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.
TV

12 TV Shows…

…That Went On Way Too Long, at least according to Daniel D’Addario for Salon.com:

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/11/12_shows_that_went_on-way-too-long/

One of their top choices -and I don’t think this requires spoilers- is The Simpsons.  Man, do I agree with that choice.  I vividly recall when the show first appeared way, waaaay back in 1989 and being completely entranced by it.  To me it was absolutely must see TV, a show that provided seemingly non-stop laughs.

Then, something happened.

I can’t even put my finger on what exactly what it was but all of a sudden…I had my fill of The Simpsons.  More than my fill.  I haven’t seen an episode of the show -new or otherwise- in more than fifteen years.  Perhaps even as many as twenty years (the show is on its twenty fifth season).

Mind you, at the time I finally dropped the show I don’t think it had changed in any significant way.  The humor remained roughly as before but after five or six seasons of faithful viewing I no longer felt the need to continue doing so.

There are other shows on the list, like The X-Files and The Office, which reached a point they should have ended, particularly when one of the lead actors took off and were replaced by actors audiences didn’t care about quite as much.  There are other shows that have reached the proverbial point where they “jumped the shark” (a reference to a particularly stupid episode of Happy Days which sealed the fate of that show and became a point of reference when TV shows do something so silly or preposterous that a significant chunk of viewers are forever turned off from the series).

Looking beyond this list, let me indicate some shows that probably ended right on time.

My first nominee would be one of my favorite series: The Wild, Wild West.  The show lasted four seasons from 1965 to 1969, the best season of which was probably the very first.  The second and third seasons, however, weren’t all that bad either.  If you’re a fan of the show like me, though, and you bought the four seasons on DVD (I wasn’t around to see it during its first run), you can’t help but notice that the fourth season of the show, despite some good episodes here and there, features a clear drop in quality.  Some of these episodes feature a sloppiness not found in the early seasons, a sense that perhaps the cast and crew were focused on getting these episodes done as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Having said all that, The Wild, Wild West’s last season wasn’t a total disaster, but I suspect if the show had gone on to a fifth season, that may well have been the case.

Another show that ended in the proverbial “nick of time” was the original Star Trek.  Lasting only three seasons between 1966-69, the show was never a ratings darling and it is a wonder it lasted as long as it did before cancellation.  It wouldn’t be until after it was done and in reruns that the show achieved its cult, and then very real, hit status.  In retrospect the first two seasons of the show are considered the best while there is a marked drop in quality with the series’ third season.  But, like The Wild, Wild West, there are some good episodes to be found in that season along with outright clunkers such as Spock’s Brain and Turnabout Intruder.  Had the show continued with a fourth season, I suspect the bad might have started to overtake the good.  Again like The Wild, Wild West, I can’t help but feel that the cast and crew of Star Trek had grown tired of the series and weren’t as dedicated at making each episode as they were earlier on.

Finally, The Prisoner.  Lasting a mere 17 episodes from 1967-68 (one season), this fascinating, mind-bending show was meant to have a conclusion and boy-oh-boy did it ever.  Even in this short episode run, however, there were a couple of “lesser” episodes in the batch and a conclusion some have felt was way over the top.  While I would love to live in an alternative universe where The Prisoner -and, for that matter, Star Trek and The Wild, Wild West– lasted a little bit longer than they did, I also recognize that sometimes you have to appreciate what you have and realize more doesn’t mean better.

Anyway, just my humble opinion…

Movies

White House Down (2013) a (mildly) belated review

A little while ago I reviewed the 2013 Gerard Butler starring Olympus Has Fallen (read about it here) a variation on the Die Hard formula but rather than set in the Nakatomi Plaza Building, our hero has to deal with deadly terrorists that have assaulted the White House itself.  I enjoyed the film, finding it a pleasant enough time killer despite some pretty silly stuff to swallow if not much else.  Lurking in the weeds, waiting to be seen, was the second Die-Hard-in-the-White-House film of this year, the higher budgeted Channing Tatum/Jamie Foxx White House Down.

A few quick questions and answers:

1) How similar are these two films?

Answer: Very.  Both feature leads who are “damaged” (again, a Die Hard trademark).  Both feature (duh) assaults on the White House with the people behind these assaults seeking to get their hands on the President of the United States and radically change the world as we know it today (I won’t say more to avoid spoilers).  The heroes in both films also have kids (in one film a boy, in another a girl) who are caught in the middle of all this danger.  Bullets are fired and the bad guys (including an “inside man”) manage to barricade themselves in the White House with the hero plays cat-and-mouse with the villains and is the only one capable of restoring any kind of order.

2) How are the films different?

Let me think here…hmmm….Well, in Olympus Has Fallen the President is played by Aaron Eckhart emulating your typical blue-eyed square-jawed all-American Anglo Saxon Commander In Chief while in White House Down the President is played by Jamie Foxx who is clearly emulating President Barack Obama, complete with wife and daughter (one, not two) and a fight against a cigarette habit.

