All posts by ERTorre

E. R. Torre is a writer/artist whose first major work, the mystery graphic novel The Dark Fringe, was optioned for motion picture production by Platinum Studios (Men In Black, Cowboys vs. Aliens). At DC Comics, his work appeared in role-playing game books and the 9-11 Tribute book. This later piece was eventually displayed, along with others from the 9-11 tribute books, at The Library of Congress. More recently he released Shadows at Dawn (a collection of short stories), Haze (a murder mystery novel with supernatural elements), and Cold Hemispheres (a mystery novel set in the world of The Dark Fringe). He is currently hard at work on his latest science fiction/suspense series, Corrosive Knights, which features the novels Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon.
Books/Literature

On Othello…

Found this absolutely fascinating article by Isaac Butler on Slate.com, exploring a concept that, I have to admit, I’ve had a curiosity about.  The question involves Shakespeare’s famous play Othello, and the question is:

Why is Othello Black?

I have to give considerable credit to Mr. Butler.  In a relatively short essay he addresses many of the questions I’ve had regarding the character and, even more importantly, why Shakespeare presented him in this way and for what reason.  There is history here and an awareness of what “black” meant to the author in the 1600’s versus what it means to us today.

The conclusions, specifically about what the play tells us about Othello the character (a noble soul driven to -and revealing- his base nature or a man ultimately betrayed by those far less noble -and beastly- than him?) as well as those around him and the questions that are never completely answered, are fascinating and had me appreciating all the more the play and its deep meanings.

A must read!

Books/Literature

On Writing…

A couple of weeks ago I read an article about the November Writing Challenge (you can sign up for it here, but 10 days have already passed!).  In essence, the challenge is to write an at least 50,000 word novel in the month.

No, I didn’t sign up for the challenge.  I’m knee deep in book #6 of the Corrosive Knights saga and the last thing I need to do is distract myself from it for a month writing another work.

When I read about the challenge, perhaps on io9.com or somewhere like it, I was fascinated by the commentary section and the various bits of advice people gave would-be authors accepting the challenge.  Though I wish I could find the actual comments, one in particular, which I’ll paraphrase below (sorry, don’t have the actual quote handy), struck me as interesting:

Leave things where they lie and write forward.  Do not go back and revise, rather write around what you originally put down.

In the context of writing a 50,000 novel in a month’s time, this is good advice.  Because of the nature of the challenge you don’t want to get stuck repeatedly going over sections of your book and/or rewriting great parts of it as the deadline looms large.

But as the advice presented is framed towards this particular writing challenge, its easy to point out it doesn’t relate to the type of novels I write.

Of course, I can’t speak about other authors.  If you are to accept what Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing, he claims to write exactly one draft of his novels, puts it away for a little while to “mellow out”, then goes over it one time before it is ready to be published.  Given the copious amounts of books he releases, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is indeed the case, that he writes along the lines of the advice presented above and then moves on to the next work.

As much as I wish I could write like that (oh, the number of books I’d have out there by now!), that’s not the way I do it.

I’ve posted bits and pieces of information on my writing here and there and I’ll likely do so again in the future.  For me, writing is not unlike creating an oil painting.

The painter starts with an idea of what it is they want to paint.  Perhaps it is a landscape or a city.  Perhaps a person or group of people.  You have some ideas of how things will fit together and you come up with a rough drawing.  Depending on how good you are, the drawing is done quickly or, more than likely, you work out spaces and where things lie on your canvas.

Your original idea(s) likely change during this stage, sometimes radically.  After a bit of work you reach a point where you have your drawing down on the canvas (if you do things that way) and you’re ready to lay down colors.  During this process of blending colors together you may have additional discoveries, either done on purpose or found by accident, which step by step further fill in your work. When you’re done, the picture you’ve created may well be very far from what you originally envisioned but if you’re successful, what you’ve completed is far, far better than that original concept.

So it is for me with writing a novel.  Usually I start out with a few rough ideas.  I may have a concept of a novel’s beginning and its end or maybe both and then have to come up with what lies between.  Rarely do I have ideas of things that happen somewhere in the middle of the book.

As for characters, I usually have an idea of the ones I want to use and their interactions, but this is often subject to change.

In the case of the Corrosive Knights novel I’m currently writing, I started out with an idea of the novel’s beginning, though this wasn’t set in stone, and its end, which was far better defined.

When I started writing the book and, unlike the advice presented above, I would very often go back over my work as I realized certain plot points worked better another way.  This is how I wound up with almost 30,000 words of material which I may wind up discarding completely.

A waste of time?  Most certainly, but the overall work is better for these unused experiments…if nothing else, they made me realize I needed to do better.

