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.
After plenty of …uh… push back to this incredibly insane suggestion that people should somehow “inject” themselves with some kind of cleaner -Which, let’s be perfectly clear: WILL INJURE AND/OR KILL YOU!- “President” Trump now claims he was being “sarcastic”.
Here we have an article by Daniel Dale presented on CNN.com which pretty much debunks that claim:
Of course, Fox “News” is trying to spin this but… its horrifying.
This is our “President”, and clearly he has no fucking idea what he’s talking about.
Worse, we haven’t, as President Obama stated, no clear path to dealing with the Covid-19 virus from the federal government… even to this point!
It’s the local Governors and Mayors that are dealing with this versus the Federal Government which, I have to say: I don’t know what they’re doing.
We hear about shortages of supplies, of supplies being snatched away from states/cities. We have a “President” who doesn’t seem to know or understand medicine, much less the numbers of dead and infected.
Nor does he seem to care.
Has he even once noted or said anything about the horror medical hospitals are facing? Has he expressed any sympathy at all?
What we get are increasingly ridiculous ramblings. What we got yesterday was a sure way to put yourself at risk of actually killing yourself.
How does one defend any of this?
If you’re a masochist, here’s some more, also from MSNBC’s Morning Joe show:
I mentioned before that if there was one positive about this whole Covid-19/self-isolation situation its that I’ve been afforded much more time to devote to my writing.
This morning it occurred to me that I look forward to getting on the computer and typing away. The process allows me to take my own personal flights of fancy, moving away from the realities facing everyone.
While this is my own personal escape, I sincerely hope everyone else out there has found their own little hideaway to escape to, whether it be in catching up on reading, movies, TV shows, knitting, drawing, playing video games or board games, listening to music, playing your music, etc. etc.
Each day I do wonder when we’ll get out of this self-isolation and each day it seems to me that day lies further and further in the future.
Sadly, until there comes an effective treatment -a vaccine likely will not be ready until at least next year- we’re in this for a longer haul than anyone would like.
Oh, and to those who are spending this time reading my stuff, a sincere thank you.
It’s most appreciated and I hope to have a new book for you soon!
Released to digital/streaming services on April 17th, ChangesNowBowie is the latest David Bowie project released since his passing (gulp) four years ago.
I swear, I had to look that up and double check to be sure, but, yeah, David Bowie passed away on January 10, 2016. It’s been a little over four years since his passing!
Anyway, genius.com offers the following list of the songs and a little behind the scenes information on what this album is:
Repeating a little of what was at that website, ChangesNowBowie features essentially acoustic versions of several of Mr. Bowie’s songs. They were recorded as David Bowie was practicing for the big 50th Birthday Bash party he hosted back in 1996.
The songs aren’t bad at all yet I would add that neither was I necessarily totally blown away by these more mellow interpretations. The songs chosen are mostly songs that are more obscure to those who are only casually familiar with Mr. Bowie’s discography. Perhaps the most famous/well known songs are The Man Who Sold The World and Lady Stardust. What makes this album most interesting is hearing him go through some of these more obscure songs.
In fact, I’d say the later half of the album, starting with Lady Stardust (one of my favorite Ziggy Stardust tracks) through The Supermen (a song that works incredibly well as acoustically, from the album The Man Who Sold The World) through Repetition (a Lodger track I’ve always liked) through Andy Warhol and Quicksand (both found on Hunky Dory) are the highlights of the album.
On the other hand, the album starts with The Man Who Sold The World (its ok, didn’t really blow me away) goes to Aladdin Sane (this track works better frantic rather than the more laid back acoustic version, IMHO) to White Light/White Heat (a Velvet Underground song Bowie really enjoyed covering in concert, especially during his Ziggy Stardust era) and finally goes to Shopping For Girls (from Tin Machine II) which, also to me, sounded better in the original version.
Still, a nice enough album worth checking out if you’re a fan of David Bowie.