What else?  As mentioned before, Olympus Has Fallen was a far lower budgeted affair compared to White House Down. Further, there was more going on in White House Down’s script, both in terms of story and ancillary characters, than the previous film.

And that, I believe, is about it for the differences.

So let’s return once again to the films’ similarities.  White House Down, like Olympus Has Fallen, is a perfectly OK action/adventure film that succeeds in killing your time without causing you too much pain or regret.  Having now seen both films, however, I can sincerely state that I no longer want to see either again.  The fact is that both White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen are very much disposable entertainment.  Once seen, I seriously doubt that some time in the near or far future I’m ever going to want to revisit either of these films.

Having said that, one final question: Which is better?  I’d probably have to give a very slight edge to White House Down.  That film benefits from its larger budget as well as the slightly better script and a slightly more interesting cast of characters around the hero/President.

Still, I’ve reached my lifetime quota of White House assault films.

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, 12/6/13 update

Corrosive MACN & Coming Soon

Another quick update on the upcoming fifth novel in the Corrosive Knights series.

So far I’m feeling very good about this latest draft of this novel.  It has been a little less than a month since I concluded the previous draft (#4) and while that draft was a real back breaker, seeing as it involved considerable reworking of the later stages of the book, reading through this one has so far been a real joy.

When printed out, the fourth draft of this fifth novel (still with me!?)  runs 194 pages at single spaced 10 point Cambria.  The word count is 107,569.

Right now I’m at page 131 and thus far almost all the corrections I’ve made to this, the fifth draft, involve grammatical issues such as paring down sentences to eliminating repetitious phrases or clarifying explanations and punching up scenes that may require this.  As I’ve noted before, when I get to the point where my main corrections in a novel’s draft involve grammar and the issues outlined above rather than extensively rewriting or rethinking sequences, then I know the book is really close to being done.

The thing that has most amazed and delighted me with this draft (and you must pardon me for tooting my own horn) is how fun the thing is.  In reading this draft I’ve started to look at the book as being close to a finished product and am trying to put myself in the shoes of my readers.  That being the case, I’m having a blast.  The book is filled with both mysteries and surprises, and it should be quite the page turner.

This book is also the conclusion to the first major chapter in the Corrosive Knights series, though it is far from a conclusion to the entire story line.  I’m finally giving readers a link between all the novels in this series and the bigger story I’ve been working on telling all these years (the first three novels of the series were written as “stand alone” stories, so they can be read in any order and enjoyed without reading the others).

So, for now, that’s my update.

Let me not spend a minute more online and get back to work!

Video Games

Punishing players for…swearing?!

Fascinating article from Slate.com regarding the XBox One’s NBA 2K14 game, and the fact that swearing by the (human) player while playing the game may result in penalties within the game itself!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/12/04/nba_2k14_for_xbox_one-punishes-gamers_for_swearing_wtf_video.html

I first heard about this with regard to the XBox One game Dead Rising 3.  It uses the system’s voice/sound recognition in a curious way: If you make noises within your living room, the on-screen zombies you are fighting against will hear you…and therefore know where you are and attack!!!

Anyway, here’s the video related to the NBA 2K14 gameplay (careful if you’re seeing this at work as there is some harsh language!):

The comment by Zanya connected with the article summed up my feelings about this interesting/alarming new element to these video games:

This is sad, terrifying, and hilarious all at the same time.

Movies

East Meets West…

10 Asian Movies Remade by Hollywood:

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/05/east-meets-west-10-asian-movies-remade-by-hollywood/

Not to sound too full of myself (I know, I know…too late! 😉 ), but the main reason I checked the list out was to see how many of the features I already knew about…and, conversely, to see what might surprise me.

The one that wound up surprising me was entry #9, Il Mare, a film that was remade as…The Lake House.  I’ve always had a fondness for The Lake House, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, because it presents an intriguing romance pleasantly mixed with time travel/sci-fi elements.  Perhaps that’s the way I like romantic films: When they feature elements not usually associated with them (check out, for example, Grosse Point Blank, perhaps my favorite romantic comedy, a film that featured hit men!)

For those who don’t know about either Il Mare or The Lake House, the plot involves a man and woman who communicate with each other via mail left in a mailbox in front of the referred to lake house.  The two come to realize that they live in different times: the woman lives in the lake house in “the present” while the man occupied the same residence two years before.  As the film plays out, there are indications the man may have met his end in the interval.

The two develop a romantic attachment even as the present day woman tries to figure out what happened to this man.

No, the American film is far from perfect, but the charisma of the two leads and the intriguing story line made the film a pleasant diversion.  I’ll have to check out the original.