Returning to the characters, the original big bad villain of the piece, I realized, was better served being heroic (though not the novel’s hero).  Further, I added chunks of information originally conceived for the next book in the Corrosive Knights series but which I realized worked better in this one.  These chunks of information fill in historical blanks that finally give the series the 20,000 plus year history I was intent on telling.

Sometimes I wish I could transport back in time and with my latest novel in hand and present it to myself as I was beginning the work.  How would I react to being in the novel’s embryonic stage and then seeing it presented in full?  How would I react to the knowledge that the journey begun with a few small ideas would flower into something so full?

And after admiring the work done, I’d just have to tell myself who won the upcoming Super Bowl.

Might be worth a few more bucks! 😉

Movies

A little more on Spectre and other Bond musings…

No, haven’t gone to see the film.  As I said in my previous post, reading the reviews and discovering the “big” spoiler created a really bad taste in my mouth, one which I’ll get into in a moment.

In that previous post, I didn’t want to get into spoiler territory but now that the film has been out for several days and no doubt word of what this spoiler is has circulated among fans of the James Bond franchise, I feel safer in exploring it.

Of course, what I’m about to get into is still…

SPOILER TERRITORY!

You’ve been warned!

Ok, so in that previous post (you can read the full thing here) I offered a link to one review in particular, that of Drew McWeeny for hitfix.com.  The review can be found here.

There are two “big” reveals in the review.  The first was to be expected: The character of Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) turned out to be Blofeld.  Considering this film was named “Spectre” and anyone with even a passing knowledge of the fictitious evil organization knows that its head is Blofeld, I can only scratch my head as to why they chose to “hide” this fact.

I mean, EVERYONE knew that Mr. Waltz (despite the actor’s protestations) was playing the character.  It was a weak repeat of the weak “surprise” that John Harrison was in actuality Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).  I suppose one of the earlier examples of the use of this concept in modern times (and modern blockbuster films) was in 2005’s Batman Begins where Liam Neeson’s Ducard is revealed to be…someone else.  This concept was used again in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) with the revelation that Marion Cotillard’s Miranda wasn’t who she said she was, though even by that point audiences were already suspecting she was a certain character’s daughter.

Moving beyond this by now well worn trope, what really infuriated me -as well as Mr. McWeeny- regarding Spectre was this:

…the reason that Oberhauser became a criminal mastermind in charge of an international organization that is involved in human trafficking, drugs, terrorism, and myriad other destructive crimes is because when James Bond’s parents died, Bond was sent to live with the Oberhausers, and Papa Oberhauser decided he liked James Bond better than he liked his real son, Franz.

Yes. It’s true. Blofeld is Blofeld because his daddy liked James Bond more than him.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

Talk about cheap, pseudo-psychological crap.  One comes away feeling Oberhauser/Blofeld needs to get a grip.  I take it back: the screenwriters of Spectre need to get a grip.  How could they use this concept (already used as a joke in the last Austin Powers film!) and think it would come out as anything other than silly?

But like the “revelation” that Oberhauser is in reality Blofeld, the links between villain and hero also have a history.  A history that, by this point, has also slid into cliche.

Who can forget…

Many were totally blown away by this revelation though it, like the concept that Luke and Leia were siblings, was clearly a post original Star Wars creation.

A few years later, Tim Burton’s original Batman introduced this element which, though not familiar per se, created a sense that Joker/Batman were intertwined more than had ever originally been conceived:

In the comic books, the Wayne’s killer was a low level hoodlum named Joe Chill.  In this movie, Jack Napier/The Joker “creates” Batman and Batman, later in the film, creates the Joker.  Its one of those “neat” concepts that are perhaps a little too neat and can only occur in films that deal with the fanstastic.

Now that Spectre is out (and doing fairly well in theaters, though its box office wasn’t quite as high as Skyfall) and it might be Daniel Craig’s last go at the James Bond character, I suspect a major re-evaluation of his films is in the offing.  While the Pierce Brosnan films were box-office successes, following his departure people gave his run a second look and it turned out those films didn’t have legs.  Most today dismiss the Brosnan run as weak even though it did well enough to warrant four films.

I wonder if the same may happen with Mr. Craig’s four film run.  For my money and without having seen Spectre yet (I will, but probably not in theaters), the only really good Daniel Craig Bond film is Casino Royale, but only because it so very well created an “origin” of the Bond character.  I was hoping subsequent films would fully grasp the fun/action/suspense nature of the other Bond films but that was not to be.  Quantum Of Solace was torpedoed by a writer’s strike.  Skyfall was a beautiful film to look at and enjoy while watching it for the first time but immediately afterwards you realize the plot made absolutely no sense.  Spectre appears to be not unlike Skyfall in the sense that it is also a beautiful film to look at but one whose plot -and the character motivations- again suffer.