Anyway, see if you agree with me on at least one of the songs, the pretty obscure Tin Machine II entry Shopping for Girls. Here’s the original version…
And this is the more mellow/acoustic version found on ChangesNowBowie…
It’s not bad, as I said above, but it didn’t necessarily prove a significant counter to the original.
Whenever I present a review of a film, optimally I like to see the whole thing or as very close to the whole thing as I can.
This should be an obvious statement!
There are times, however, when I catch a film when its halfway through its run time (or a little more) and wind up watching the whole thing but don’t write about it because, frankly, since I’ve only seen a part of it it feels wrong to give it a “full” review.
The other day I was flipping through the various channels and they were showing the 1936 film Swing Time. I saw the film once before, in a film class I took as an elective back in the stone age and during my very early college years.
I recalled very little of the film, frankly. See, though I love most film genres, film musicals don’t really do all that much for me. That’s not to say I don’t find some of them enjoyable (I liked, for instance, Grease).
Anyway, when we were about to see Swing Time, I recall our teacher say that this is considered one of the very best Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers pairings. The film was directed by George Stevens, who would go on to direct such classics as Gunga Din, A Place In The Sun, Shane, Giant, etc., but, frankly, I recalled very little about the film other than my teacher’s statement.
So when I spotted it on, I was curious. I kept it on and caught some of the early minutes.
The film was, I must admit, quite charming in its early going. Astaire is elegant and Ginger Rogers is quite lovely and when they dance, they move so smoothly. There is plenty of chemistry between them and, given the Depression era these films were originally released in, it much have been quite a relief to get out of the negatives one faced on a daily basis and lose yourself -if only for an hour and a half- in a movie featuring such lovely people having such a lovely time.
I was enjoying the film quite a bit even if it was corny (at least according to these more jaded eyes). I was enjoying it.
And then came the Bojangles of Harlem number…
Le… yikes…!
What this clip doesn’t show is Fred Astaire applying his blackface right before the number.
As he was doing it, I thought to myself: “Is that… is that what I think it is…?!”
Yup, it sure was.
The dance number itself was, like the rest of what I saw in the film, entertaining and beautiful and exciting and Astaire sure does seem to walk on air…
…but…
…blackface…?!?
Holy cow I had completely forgotten that was in the film (again, when I first saw it years ago, none of it really stuck with me at all).
I suppose this is another of those examples of things that were permissible and, indeed, deemed quite entertaining way back when but today…
Yeah, this just doesn’t fly.
At all.
And with good reason!
I shook my head and shut the film off after this… I simply didn’t have the time to finish it up, and I was left wondering how many other famous/well known films like this one have similar sequences. How many musicals from this era (and this was one of the bigger eras for musicals) feature such numbers?
I suspect there are many.
I know, for example, that the first “talkie” film was the 1927 feature The Jazz Singer. The concluding number was Al Jolson singing Mammy while looking like this…
I suppose it was a matter of time but, as the heading above tells you, there is evidence all this social distancing/self-isolation is starting to make some people crack.
Sadly, we have a “President” who feel the need to use this to his advantage, so desperate is he to get re-elected.
First up, in Michigan some yahoos protesting against the supposed harshness of self-isolating decided to protest. Among other wonderful things they did was block access to a hospital with their barricade of vehicles.
Read all about it in this article by David Neiwert and presented on dailykos.com:
Thankfully, it appeared that no ambulances involved in an emergency situation were slowed/delayed in arriving at the hospital but it could have easily happened. Imagine you or a loved one desperate to get to the hospital because of some emergency (whether Covid-19 related or not) and you’re delayed by a bunch of idiots blocking the streets.
Worse, some of these protesters, like these…
Weren’t following proper distance from each other.
The irony of this whole situation is that the self-isolation/social distancing measures were not created to screw with people’s freedoms. It is intended to keep people -even these people- from getting sick and spreading this disease around.
By doing what they’re doing, they’ve just endangered themselves and their communities.
All because they can’t handle being indoors a little more than usual?
