Monthly Archives: June 2021

Books/Literature, General

Too Much Free Time…?

In this year of COVID its been interesting to see the various ways people have tried to make money.

I’ve watched as certain stocks have risen, sometimes to seemingly ridiculous highs, and then there’s Cryptocurrency, which I still don’t understand…

One of the weirder things to rise is the NFT, or Non-Fungible Tokens market.

This one I really didn’t understand, though for a while there it seemed to be something plenty of companies were talking about.

If I understand this correctly (and please forgive me if I’m horribly off!), NFTs were a way for people to “buy” and therefore “own” a digital image or video.

The first time I heard about NFTs to any great degree it involved one time Wonder Woman artist Jose Delbo who made himself quite a mint on selling his images.

Here’s an interesting article about this particular artist and his sales. It was originally posted on kryptobia.com…

Who can sell a Wonder Woman NFT? The artist or DC Comics?

The upshot is that publisher DC Comics, who owns the character of Wonder Woman, grew concerned over Mr. Delbo’s NFT success -he reportedly earned something like 2 million dollars selling his Wonder Woman images!- and essentially brought the hammer down and forbid artists from selling their images via NFTs.

However, that was then and this is now.

According to the below article by Luke Plunkett and presented on kotaku.com, it would appear…

The NFT market has collapsed, Oh No

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.

The fact of the matter is -and again, I may be totally misunderstanding NFTs- it seems to me NFTs were a hopeless cause.

I mean, buying a digital image may make you its “owner”, but what’s to stop these images or movies from appearing online anyway?

I mean, even if you own it, what does it matter? Can you profit off of it? I suppose you could if you found someone else who wanted to buy it, but that seemed like a limited thing.

Perhaps others are beginning to realize this as well and maybe that’s why the NFT market seems to be collapsing, at least according to the article above.

It’s a curse of the internet, truly. So much digital content is so readily available and one wonders how this will shake out in the future, whether with NFTs or not.

As it stands, we already have musical artists who have trouble getting money for their new music, especially given how easy it is to pirate individual songs via MP3s.

Its even easier to post full comic books online and, even though I’m far from the most well known author out there, I nonetheless have found my books available in questionable websites for “free” download.

Its infuriating, certainly.

The world keeps changing, I suppose and I hope that in the future there does appear some way for artists -including me- can keep their projects theirs.

General

Coronavirus Diaries 37

It seems we’re getting closer than ever to an end of the pandemic.

Monday New York City reported no Coronavirus deaths and across the country, cases and deaths are plunging.

Memorial Day just passed and, ’round these parts, the vacationing crowds were pretty thick. I’m hoping the infection rates don’t show a big increase come two weeks from now, but if things keep going as well as they have been, we might be in for a very pleasant surprise.

Fingers crossed!

If things work out well, I wonder if it has anything to do with the vaccinations?

I write this sarcastically.

Why? Because as I’ve noted before I’m incredibly frustrated with people who are “anti-vaccers” or who deny the seriousness of the pandemic.

Come on, people, the evidence is right before your eyes: While the pandemic isn’t gone -and let’s hope there never appears a variant of the COVID-19 virus that is resistant to the vaccines- it has been beaten down considerably in the months since vaccines were so prominent.

There is no other way to look at this. There is no other way to account for the changes.

We’ve had a tremendous number of people vaccinated and, thus, we have a concurrent drop in infections, hospitalization, and -yes- deaths.

It’s as easy as that.

Get vaccinated.

Please!

Movies

The Purchase of MGM

Amazon.com has acquired MGM which means they have purchased the back catalogue of films which means (redux) that they now own the James Bond films.

Screenwriter John Logan, who worked on both Skyfall and the (IMHO) abysmal Spectre, had some thoughts about that and wrote an opinion piece lamenting/worrying about what that might mean to the long running franchise.

Over at deadline.com, Tom Grater writes about Mr. Logan’s thoughts:

James Bond writer warns that Amazon’s MGM deal could dilute franchise: “Let James Bond drink his Martini’s in peace”

In essence Mr. Logan’s fealty is with the Broccolis, who have controlled the James Bond franchise since its inception, and worries that if some corporate overlord worms their way into decisions regarding the franchise -versus continued control by the Broccolis- the brand may be diluted.

His worry isn’t far off. We’ve seen what’s happened -some good, some pretty bad- following George Lucas selling his ownership of the Star Wars franchise to Disney.

Certainly one thing that does seem to happen with these well known franchises that are acquired by studios is that there is an effort to maximize releases of new material and, hopefully, then make the brand even more profitable.

Mr. Logan likely worries that there might be a Miss Moneypenny TV show/movie down the road or perhaps something with Q or M. Given the way Disney is now releasing movies based on villains of their popular movies (Cruella being the latest release), might there not be the possibility of a Goldfinger (the villain) movie? Or perhaps something with Blofeld?

I can see Mr. Logan’s worry…

…but…

The fact of the matter is that the James Bond movie franchise has existed since the very early 1960’s. There have been great James Bond films. There have been mediocre James Bond films. And, yes, there have been pretty abysmal James Bond films (looking at you, Spectre).

There was a time when the James Bond films were the state-of-the-art action/adventure films but that, it seems, hasn’t been the case for quite some time.

The wonder surrounding the franchise -which for many years was the only movie franchise out there- IMHO has lost that luster.

James Bond films were essentially lost in the wilderness following Pierce Brosnan’s run. If it wasn’t for the success of the Matt Damon Bourne movies and the franchise using them as a template, perhaps the James Bond franchise might have faded away anyway.

Much as I love Casino Royale, the first and best of the Daniel Craig Bonds, it was clearly a film that benefitted tremendously from using elements found in the Bourne films.

What followed, sadly, has proven disappointing to me. Quantum of Solace was a slick looking film with some good action sequences but a story which was murky… and that’s being kind. Granted, the movie was a victim of a writer’s strike, but still. Skyfall, as I’ve noted before, I absolutely loved when I saw it in theaters upon its initial release. However, the moment the film was over and I thought about what I just saw, I realized that movie’s plot was complete nonsense as well and my opinion of the film has subsequently dropped.

And Spectre, as I’ve mentioned twice before above, I felt was absolutely abysmal, easily IMHO the worst Bond film ever made.

Would more Bondian works dilute the franchise?

I suppose its possible but I wonder if it matters at this point. The James Bond franchise seems to move in waves, sometimes good sometimes forgettable/bad.

Could more James Bond make the franchise better or worse?

Either is possible, certainly, but given the very long history to date, I wonder if audiences will be as preoccupied about that as Mr. Logan is.