In time, will we look back and say that Mr. Craig made one really good Bond film and followed it up with three forgettable features?  Is this not what essentially happened to Pierce Brosnan?  Goldeneye, Mr. Brosnan’s first Bond film, is considered by many his best while the others…not so much.

Is history repeating itself?

Movies

(Very) Shaken, Not Stirred…

1 Comment

It’s my own damn fault, really.

I’m a curious guy and as much as I was (note the past tense) eager to see the 007 film Spectre, released today, I just had to read some of the reviews.

To be fair, the earliest reviews, appearing earlier in the week and following, I assume, the UK premiere of the film, were generally positive and my hopes were raised.  I’m a fan of James Bond and have a love for many of the films, even as I’m clear-eyed enough to recognize there is plenty of chaff among the wheat.

My favorite Bond is Sean Connery though even his run of films weren’t perfect.  Thunderball was a great spectacle but in retrospect was probably the first of the Bond films to show both formula and bloat but its follow-up, You Only Live Twice, was the only Connery Bond film (including the non-canon Never Say Never Again) to leave me cold.  While others loathe the tongue in cheek campiness of Diamonds Are Forever, I happen to like that film for just that reason.

Between You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever we had On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the only Bond film featuring George Lazenby in the title role.  There are many who consider this one of the all time best Bond films ever but I’m not one of them.  I found the film rather flat, though it was fun to see Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in it.  Continuity-wise, I never understood why Mr. Savalas’ Blofeld didn’t recognize James Bond and vice versa.  Despite the change in actors, the two characters had come face to face in the previous film, You Only Live Twice.

The first Bond I encountered was the Roger Moore version.  Though many hate Mr. Moore’s take on the Bond character, I enjoyed his work.  The biggest problem, IMHO, with Mr. Moore’s Bond films is that one good film was almost always followed with a really bad one.  Further, two of the worst Bond films ever made, Moonraker (a silly Star Wars inspired affair) and A View To A Kill (an uninspired work -you need only check out the totally ho-hum opening action set piece to see how uninspired the rest of the film was) both featured Mr. Moore.  Yet the highs were very high.  The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only are two of my all time favorite Bonds.

Timothy Dalton would replace Roger Moore in the underrated The Living Daylights, a damn good Bond film that would have benefited even more had the producers/creators tailored their script for Mr. Dalton rather than Roger Moore (as good as Mr. Dalton is, there are moments in the film that appeared designed specifically for Mr. Moore’s interpretation of the character).  Mr. Dalton’s second (and last) Bond film, License to Kill, however, was a big disappointment and I wasn’t too surprised when it was announced he was out.

Pierce Brosnan, the actor who the studios originally wanted to take over for Roger Moore following A View to a Kill, would be hired for the next four Bond films which, frankly, didn’t do all that much for me.  I love the idea of Pierce Brosnan playing Bond but the films, apart from the first, felt like a cookie cutter product.  One film fades into the next and if pressed, I’d have a hard time telling you the plots of his Bond run.

Then came Daniel Craig with the 2006 “reboot” Casino Royale.  Based on the first Ian Fleming penned James Bond story, Casino Royale was what Timothy Dalton’s first Bond film should have been.  Serious, sexy, and tragic.  Here we had James Bond presented as a new agent and, by the end of the adventure when he states he’s “Bond, James Bond” it feels like you’ve just seen his origin story and away we go…

…only we didn’t.

The next Bond film, Quantum of Solace, fell victim in part to a writer’s strike and was a mess of a movie, IMHO.  2012’s Skyfall, however, hit audiences like napalm.  Critics almost universally loved the film and, when watching it, so did I.

But as pretty and adrenaline pumping as Skyfall was to watch in theaters that first time, the movie’s story falls apart even under the most modest of scrutiny.  Worse, this is the only Bond film I know of where the bad guy “wins”.  His stated goal is to kill Judi Dench’s M and then die and this is exactly what he does.  Which makes one wonder: Just how effective is this Bond?

Another thing that bothered me about the film, even upon first watching it, is that at the very end we again establish the “old” Bond setup of a male M, Moneypenny, and Bond.  Didn’t we already do a “origin” story with Casino Royale?  How come we’re now three movies into Mr. Craig’s run and yet we wind once again having an origin story with Skyfall?

Which brings us back to Spectre.