And these same right wing heroes are the ones that bash liberals as snowflakes?
…Hmmmm…
Anyway, “President” Donald Trump added fuel to the proverbial fire by tweeting a bunch of shit about “freeing” Michigan and other places and…
…sigh…
You know what? You want to go out and hang around with people and don’t fear getting sick? You’re convinced the Coronavirus is a liberal scam? Then by all means hang out with your fellow extremists.
It’s Darwinian selection at its finest, I suppose. The only negative is that these fools may give the disease to others who did observe proper precautions. All because of their selfishness and carelessness.
*****
Speaking of which, over in my home state of Florida, our “Governor” decided to allow Jacksonville beaches to open though there are certain restrictions.
Welp, though there were plenty of people cheering and frolicking on the beach, these scenes, presented in this article by Lee Moran on CNN.com, sure do make me sweat…
Yup, here we got a bunch of people hanging around really close to each other, most without masks or any sort of protective gear.
I wonder how many new cases of Covid-19 are going to pop up in the next two weeks.
I suspect we’ll see a rise.
But, hey, at least these separate groups of people have the comfort of their guns and beaches.
As I wrote before a few days ago, if there is any upside to this whole Coronavirus mess its that with the “free” time I’ve come into I’m able to focus a lot more on my writing and have put in many more hours doing so of late.
On Monday, the 13th of April, I finished the 2nd full draft of Book #8 in the Corrosive Knights series.
And I’m damn happy with the end results!
Usually when I get to the end of a second draft of any of my novels, I’m still a pretty long way from having what I consider a “complete” draft. I might have quite a bit of the plot to sort through or there might be big chunks or pieces missing. Hell, there might be quite a bit to re-do, story wise, before heading to the later stages/drafts which require more grammatical review than anything else.
Welp, in this case I feel like I’ve gotten most of the story elements done. There are a few things that need to be smoothed over and/or expanded upon, but the story, beginning, middle, and conclusion, are effectively finished…
…and to my liking!
I truly believe I’m one more draft away from having all the story elements in their place and perhaps another two or three drafts away from being done with the book entirely!
In other words, I might be done with this book by Draft #5 versus my usual twelve drafts…!
Needless to say, I’m very excited because I can envision -provided no pitfalls appear along the way- being done with this book by either the middle or late summer versus toward the end of the year.
Obviously things could change and dramatically but I’m excited with where I’m at today.
Yesterday, I printed the whole thing out and starting today or tomorrow I’m going to start the revision.
Let’s see how quickly I make it through Draft #3, shall we?
I saw the 1976 Neil Simon written comedy Murder By Death once, perhaps twice, a very, very long time ago but it stuck with me. When I saw it on sale at VUDU, I had to pick it up and, yesterday, I had a bit of time to spare and watched it again.
Here’s the movie’s trailer:
Murder by Death is a parody of the popular literary detectives of the past and features a very star studded cast in all the key roles.
In this film you have David Niven and Maggie Smith playing Dick and Dora Charlston (a parody of Nick and Nora Charles from Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Thin Man and subsequently made into a delightful film series featuring William Powell and Myrna Loy). Peter Falk is Sam Diamond, a parody of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon and is accompanied by his right hand “dame”, Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan).
James Coco plays Belgian detective Milo Perrier, an obvious parody of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, who is accompanied by his driver Marcel (James Cromwell in his movie debut) while Elsa Lanchester plays Jessica Marbles, a parody of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple who is accompanied by her nurse (Estelle Winwood).
Finally, Peter Sellers plays Sidney Wang, a parody, I’m guessing (I’m not as familiar with the character!) of Charlie Chan, who is accompanied by adopted son Willie Wang (Richard Narita).
The plot: Eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote, delivering quite well!) invites the most famous detectives of all time to his mansion to solve a murder that will be committed at the stroke of midnight. The person who solves the murder wins one million dollars. If no one solves the crime, however, it will stain the reputation of these world famous detectives.
