and make sense when all is said and done.
Book #7 is no exception and as I get further and further along in the drafts, I not only question the pace and story’s unfolding, but also make sure that the various story elements are logical.
It’s a frustrating stage to be at yet one that one has to work through to get the novel done.
Don’t get me wrong: Though it may be a frustrating time, overall I’m happy overall with the pace. Yeah, there’s work being done on my house and, by that very nature, total concentration on this book isn’t always possible, and there’s also the sticky plot points to deal with, but I know that by the time I finish getting all the material into the computer and formally finish off Draft #7 of Book #7, I’ll be that much closer to being done.
Keeping my fingers crossed!
This is kinda cute…
From the Conan Show and presented without further ado…
The Batgirl Audition Tapes.
David Bowie’s Mid-Eighties Box Set…
I’ve noted it before and I’ll repeat it here: David Bowie, for me, is my personal favorite musician. His albums, almost all of them, hold a special magic to my ears, and I love just about all of them.
With one notable exception.
Released in April 27, 1987, Mr. Bowie’s album Never Let Me Down has to have the most ironic title of any of his albums for there are many, including myself and, reportedly, Mr. Bowie himself, who consider it his worst album.
Never Let Me Down? How about: A complete let down, amiright?
Well… not so fast.
While I stand by my statement and do feel that, as released, Never Let Me Down is Mr. Bowie’s “worst” album, there is nonetheless plenty on it to like. The problem I had with it back when it was released and the problem I have with it today is that the album feels… wonky.
It’s like Mr. Bowie, after the mega-success of 1983’s Let’s Dance and decent reception/sales of 1984’s Tonight, an album some critics felt Mr. Bowie was “coasting” on with too many cover songs, felt he needed to re-establish himself -as he was wont to do- and create something truly great and more personal.
Never Let Me Down featured 10 songs and all but one of them were original to the album (the song Bang Bang was a cover of an Iggy Pop song). Compare that to Let’s Dance which had 8 songs and of those, 3 were remakes/covers and especially Tonight, which had 9 songs but of those a whopping 5 songs were covers/remakes.
Clearly Mr. Bowie was trying to do something great and more fully “Bowie” at the time but, ironically, the end result felt like he was trying a little too hard. The album was all over the place -overproduced and, IMHO, overcooked.
And yet… and yet… it fascinates me.
I felt there was a good album hidden in the clutter and buried under the production. Curiously, in subsequent interviews before his passing Mr. Bowie himself noted the same thing and, further, his desire to one day go back to the album and rework/reproduce it.
A few years back, the possibility that something good could be made of something considered so bad was made clear when Mr. Bowie released a remake/reworking of one of my favorite songs from the album, Time Will Crawl. This is the original version of the song (and music video!) from the Never Let Me Down album:
And here’s the reworked version from 2008 and released on the iSelect album…
I find the later version an incredible upgrade from the original and, having heard it, any doubts that Never Let Me Down could be a more successful album were gone.
Which brings us back to what I wanted to talk about here: The fourth David Bowie Box Set album, titled Loving the Alien, will feature a -surprise, surprise!- re-working of Never Let Me Down!
That’s right, folks, not only will we get remastered versions of Let’s Dance, Tonight, and the original release of Never Let Me Down, along with two live shows and a bunch of b-sides/singles, we’ll also get a complete re-working of that much maligned album.
If it winds up sounding like the Time Will Crawl re-working, I’m so there.
But a word of caution: The re-working of the album was created, it is stated, in 2018, which is obviously following Mr. Bowie’s passing. Clearly Mr. Bowie wanted to do this but one has to wonder how much -if any!- of the album’s re-working was done and approved of by him before his passing.
Still, of the now four boxed sets of Bowie’s work released, this is the one that has me the most curious.
Perhaps something many consider very bad might just get another critical look… and prove itself better than it originally was.
October, the boxed set’s release date, can’t come soon enough.