Despite the bumps in the road and the disappointing films, I maintain I’m a fan of the franchise and like nothing more than to see a good Bond film.  The early commercials for Spectre indicated, at least to me, that this new movie would offer plenty of homages to the old ones, something that thrilled me.

In my mind I’m thinking: Now that we’ve finally gotten rid of the whole origin story stuff, we’re going into primo-Bond territory with, among other Bondian staples, a bruiser henchman whom he fights on a train (Shades of From Russia WIth Love and The Spy Who Loved Me)!  You have the evil organization Spectre coming back after all these years (the organization that vexed Connery’s Bond for most of his run!  Hey, it’s in the movie’s title!).  You have car chases and snow and beautiful women (not that they ever left the series) and…

…and it looked like so much fun.

Then came the other reviews.

As I said above, its my own damn fault.  When I read this HEAVY SPOILER review by Drew McWeeny, I was beside myself:

Spectre Manages to Majorly Muddy Daniel Craig’s James Bond Legacy

I’ll try to stay clear of certain spoilery material as best I can, but one of the first things to annoy me upon reading this review is that it appears we once again have a Daniel Craig Bond film that takes place BEFORE he becomes a “full on” Connery-Moore-Lazenby-Dalton-Brosnan Bond.  In other words, we’re once again -on our fourth Daniel Craig film!- yet again dealing with a proto-Bond in an origin story.

Even worse than that was discovering in this review and others like it the identity and motives of the movie’s villain.  I’m not going to give that information away (if you want SPOILERS, click the link above or search for other reviews), but the motives of the villain are -and there is no kind way of saying this- stupid.

Extremely stupid.

How stupid?  So stupid one wonders if the writers forgot the same motivations and relationships were presented years before in one of the Austin Powers films (again, I’m being careful here to not be spoilery).  In the Austin Powers films these were presented as broad comedy and the silliness was intentional.  In Spectre they’re playing it straight and reading about it makes it feel all the sillier.

So here we are, four films into Daniel Craig’s run of James Bond and, based on some of the interviews he’s given, Spectre might well be his final appearance as Bond and, at least for some critics, if this is his swan song he’s going out on a low.

Too bad.

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights 11/5/15 Update

Been a while since I posted an update on the latest Corrosive Knights novel, which will be #6 in the series and whose title I’m keeping to myself for a little bit longer.

Writing these books has been a blast even as they’ve also been a mighty struggle.  I’m working with a series I feel is unique in many ways.  To begin, the scope of the story is incredibly large, taking place over the course of some 20,000 plus years.  Readers are offered events in different epochs which, when put together, form a much larger story.

While there have been plenty of stories featuring flashbacks and flash-forwards, I think its safe to say no series -at least none that I’m aware of!- features entire novels that take place in sometimes vastly different times, past and the future, while (hopefully!) logically building up the larger tale.

The five Corrosive Knights books plus the one I’m currently working on have been/will be released -and ideally should be read- in this order:

Corrosive Knights

I say “ideally” but I’m not being entirely honest: The the first three books of the series, Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon could be read in any order.  They feature unique characters and take place in vastly different times and therefore one could read them in any order they choose.

However, by the time you reach Nox, Ghost of the Argus, and the unnamed Book #6, the continuity established in these first three novels kicks in and, while I think the later books could be enjoyed on their own, I HIGHLY recommend you read books 1, 2, and 3 before venturing into the ones that follow.

Now, if I were to tell the Corrosive Knights story in chronological order, i.e. each book’s main story occurring “one after the other” (and ignoring whatever flashback elements are presented within said novels), the story order would go like this:

Small Covers in Chronological Order for Web2

That’s right: The book I’m currently working on, #6 of the Corrosive Knights series, actually takes place before the events of The Last Flight of the Argus and Ghost of the Argus.  In fact, they take place a few hundred years before those books!  Yet I would absolutely NOT recommend anyone read that book when it is released in a few short months (I’ll get to that in a second) before already reading the rest of the series and, in particular, The Last Flight of the Argus and Ghost of the Argus.

Why?

Because the events of those two books in particular fill in story concepts which have a big payoff in Book #6 and propels the reader into the Corrosive Knights series finale, which will be Book #7.

Fear not, thought.  There will be an epilogue to the series, a Book #8, which will wrap certain things up that weren’t/aren’t wrapped up in Book #7.  Book #8 will also offer what I hope is a great long view of the heroes we’ve followed for so long while focusing on one in particular.  To further screw with your head, I’m already finished with the first draft of Book #8 but only have a chapter or so written (along with a general idea of the story) of Book #7.

Not only is my series presented in a quirky temporal way, so too it would appear is my creative output!