Meanwhile, the Butler (Alec Guiness), who is blind, has to deal with the new cook (Nancy Walker) who is deaf and can neither speak nor read.
What could possibly go wrong?!
The movie plays out as one would think a Neil Simon feature would: It feels like a filmed Broadway play, with a diverse set of characters running back and forth from room to room in an at times frantic way. The situations are at times quite hilarious and reminded me of what we would see four years later with the movie Airplane!: A star studded farce where silliness is the order of the day.
However…
While the movie plays out like an Airplane!-like dark mansion/murder/detective film, the humor is far less sharp and perhaps a little too gentle, at least when looked at now. There are some more edgy jokes (one involving Dick Charlston’s possible infidelity and Sam Diamond’s possible homosexuality) that are brought up but… again, its pretty gentle stuff by today’s standards of humor.
Still, seeing such a large and fascinating cast come together for a pretty good -if not always great- comedy winds up being a damn fun time.
Recommended!
By the way, when the film aired on TV, they re-inserted four clips into the film but they weren’t put back into the digital copy I have. The quality of the clips isn’t terrific and, truly only two of them -Willie Wang finding a clue and the last guest arrives after everything is over- are most worthwhile, IMHO. Those two clips are the last two presented.
Sorry for the murky quality of the scenes, but this seems to be the best you’re going to find them at this point.
Back in 2001 the film Donnie Darko, directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal was released. It didn’t do much business but when it came to home video, the film met a far more pleasant fate: It became a cult classic and suddenly Richard Kelly’s near forgotten work was met with considerable acclaim.
It was deserved: Donnie Darko is a film that carried a lovely nostalgic bent which appealed to older (cough) viewers who lived through the 1980’s, when that film took place. But its themes regarding high school alienation struck a cord with younger viewers as well.
Flush with a new found success, Mr. Kelly parlayed that success in the creation of Southland Tales, a movie that… wasn’t very good.
In fact, its rare that I start seeing a film and have to shut it off, but Southland Tales was a film that, frankly, gave me a headache.
Self-indulgent seems almost too good a term to describe it.
Mr. Kelly’s subsequent career folded rather quickly. He re-edited Donnie Darko, creating a “director’s cut” which though I haven’t seen, have heard was nowhere near as good a film as the original theatrical version. His next film, 2009’s The Box, was met with both audience and critical scorn, and Mr. Kelly hasn’t been heard or seen since and for the past ten long years.
I point all this out because there are parallels -and significant differences- between Mr. Kelly’s career trajectory and writer/director David Robert Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell’s big hit, 2014’s It Follows, is a damn good horror film, IMHO, confidently directed by Mr. Mitchell and incredibly tense and frightening.
Flush with success, Mr. Mitchell would follow up that film with Under The Silver Lake, a film which, like Mr. Kelly’s Southland Tales, was clearly an indulgence on Mr. Mitchell’s part, a film that likely would never have been made had Mr. Mitchell, like Mr. Kelly, had the clout to get investors to try his oddball project.
But, unlike Southland Tales, I found Under The Silver Lake (lets abbreviate it to USL) a far better work overall, though that doesn’t excuse some of its indulgences.
USL involves slacker/deadbeat Sam (Andrew Garfield) who lives in an apartment building in Hollywood and is about to be evicted from his apartment. He doesn’t take that -or just about anything- too terribly seriously. He has an actress girl friend who shows up for sex and watches an older -but not elderly- woman in an apartment opposite his who takes care of a bunch of parrots… while topless.
Then one day he spots a beautiful blonde (Riley Keough) bathing in the apartment building’s pool and is smitten by her. That night he bumps into her and spends a time in her apartment watching an old movie (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe, if memory serves) and as things get a little heated, her roommate and a few other oddball characters show up and Sam has to leave.
The next day, his neighbor’s apartment is completely cleaned out and the neighbor is gone.
This strange occurrence arouses the interest of Sam, who begins to investigate what happened to his neighbor, and in the course of the movie uncovers many of the secrets of La La Land.