If you want to read more about the boxed set, including what exactly will be on it, here’s a link to an article by Daniel Kreps and found on RollingStone.com:
David Bowie’s Mid-Eighties work collected in massive Loving the Alien boxed set
P.S. UPDATE:
Interestingly enough, I realized -belatedly and after originally posting- that the Never Let Me Down album, both as originally released and the 2018 version in the upcoming box set, does NOT include the song Too Dizzy, which was on the original album’s release.
Why?
It’s been said that of the songs on Never Let Me Down, Mr. Bowie really, really hated Too Dizzy and decided, after originally releasing the album, that it would be banished from any future re-issues.
So what does the song that Mr. Bowie hated enough to strike from Never Let Me Down album sound like?
Glad you asked:
Yup. I can see why he wouldn’t want it back. Pretty generic pop and certainly not up to the level of other Bowie works.
Tomb Raider (2018) a (mildly) belated review
I know little about the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider games, other than the fact that the character appears to be a female version of the Cliffhanger action heroes of yesterday and Indiana Jones, more specifically, of recent vintage. I also have seen the Angelina Jolie films based on the character/games and they certainly looked nice and Angelina Jolie made for a beautiful hero, but the films themselves…?
Kinda average.
As is (sadly) the case with the passage of time, Ms. Jolie is no longer young enough for this franchise and in 2018 it was rebooted with Alicia Vikander in the titular role and…
…the more things change…!
The 2018 incarnation of Tomb Raider aims for a more grungier “look” versus the two previous film’s almost James Bondian look. If memory serves, the previous films also had more of a “fantastic/supernatural” element, which this movie hints at but ultimately tries to be more grounded.
The same essential plot elements from the first films are there: You have your young hero, her lost -and perhaps deceased- father (Dominic West), and trip to find the (possibly) supernatural whatzit while dealing with a villain. In this movie’s case, the villain is played by the usually reliable Walton Goggins who here looks like he was told by the director to act as if he’s sleep walking.
Ms. Vikander’s Lara Croft is aided -eventually- in her journey by Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) but, like pretty much all the characters presented in this film, he’s another cardboard cutout pretending to be a human being.
It’s a real head-scratcher to watch something like Tomb Raider because all the essential elements to a good film are there: Good budget, handsome production and effects, and for the most part usually reliable actors in the titular roles.
And yet to me the film never seems to hit any sort of spark despite all this. The movie starts with a too long bit involving who Lara Croft is, including the fact that she doesn’t want her missing father’s fortune. Despite being a zillionaire she lives hand to mouth and works for a restaurant delivering food. We are presented precious minutes of screen time showing how one of the family members of that restaurant, a younger man/son, is clearly smitten with Lara but doesn’t have the courage to ask her out. These good folks appear in this one scene and are never shown again and you’re left wondering how the hell this got put into the film proper and not left on the cutting room floor, where it deserved to be.
But that’s not all!
Even when we get to the actual story, one fairly dull sequence, action or not, is presented after the other until, voila!, the movie ends and, frankly, I was left wondering how something with so much going for it could wind up so dull.
Needless to say, I cannot recommend Tomb Raider. But, for what it’s worth, my wife liked it a lot more than me.
Take that as you will!
Sketchin’ 83
Seems like forever since I last posted a new piece. Blame it on my latest Corrosive Knights novel, Book #7. As it nears completion, its been taking up most of my free time (and sanity).
But I needed to get away and my subject is the wonderful Talos scene from the also very wonderful 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts. The legendary Ray Harryhausen provided the special effects for this movie and while most people (perhaps rightfully!) point out the great sequence involving Jason fighting off the skeletons, I’m partial to Talos. He’s a giant metallic creature that comes to life and makes life quite miserable for Jason and his gang and I just love that sequence to bits. Sure, the effects are crude compared to what can be done today, but I loved it then and still love it today!
Corrosive Knights, a 7/13/18 update
Yeah, I know, I just did an update a couple of days ago.