General

45 Most Badass Lines Ever Uttered in Real Life…

…according to Cracked.com:

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_713_the-45-most-badass-lines-ever-uttered-in-real-life_p45/

Try the above link and check out the very first quote.

SPOILER:

“Where the hell do you put the bayonete?” Chesty Puller, after seeing a flamethrower for the first time.

If that doesn’t get you interested in the rest of the list, I don’t know what will! 😉

Movies

About that Khan reveal…

…so director/writer J. J. Abrams noted in an interview that the reveal that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in Star Trek Into Darkness (from now on I’ll refer to it as STID) was Khan was perhaps not handled as well as it should have been:

http://www.slashfilm.com/j-j-abrams-admits-keeping-khan-secret-in-star-trek-into-darkness-was-a-mistake/

I think Mr. Abrams states the obvious by this point and, no, I’m not trying to be snarky.  In fact, this is perhaps why Mr. Abrams has succeeded as well as he has in a business as cut throat as the one he’s involved in.  It shows he’s capable of looking around, assessing, and adjusting.

I’m certain there are plenty of directors who in his shoes would never in a lifetime admit something they did was “wrong” in any way.  For that matter, there are plenty of people in many other lines of work who would be loathe to admit they ever did anything wrong (I have yet to hear a mea culpa for anything that occurred during the previous Republican President’s term).

I suspect that those working behind the scenes of STID came into the venture clearly wanting to put their spin on the Khan storyline.  Unfortunately, they got so wrapped up in trying to “surprise” their viewers of the character’s identity that they ultimately tripped over their own feet in that reveal.

The fact is that the original 1982 Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan had the villain’s name in its title and yet other than die hard Star Trek fans, few knew who the heck Khan was or why he was all “wrathing” on the Star Trek characters.  But the movie filled you in on all the information you needed in very short order.  In his introductory scenes, Khan and his group were given a complete backstory that allowed audiences to know he was a very dangerous and clever villain.  By the time Captain Kirk and Khan were about to cross paths for the first time, my stomach was in a knot, knowing that Kirk and his crew were innocently walking into a lion’s den…and there was a real doubt as to whether he would be able to survive that first encounter (check out Kirk’s reaction to seeing Khan at the five minute mark).

Excellent, excellent stuff.

But STID tried to hide Khan’s character from audiences until he was face to face with Kirk by the film’s second half.  Then, when Khan reveals his identity, actor Benedict Cumberbatch delivers the line as if it is some major revelation…yet in this Star Trek universe, this is the very first meeting between the characters and therefore the whole thing is decidedly anti-climactic.

In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk is surprised, amazed, and more than a little horrified by the return of this very bad man.  In STID, however, since the characters haven’t met this person before and have no knowledge of his backstory until he tells them, this big reveal is a big…nothing.

In the end, all that effort to hide the identity of the villain proved useless or, even worse, distracting from the overall film.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I enjoyed STID when I saw it in theaters but thinking about the film and the passage of time have certainly dulled my enjoyment and thoughts of the film.  I’m not completely down on it, however, but feel that while it did succeed in certain respects it surely did fail in others.

General

Claustrophobics need not apply…

…fascinating (and very short) article with intriguing photographs of Japan’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, an example of the “Metabolism” movement in Japanese architecture.  Never heard of it before, but it obviously involves some seriously small rooms for people to live in.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/12/02/nakagin_capsule_tower-in-tokyo-is_a_claustrophobe_s_nightmare.html

Still, I find the look of the rooms, tiny though they are, intriguing.  Too bad that the tower appears to have so many problems (leaks, asbestos) and will probably in time have to be torn down as the costs to rehab the place are very high.

So, see it while you can!

General

Commercial banned from Super Bowl…

…read all about it!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/02/nfl-gun-commercial-banned-super-bowl_n_4373234.html

It’s fair to say this commercial managed something I didn’t think possible: It made my skin crawl.

Given the proliferation of guns and the all too familiar tales of tragedy witnessed in the past few years regarding their use and abuse, seeing something like this is just so…wrong.

Then again, the article notes that the commercial’s maker got what they wanted: Publicity.  The commercial makers knew the National Football League wouldn’t allow them to run the ad as it is counter to their list of permissible spots.  Therefore, they got their publicity without having to pay the several million dollars necessary to actually air the ad during the game.

How perfectly cynical.

General

Because you had to know…

…thousands of dangerous erection cases seen in ERs each year!

http://www.everydayhealth.com/mens-health/1202/thousands-of-dangerous-erection-cases-seen-in-ers-each-year-study-finds.aspx

Just goes to show, whenever you see any of those erectile drug commercials (here in the US, of course, where ads for pharmaceuticals are waaaay too common) and the announcer states something along the lines of “Call a doctor if your erection lasts more than five hours”, you best do this.

Otherwise, you could face this very, very scary scenario…

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/man-abuses-erection-drug-has-penis-amputed/nZ4pZ/