Now, getting back to Book #6:

I’ve been working on that book for many months now and have a great opening half and a great conclusion but I spent a lot of time filling in what happens between.  I’ve written bits and pieces (amounting to some 30,000 words!) of material for that section but I knew it wasn’t quite coming together.

As I mentioned in previous blogs, writing for me is like a form of OCD.  You spend almost every waking hour at one moment or another thinking about your current work and going through the possibilities of what may/may not work.

Then, about two weeks ago, I awoke at 2 in the morning (not an unusual thing for me) and my mind was racing.  I was thinking about book #6 and that missing section and suddenly I had it.  One scene after the other flowed through my mind all the way to the very end.  Instead of going back to sleep, I headed to my desk and pulled out a yellow notepad and began writing what my fevered mind was giving me.

When I was done, I had five full pages of handwritten notes laid out detailing the second act of the novel leading up to the conclusion.  I was so damn excited yet also so damn exhausted that I stumbled back to bed and crashed.

In the morning, I was so happy I wrote down all my thoughts because while I had a general idea of what I was going to do, some of the details were lost in my near dream state.

On Halloween night, while my wife was occupied with giving kids treats, I had another burst of nervous energy and wrote most of the book’s conclusion.  Two days later, on November 2nd (this past Monday), I finished the whole thing and printed it out.  I still want to go over those 30,000 words of material I wrote and see if they’re at all usable in the novel but the fact of the matter is that the first full draft is finally done and I can now move on to the editing phase.

All my novels, when reaching this phase, feel different.  There have been books I’ve finished the first full draft that I know need a lot of work to be finalized.  That doesn’t feel like the case here.  I suspect I’ll need to go over this book a few times, at least three and possibly as many as six, but I have a feeling the editing process this time around won’t require as much work as with some other novels and therefore I feel (and hope!) this book will be ready to go perhaps as early as February.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

For those who have followed the Corrosive Knights series so far, I think you’ll find Book #6 another great addition to the series.

I’ll offer updates when the book is near ready!

Movies

Dark Places (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Whenever a movie has a very limited theatrical run and/or quickly appears on direct-to-video services, one can usually guess the studios decided -whether right or wrong- said features are not strong enough to spend the extra money in promoting it and having a full theatrical run.

These films most certainly could be good but, perhaps even more easily, might be a complete bust.

Often direct to video films star lesser known actors and are low budget affairs.  This happens frequently but not always.  Sometimes these movies may surprise you by featuring one time very big name actors.  Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a trio of such big league actions stars, have nonetheless each had films released via this format.  In their prime, this would probably never happen, but time passes and these stars no longer command the best and brightest directors and writers for their work.

There are other exceptions to be found, and one of the strangest of them all, to my mind, is the film Dark Places.  Why do I feel this is a strange case?

Because the film features a very hot “A” list star in Charlize Theron who just appeared as what was arguably the star of one of this summer’s biggest box office/critical successes in Mad Max: Fury Road.  Further, the film she’s in is an adaptation of a currently very hot author’s novel.  Finally, the story featured in this movie may have drawn Ms. Theron because it touches somewhat on her own personal tragedy when growing up, which means Ms. Theron might have given the role an extra effort in the realization, perhaps something along the line of her critically acclaimed work in Monster.

If there were ever enough ingredients to expect a film would at the very least be a sure fire theatrical release it was this one.  Yet Dark Places, as mentioned, only received a very limited theatrical release before being thrown into the home video market.

With all that in mind, I nonetheless remained curious to see the film and, when given the opportunity yesterday, I did just that, though I lowered my expectations even more than usual.  So, was the film a bust like the studios felt or were they wrong in showing such little faith in this movie?

Read on…read on…

Based on the novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Dark Places is the story of Libby Day (Charlize Theron) a woman who, as a young girl, had her mother and two sisters brutally murdered by what was believed to be her then 15 year old brother.  She was the only one to escape the massacre and, in court, fingered her brother for the crime.

Now an adult, LIbby is a woman who has benefited from the notoriety of this sensational crime.  She’s made money by releasing a book (she later claims she never read it and didn’t write it) and, for a time, also received money from well wishers.

But twenty eight years later, the money is drying up and Libby is in deep financial straits.  Her rent hasn’t been paid for two months and electricity to her house has been cut off.  Her financial adviser presents her with some letters from organizations and groups interested in paying her to appear at their events, events that deal with crimes.