This is going to be a quick one:
Yesterday, I began the process of transferring my pen & ink revisions from the printed page to the Word file and in that first day I made it through 32 pages of material. The full printed work comes to 233 pages as printed (full 8 1/2 x 11 pages, single spaced font sized 10).
If I were to keep up that incredible (and it is incredible!) pace, I could theoretically be done with the entire Word file/draft in a matter of 6-7 more days.
Of course, that won’t quite happen. As I said before, I do have people doing some work on my house and these early pages of the book are pretty close to being “done”… there are some pages toward the middle and end of the book that will require more scrutiny.
More scrutiny = more work = more time spend on them.
Still, it’s not entirely inconceivable that within the next two weeks, perhaps a little more, I’ll be done with the 7th draft completely and be on my way to draft #8 and this represents a hell of a speedup versus the months it would take me to do earlier drafts.
The bottom line is that this book is getting very near being done, which is what I said in my last update.
Now, let’s get back to it! 😉
Corrosive Knights, a 7/11/18 update
It isn’t often when you finally get that glimpse into the culmination of one of your fondest -and long held- dreams.
Today I finished reading/revising on paper the 7th draft of 7th book in the Corrosive Knights series.
When writing my novels, this is the way it goes: I finish up a draft on the computer, print it out, then read the printed version carefully and put down any additions/subtractions by pen. Once done, I transfer all those pen & ink revisions into the computer and once done with that I print it out and go over the print out once again.
So, as mentioned, I’ve read and done the pen & ink revisions seven times now and, perhaps starting tomorrow (we’ll see, got some workers around the house fixing some stuff up), I’ll get on the computer and begin transferring those revisions into the Word file.
For those keeping track, I started reading and proofing the book on 6/28, which means its taken me a little less than two weeks to do this reading/revision. I suspect it will take perhaps another couple of weeks, give or take and depending on that work being done on the house, to transfer those revisions into the Word file and fully complete this 7th draft of the book.
Getting all this done to the 6th draft of the book took two months and five or so days, which means I’m speeding up the time it takes to finish a revision. This in turn means there is less revision needed which in turn means the book is that much closer to being completed.
Again, if time permits and I can work in peace on the computer, I suspect this entire draft from printout to printout/start to end will take me roughly a month and that culmination of the dream becomes that much closer to being a reality.
So yeah, its fair to say I’m elated. Not just because of this book, which I’m so damn proud of, but this entire series.
It has come out far, far better than I dared think it would, and, you know what? I’m not just elated. I’m freaking ecstatic!!!!!!
All right, calm down.
There’s still some work to be done. There are parts in the novel’s mid section which need to be tightened. The story beats are good, but the way I described what happens during these parts needs sharpening. There are also a couple of small add-ons needed toward the book’s conclusion. However, nothing very big.
The story itself, as they say in movies, is basically locked down.
When I started this novel, I hoped November 2018 would be my far end deadline to finish everything up. Sure, I hoped it could be done and released earlier, but these novels do have a way of taking their time and this one, just like the others, certainly has done that. I don’t believe I’ll get it done much earlier and there is the possibility I might take a little longer.
As with all things creative, it’s extremely difficult to predict with any kind of absolute certainty when this will be finished.
Regardless, it’s close, dear readers. It’s very close now. Another two or three drafts might just do it.
Keep those fingers crossed!
The Commuter (2018) a (mildly) belated review
I have to give those who made The Commuter props for trying to create an interesting mystery/suspense film which clearly offers a tip of the hat to the works of Alfred Hitchcock.
If you’re unfamiliar with the movie, here’s the trailer:
Liam Neeson is effectively the entire show here, playing ex-cop and now -but not for long- Insurance salesman Michael MacCauley. He has a loving wife and son and, day after day, commutes by train from his home to the “big city” for work.
As the movie begins, he goes through his day’s office routine while alert, and not so alert, viewers begin to see clues as to where the story is going. This, sadly, is one of the movie’s big problems and I’ll get into that in a moment.