USL is a film that one cannot view literally. Most of what we see and experience through Sam is symbolic and, sometimes, incredibly absurd. Sometimes, its so absurd as to be laughable… but not necessarily in a good way.
But unlike (once again) Southland Tales, USL presents us with more food for thought than the former film ever did, including some sequences (one involving an old Songwriter and another featuring Sam dancing in a club to What’s The Frequency Kenneth, the REM song) that are quite striking..
Having said all that, the movie does feel like a “light” or not quite successful version of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. We get the whole Hollywood is a meat grinder storyline but with more absurd -again not in a necessarily good way- sequences than we should.
Still, when USL is good, its damn good but that doesn’t excuse the excesses or long runtime (the film clocks in at nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes and could have been trimmed down, IMHO, by at least a half hour without injuring the quality of the work).
USL, like Southland Tales, was hardly a hit. A24, the studio that released it and released such works as The VVitch, The Lighthouse, Hereditary, and Midsommar, appear to have lost faith in the movie when it was originally scheduled to be released and after a disastrous playing in Cannes a few years back. It was ultimately put out without much fanfare and doesn’t appear to have a BluRay release (I picked up a digital copy of it through VUDU when they were having a sale on A24 features).
In conclusion, USL is an odd bird of a film, self-indulgent and silly/stupid at times but at other times quite striking and thought provoking. I can only offer a mild recommendation, however, because the film is so strange it is just as likely to turn viewers off as it is to engage your interest.
For me, it was the later, but I won’t pretend to say the film works all the time.
Still, if you’re feeling adventurous, you could do much worse than spend time Under the Silver Lake.
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door … (Fredric Brown, Knock)
Now that everyone smart is observing not only distancing from others but self-isolation, there have been several posts I’ve noticed focused on pandemic/end of the world films.
Some usual subjects rear their heads: Outbreak, Contagion, The Last Man on Earth, Omega Man, etc. etc.
Not too many talk about -or are even aware of- the 1985 New Zealand import The Quiet Earth. Here’s the movie’s trailer:
I was vaguely aware of the film but had not seen it. When it was on sale a while back over at VUDU, I picked up the digital copy of it but, like a lot of things I buy, I simply didn’t have the time to see it.
Yesterday, I resolved to do so.
What I found in the early going of the film kinda blew my mind, but it was mostly because of what was presented:
We start with a man named Zac Hobson (played well by Bruno Lawrence) lying nude in bed. He eventually wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and heads out…
…only to find there is no one out there.
At all.
The country outside the big city is intact with its buildings and gas stations, yet cars lie abandoned. Some have crashed, as if the occupants of the cars were in their vehicles one moment then disappeared and the vehicles, moving on inertia, continued until they crashed.
In one of the more fascinating scenes (and MILD SPOILERS) he finds a warehouse in flames and, upon investigating, discovers the wreck of a large airliner. He finds among the mangled remains seats which have seatbelts still tied together, as if the passengers were there… until they weren’t, and the pilot flew the craft, until they were gone as well, and the plane simply crashed (Random thought: I wonder if that chilling airliner crash sequence in Knowing -pretty much the only really great scene in that otherwise not so good Nicholas Cage film- was inspired by this sequence in The Quiet Earth?).
Eventually Zac makes his way to his work, which involves some high-tech energy experimentation station, and it is there we get the first hints as to what may have happened and why in an otherwise perfectly normal looking world he seems to be the only one there.
Seems to be being the operative word.
The Quiet Earth is divided into three segments, the first of which is Zac being all alone. The second act is like the second sentence on that short-short story by Fredric Brown I pasted at the start of this review.
Without giving too much away, Zac finds he isn’t totally alone.
The third act involves… well… I shouldn’t spoil everything, should I?
I stated that what I found in the early going of the film kinda blew my mind. Let me explain: When you write fiction, you come up with plenty of ideas and concepts you feel are promising in pursuing.