Desperate to score money, Libby agrees to meet up with Lyle Wirth (Mad Max: Fury Road co-star Nicholas Hoult) who runs a “Crime Club”.  Though not interested in re-living the tragedy of her past, she accepts money from him to attend what turns out to be a fractious meeting of his Crime Club.  The members of the club, Libby finds, all believe her brother innocent of the murders and want Libby to re-examine the crime.  Libby tells the members off but something awakens within her.  Later on she again contacts Wirth and, while insisting this is all about money, agrees to allow him to “hire” her for 3 weeks time during which she will go over her case.

What follows are flashbacks and detective work performed, for the most part, by LIbby.  She re-establishes contact with her brother, who remains in jail.  She is terrified by him yet he doesn’t appear to be the monster she expected.  Nonetheless, the now grown man refuses to tell Libby whether he committed the crimes and that makes her believe there’s more to the story than what she remembers.

Despite lowering my expectations waaaay down with Dark Places, the movie proved a slog.  Clocking in at just over two hours long, the film feels overlong yet curiously underdeveloped.  The main mystery is never as intriguing as one would hope and the revelations, when they come, rely too much on coincidence.  Without getting into too many SPOILERS, suffice it to say that the night of the crime several events magically lined up to create this singular event…and its a whopper of a thing to swallow, as much of a whopper to swallow when all is magically uncovered all those years later.

Despite a strong cast and decent acting, Dark Places is too slow, too un-involving, and ultimately too coincidental in its resolution to accept.  It’s therefore not too terribly surprising the film wasn’t given a broader release.

Movies

…the horror…the…horror…

So we just finished up the month of October and over at the movie studios they’re wondering…

October Box Office Scare: Why So Many Movies Bombed

The above article by Pamela McClintock and presented on CNN.com, examines the large uptick in failed movie released during the past month.

While The Martian is doing well, so many other films have severely underperformed.

Films such as:

The Walk.

This movie, directed by Robert Zemekis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, etc) received generally positive reviews but audiences stayed away in droves.  Personally, I wasn’t all that interested in the subject matter.  And if I was, why would I watch this and not Man on Wire, the 2008 documentary that focuses on, and features footage from, the actual tightrope walk?

Further to that, I have a big fear of heights and, from what I understand, this film really wanted audiences, especially those going to the IMAX presentation, to experience a strong sense of vertigo.  Mr. Zemekis wanted audiences to feel the heights which Phillipe Petite (the man who did the walk) felt.

Regardless of how good the film might be:  Why would I want to torture myself like that?!

Another film that didn’t do so well was Steve Jobs.  Written by acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, and Seth Rogan (who in particular received great reviews for his portrayal of Steve Jobs’ partner Steve Wozniak), the film nonetheless also tanked at the box office…even though it too received generally positive reviews.  On Rottentomatoes.com, the film has a positive rating of 85% and yet audiences weren’t interested.

I suspect the problem here might be that we’ve already had our fill of Steve Jobs documentaries…if there ever was a desire for such a thing in the first place.  Only two years ago Jobs, featuring Ashton Kutcher in the title role, came and went and no one cared then -though to be fair unlike Steve Jobs this film was almost universally panned- so why should they care now?

Then there’s the Bill Murray vehicle Rock The Kasbah.  While I felt the trailer was amusing, this one may have fallen victim to very bad reviews.

Truth, starring Robert Redford and Kate Blanchett and focusing on the controversial George H. W. Bush military service story that sunk Dan Rather’s career also didn’t do well.  The reviews for this film were decidedly mixed but I suspect the problem in finding an audience with this movie might lie in that almost everyone -including conservatives- wants nothing more than to forget all about George H. W. Bush and his presidency.  Why go to the movies to revisit even one aspect of it?

Our Brand is Crisis, starring Sandra Bullock, in my opinion, simply didn’t look all that interesting.  Then again, like Truth we’re again dealing with politics and maybe people just aren’t in the mood at this time to deal with it.  Regardless, apart from some humorous content, the movie’s trailer didn’t grab me all that much.  Your mileage, of course, may vary:

Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper as an arrogant chef, was even worse, trailer-wise.  Does anyone want to see the film after this:

Slick though the trailer is, almost nothing about it grabbed me and the scenarios presented felt awfully familiar.  If I want to see an arrogant chef scolding his “pupils” I can watch Hell’s Kitchen.  If I want to see people making great culinary confections, I can watch any of a myriad of programs on the Food Network.  Perhaps this subject matter is a little too overexposed?

My comments above, of course, benefit immensely from 20/20 hindsight.  Though it may not sound it, I do not relish hearing about troubles at movie studios.  As an author, I know the backbreaking efforts that go into creating a work and it must be crushing to see the end results receive (as some of those features did) great reviews but be met with public indifference.  Besides, while these films didn’t appeal to me personally for the reasons I’ve listed, at least the studios were trying to do something different.