MacCauley is called to his boss’ office and is told that he’s being laid off. MacCauley is understandably disturbed. He has mortgages and is only a few years away from retiring/getting a severance and *poof* that’s all out the window.
He then goes to a bar to meet a cop friend of his (Patrick Wilson) and there also meets the Chief of the police and more hints as to the plot are laid out.
From there, he heads back home via the train and it is there that he eventually meets Joanna (Vera Famiga, rounding out with Mr. Wilson the two leads from The Conjuring movies… though they share no screen time together here).
Joanna offers MacCauley an intriguing proposal: There’s $25,000 hidden in a bathroom within the train. He can take it and for that money and, for another $75,000 given to him afterwards, he is to identify someone on this train going to its final destination.
After making the offer, Joanna departs from the train and, curious, MacCauley checks the specified bathroom and, sure enough, finds the money. Obviously, its a welcome relief considering he just lost his job, but soon enough he realizes there is a sinister reason for all this.
Duh!
I wanted to really, really like The Commuter, and as I said before it was clear the makers of the film put a great deal of effort in this Hitchockian pastiche.
However, and as I already mentioned, the film unfortunately hits you over the head with things you can see a mile coming. When the camera early on lingers on a news report of someone’s suicide, you know that this is going to mean something later in the film. When MacCauley shows off his wedding ring to his wife and she reciprocates in the movie’s opening minutes, that too comes back in force later on.
The movie’s villain(s) are also pretty easy to discern and whatever “shock” you’re supposed to have later on in the film regarding their allegiances are simply not all that shocking.
But the worst thing about the film, something my wife noted perhaps halfway through the movie, was that if these villains are so good and so connected and “high up” and all seeing as to what MacCauley does while in the train (including, for example, while quite hidden writes a “call the police” note in a newspaper), then how come they don’t know who the person is they’re hunting?
Given their efficiency and all, that becomes something that’s just too hard to swallow. And don’t get me started on this question: Why is this person everyone is hunting traveling alone if s/he is so damn important?
With all that said, the film isn’t a total bust.
If you are able to turn your brain off and enjoy it for what it is and not ask too many questions or scratch too hard under its obvious surface, the film is a decent suspense flick with some decent action.
Still, for me its hard to outright recommend The Commuter and that’s a crying shame. Despite good acting and a clear attempt to create a modern Hitchock suspense drama, this film really needed a little more work on its script and a lot more work on how to more subtly deliver the story.
Zooropa, 25 years later
There was a time I was a HUGE U2 fan. Loved, loved, loved their albums and thought they were one of the best bands out there.
Yeah, they stumbled a bit with the album Rattle and Hum (too long, too meandering) but, overall, they released some exceptional works. War. The Unforgettable Fire. The lovely ep Wide Awake in America. The Joshua Tree.
After Rattle and Hum, one could understandably be worried they were spent. Then came the wonderful Achtung Baby and, suddenly, they were again on top of the world, IMHO.
While touring on that album and with creativity to burn, they released the album Zooropa in 1993. The album was met with… confusion, perhaps, by audiences in general. The album was very experimental and, compared to some of the previous U2 albums, perhaps a little too radical to some.
I personally loved every second of its wonky bizarreness, including the way it ends with a song sung by, of all people Johnny Cash!
Over at vox.com, Dylan Scott offers his positive opinion on…
The unexpected resonance of Zooropa, U2’s least remembered album, 25 years later
Mr. Scott seems to share similar opinions to mine. I loved U2 up to Zooropa but, sadly, from that point on the band seemed to drift off into directions that no longer interested me. Their follow up album, Pop, I could barely listen to. Their subsequent albums had songs here and there I liked but, overall, nothing that stood out like everything that came before.
And, to me, its a really sad thing to see.
Mr. Scott notes that U2 themselves seem to hold Zooropa in low esteem, barely singing any of the songs from that album in their shows.
Again, that’s too bad.
Still, reading the article is fascinating and, if you’re a fan at all of U2 -or even a lapsed fan as I am of late- its an interesting read.