Alas, there are only so many hours in the day and when I commit to a story which may eventually become a novel, the commitment is damned serious. Sometimes, ideas come to you that sound promising but lead you -eventually or right away- to a dead end.
The opening minutes of The Quiet Earth very much resembled a story concept I was toying with a few years back but eventually left behind (no pun intended… or was it?!) because I had a hard time thinking of something clever or interesting to follow up the first act with.
The Quiet Earth, to some degree, also seems to have a little difficulty with what follows the first act. After seeing the film I was curious what others thought (I’m always curious to read people’s reactions to things) and there were many who felt the film starts off excellently but the subsequent second and thirds acts are weaker and more by the numbers.
I dunno.
As someone who grappled with a similar story idea and came up empty (another pun?! I’m full of them today!) I appreciate what the creative team came up with.
The Quiet Earth, while perhaps no lost uber-classic of science fiction is nonetheless a fascinating exploration into the idea of someone mysteriously awakening to find the world they knew is gone.
If the second and third acts aren’t quite as strong as the first -and I won’t argue that!- I nonetheless found them intriguing.
Even more intriguing was the film’s end, which is mysterious, fascinating, and ambiguous. Unfortunately, and like the iconic image at the end of the original Planet of the Apes, the visuals of that scene have made their way to the film’s poster and promotions, even the trailer presented above.
I suppose its inevitable but still, kinda silly to ruin what should have been a shocking -and intriguing- surprise.
A word of caution: The Quiet Earth is an old film, 35 years old this year, and is thus yet another of those films that today’s audiences might find move a little too slowly.
If, however, you can get past that and allow yourself to be immersed in this work, there is plenty to get out of it.
Sometimes you stumble upon something and it just… I don’t know. It makes you laugh.
Like so many others under quarantine, when dinner comes around the wife and kids and I search for stuff to watch.
Over on Netflix, we found this show called Storage Wars: Northern Treasure (alternate title is Storage Wars: Canada).
I enjoyed -but didn’t love– the U.S. version of Storage Wars. The concept goes like this: When people don’t pay for their storage unit lockers the storage company takes possession of them and, eventually, they run auctions to get rid of their content.
What’s inside these lockers could be pure gold or complete crap and the auctioneers get a chance to look (but not touch) the material from just outside the locker door before making their bids. The highest bid, of course, gets said lockers.
Storage Wars, the show(s), follow a regular group of auctioneers and its usually highly scripted as they check out each locker then bid against each other. The shows conclude with the revelations of what was found inside said lockers and if the buyers profited or lost.
Storage Wars: Northern Treasures (aka Storage Wars: Canada) appears to have lasted two seasons, 2013/2014 and 2015/2016.
We watched the second season via Netflix. It consisted of some 36 or so 30 minute long episodes and they were, IMHO, pretty freaking hilarious.
This season was clearly far more staged/scripted than the American version of Storage Wars but the cast (and I do feel these people should be labeled actors rather than legitimate auctioneers) are hilariously spiteful, petty, dumb, crafty, stuck up, insulting, and -did I mention this already?- hilarious.
Here’s a sampling:
Again: THIS STUFF IS CLEARLY SCRIPTED! It’s about as “real” as watching wrestling, but I have to say, at least in the second season they maintained a great sense of humor about what they were doing and the episodes were very funny… if (and its a BIG if) you’re willing to play along with the premise.
We’re now working our way through the first season on the show, which is available on Amazon Prime. I don’t know why Season 2 is available on Netflix and Season 1 on Amazon Prime but that’s the way it goes.
So far, the early episodes of Season 1 aren’t as funny as what came in Season 2 and those early episodes seem to more emulate the American version of Storage Wars, with the cast mostly being mean to each other.
I suspect things will pick up. A lot of the stuff in the above video was unfamiliar to me, so it may be from Season 1.
So there you have it, my recommendation for some pleasant, and funny, short dinner viewing.
Come at it with the right frame of mind and you should have some good fun.