Unfortunately, it appears the studios entered a perfect storm of sorts and audiences simply weren’t buying what they were selling this past month.

Movies, TV

Ash vs Evil Dead: “El Jefe” (2015) episode review

He’s back and I couldn’t be happier.

Count me among those who loves Bruce Campbell’s Ashley “Ash” J. Williams character featured in the films The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992).

Which means that with this past Halloween weekend premiere of “El Jefe”, the first episode of Starz! Ash vs Evil Dead, it has been a mind boggling twenty three years since we’ve seen a healthy dose of our anti-hero/screwup in action.  Sure, Mr. Campbell made a cameo appearance as Ash at the very end (after the credits) of the disappointing 2013 remake/reimaging of Evil Dead, but that’s all it was, a few seconds’ long cameo…

Here we finally, finally get what we asked for: Ash front and center doing what he does best: Kick demonic ass while simultaneously making an ass out of himself.

For that’s what the crew behind the original Evil Dead films discovered: That graphic, splatter horror could be merged with comedy to create something unique for these times.  While this wasn’t an entirely new idea (years before Abbott and Costello meet up with, among others, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula etc), the character of Ash, a knucklehead with a penchant for spouting some of the strangest/hilarious lines…

…was.  He’s a clod, a dim bulb.  An arrogant, selfish fool who nonetheless has one very unique ability: To effectively fight evil.  Though the first Evil Dead movie was more of a straight up horror film, it was in the second Evil Dead this unique comic-Ash character really flowered.  The clip above, from Army of Darkness, continued and expanded on that interpretation.  Ash was the dufus character from a comedy that just happened to find himself in a full fledged horror feature.

Happily, Ash vs Evil Dead follows that path beautifully.  Though older, Ash is certainly no wiser.  In fact, other than dentures and a bigger belly, he’s the exact same fool fans have come to know and love.

The first episode of this 10 episode series (with a second season already approved!  Yay!) succinctly re-establishes Ash while introducing us to his modern world, a place where he’s still a low level worker at the “Value Stop” chain (alas, the S-Smart found in Army of Darkness -and indeed all the elements present in that movie- could not be used in this show as that film is owned by another studio.  No big deal: Strong continuity isn’t an important element in the Evil Dead universe).  Ash also remains a lothario, readying himself in comical fashion in the opening scenes to cruise down to a seedy looking bar and pick up the only woman in the establishment…by lying and boasting about how he lost his hand (one can imagine how many times before he’s used this pick up line).

But all is (of course) not well and Ash realizes the evil he faced all those years before may be back.  And the person responsible for its return could be…Ash himself.

I won’t go into all the details of this episode but we are introduced to a larger cast of characters who will accompany Ash on this new adventure.  Some, like Lucy Lawless‘ Lucy appear only for a few seconds in this episode while three other regulars are given more time.  Whether there are more characters to join in this journey, I’m not sure.

Yet.

If you’re at all into Evil Dead and, more specifically, the legend that is Ash, you’ll have a blast with this new series’ first episode.  Let’s hope what follows is up to this highly entertaining premiere.

Movies

Extinction (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Extinction, apart from the casting of two popular TV actors in the lead roles, is the fact it is a movie that uses a by now perhaps too common trope, that of a “zombie apocalypse,” to instead tell the tale of friendship gone very sour and the possibility of its redemption.

The relationship between the two leads, played by Lost’s Matthew Fox and Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan, is never really explained.  Are they good friends?  Brothers?  Brothers-In-Law?  We never really know, though the film hints that their relationship existed a very long time, to when they were kids.

The movie begins with the two of them on a bus filled with other people.  Two heavily armed soldiers watch over the group as the bus, and another in front of it, head to some kind of safe ground. Perhaps they’re being moved to a military base or perhaps an airport to transport survivors somewhere else.

The two accompany Emma, an attractive young woman carrying a very young baby.  Tension rises as the child cries, and rises still more when the bus in front of them stops and doesn’t move.  Through the darkness the group cannot see what’s going on in the bus in front of them.

And then a gunshot is heard and soon all hell breaks loose.

In the ensuing chaos we discover our leads care deeply for Emma and her baby, and when a zombie-ish (they may be zombies, they may be people stricken with some kind of rage virus) attack hits their bus and, eventually, results in Emma getting bitten, we abruptly transition to nine years later.

We find that humanity may well be gone while Earth has entered a new Ice age.  Our two leads live literally right across from each other in barricaded homes but no longer speak to each other.

Jack (Jeffrey Donovan) cares for Lu, the now older baby we saw in the movie’s opening act.  He is well groomed and cares deeply for the child while across the way Patrick (Matthew Fox) has allowed his hair and beard to grow and lives in a house littered with dirt.  Patrick also drinks too much and appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  He looks like a mountain man and, apart from his dog companion, doesn’t interact with either Jack or Lu.

Not that Jack would allow him to.

We quickly realize something big happened between the two men since we were first introduced to them.  Over the course of the movie, we discover where that break occurred while also finding that the zombie threat, thought long gone after the cold weather took over the world, may not be quite over after all.

As mentioned before, this is a movie that is more focused on the relationship between these characters rather than feeding audiences horror chills.  In fact, there are exactly three big action scenes in the film, the first in its opening act, the second toward the middle, and at final one at the very end.  In between, we witness how Jack cares for the young Lu, a girl who feels herself being overly protected.  She’s also curious about Patrick and his dog, though anytime she approaches him Jack becomes unhinged.

For modern audiences, the movie’s languid pace might be a little too slow, especially if you’re used to the thrill-a-minute Walking Dead.  Worse, when we do finally discover what drove these two men apart, the revelation doesn’t feel as big/terrible as it might have been.

Still, the movie for the most part delivers regarding these character moments.  When Jack finally allows Patrick into his house for a meal and a truce, the scene makes your heart pound with both tension and the hope these two will finally resolve their differences.  It is here, in the movie’s very best scene, that the characters offer hints at their common past in front of the innocent Lu.  However, like in real life, old wounds aren’t healed so quickly or completely.

I don’t want to give away too much more but suffice to say that if you get into the characters, you will enjoy this film.  Unfortunately, where Extinction doesn’t work quite as well is when delivering its action/horror.  The opening zombie attack isn’t anything you haven’t seen plenty of times before.  The middle action scene suffers from some shoddy effects (alas, this is a low budget film and while they did well with creating a snowy apocalypse, its still a low budget affair).  The final attack works the best though it does involve another well-worn zombie trope done many times before and better: the siege.

The bottom line is that if you come into Extinction hoping to see tension filled horror/action film along the lines of a 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead (original or remake) or Walking Dead you will probably walk away disappointed.  However, because of the very good characterization presented and, especially, that dinner scene, I can’t entirely dismiss this film.

If I had to rate it on a four star scale, I’d give Extinction two to two and a half stars.  Make of this what you will.

Movies

How it was shot…

10 Most Iconic Movie Scenes, at least according to the folks at Screen Rant:

Not to sound too snotty but I was aware of most of the examples included (the problems with Bruce, the name given the animatronic shark from Jaws are quite legendary!).

Perhaps the most interesting one was The Exorcist’s spider walk down the stairs.  I knew the scene was cut but as I haven’t looked at the bonus material on my expanded edition of the movie I didn’t realize the reason for not using that particular scene was because when it was filmed, and before the advent of CGI, they were unable to “hide” the strings holding the contortionist up as she moved down the stairs.

It makes perfect sense that now with the use of computers the wires can be digitally removed and therefore the scene re-inserted into the film, though I wonder if it was, in the end, necessary.  I’m ambivalent about its inclusion in the expanded director’s cut but there have been plenty of people who felt the scene should have remained on the cutting room floor.

Returning to Jaws for a moment, it is also well known that because of all the problems the animatronic shark had director Steven Spielberg was forced to hold off on showing the shark much longer than he originally intended to in the film.  In lieu of this, he created scenes where we adopt the perspective of the shark and/or the shark attacks and we barely see it.

The problems with the shark turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  By not revealing the “villain” of the piece fully until the last acts, Mr. Spielberg created a film whose suspense grew with each new attack/victim.  I distinctly recall having my breath taken away when the shark was finally revealed in all its terrifying glory toward the later stages of the film.

Which just goes to show that sometimes as much as a movie benefits from good acting or directing or script, etc. etc., sometimes you have to also be lucky.

I’ve made it known before how much I like the theatrical version of Walter Hill’s cult classic The Warriors.  That version of the film is one of, in my opinion, Walter Hill’s all time best movies.

And yet because of budget and time he was unable to show “his” vision of the film.  Years later he released an “ultimate director’s cut” of the movie which included new material, mostly in the from of comic book frames, as well as some different cuts of several of the film’s classic scenes…and the end result was, in my opinion, terrible.

While I can appreciate the man who created the film wanted to see it released closer to the way he originally envisioned it, sometimes when the pressure is on and a creative person is forced to make something within rigorous time/budgetary/logistical constraints, the results can be all the better.