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.
I’ve made no secret -on the contrary, I’m likely beating a dead horse at this point!- regarding my enjoyment of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and, further, my interest in seeing the Zack Snyder directed version of Justice League.
One of the first times I wrote at length about being curious of, and hoping for, the release of the Zack Snyder “cut” of Justice League was here:
I happen to love the film, though I admit to not having watched it start to end in many a year.
Yet the film fascinates me even as many nowadays either don’t have the patience to watch it (the movie is awfully long), or feel it is too pretentious.
Taking the first point, the film clocks in, according to IMDB, at 2 hours and 29 minutes long. I’ll admit it here and now: That is a long time to sit before a screen and in these days of wild effects and speedy storytelling, 2001 must surely seem like a chore for any modern filmgoer to watch.
As for the film itself, it offers surprisingly little dialogue while giving audiences a story broken into four parts.
GOING INTO 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY’S PLOT HERE, SO BEWARE…
SPOILERS BE HERE!
Still there?
You’ve been warned!
The first part of the film involves the “Dawn of Man”, a sequence that effectively shows humanity the moment it makes the transition from animal to human. The sequence shows a pack (group?) of primates being run off their watering hole by a more powerful group of primates. There is -obviously- no dialogue here but the implication for the group is dire: They will likely die without their water.
But one of the primates is visited by a mysterious black monolith, which will figure prominently within the movie’s story. Upon seeing the monolith and while celestial objects are in alignment, a primate develops the ability to use a weapon, specifically a bone (there is irony in this!) which he then uses to attack that other group of primates and reclaim their watering hole, following which we have one of the most fascinating transitions in film…
Thousands of years of history are effectively “fast forwarded” through and the bone is now another, far more sophisticated weapon in the form of a satellite (the satellite is supposed to be an orbital weapon).
We then come to the second part of the film. Humanity in the year 2001 is presented as mannered, tight lipped, and pretty bored. While audiences may be wowed by the space travel presented, its clear that those doing the traveling view it much like we do a long car trip. It can be exciting, but mostly its a bit of a chore.
We follow as a man heads to the U.S. Moonbase and are given hints to a mysterious discovery on the Moon’s surface, something the U.S. is keeping from the Russians. Turns out the discovery is a monolith not unlike the one found in the Dawn of Man sequence.
The men head out to the monolith and, in a bit of wry humor, these modern sophisticated men are presented as not all that terribly different from the primates that came many years before. They take pictures of themselves in front of it, they touch it, they have no clue what it is.
And then the planets align and a very loud signal is released from the monolith, something so piercing the men present around the monolith are forced to try to cover their ears.
We then get to the third part of the film, where we fast forward months later to a spacecraft, the Discovery. As it turns out, the signal sent by the monolith on the Moon was directed toward Jupiter and the ship is on the way to explore what’s going on there.
Within the Discovery are a group of scientists in a cryogenic sleep. Awake are two astronauts who are accompanied by the HAL 9000, their artificial intelligence computer.
If the movie has any edge of the seat sequences, it is during this part, where the HAL 9000 malfunctions -or functions only too well- and decides to eliminate all the people on board the ship. This part also fits in well with Campbell’s hero mythology as the hero must overcome seemingly impossible odds before…
The film’s final -and to some most controversial- part involves our lone surviving astronaut reaching Jupiter and finding a very large monolith floating in orbit. The surviving astronaut heads to that monolith and then begins a bizarre, trippy, hallucinogenic journey. He then sees himself in a room, aging until he eventually dies, and then is reborn as a cosmic star child.
Whew.
John Byrne, a prominent comic book artist who is one of the major reasons the X-Men, and Wolverine in particular, is as popular as it is, wrote of the movie:
In an interview in PLAYBOY, (Arthur C.) Clarke said “If you understood it, we failed.” I’d clock (2001: A Space Odyssey) as about the most pretentious piece of twaddle on record.
As I’ve often stated, opinions about works of art are unique to each individual and who am I to say he -or anyone else with a different opinion than mine over any work of art- is wrong?
I love 2001: A Space Odyssey and feel the story presented is, even when simply looking at its surface, is easy enough to understand: Mysterious aliens have transformed primates to humans and, in the year 2001, they transform humans into the next stage, the star child.
But there are other elements present. Some have noted that the HAL 9000 is the most “human” of the characters in this film, and in many ways the character and the story presented with “him” is an updating of the Frankenstein monster story. Humanity has ventured into the realm of Gods, creating an intelligent being and getting burned for their hubris. An interesting element is that the monolith is essentially the true God here… whatever it may be.
There are also those who note the whole trip of the Discovery has a curious “look” about it. The Discovery itself, they note, looks very much like human sperm (I’m not joking here!) and when it reaches its destination and following that trippy journey into the monolith, what is produced is an embryotic looking star child!
But even ignoring away from all these elements, one can’t help but be impressed with the many practical effects (compare this film to the many science fictional works to come in and around that time… there is no comparison!) and world-building director Stanley Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke created for this movie. The idea of space travel being a chore is a fascinating and, at that time, unique take.
So, yeah, for these and many other reasons, I’m damn impressed by 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Even today, fifty years after its original release.
Originally released in 1922 and directed by F. W. Murnau, the film Nosferatu is one of my all time favorite horror films and easily my all time favorite vampire film (the Bela Lugosi starring Dracula being #2). Max Schrek plays the good Count Orlok and the movie’s story was… er… stolen pretty completely from Bram Stoker’s famous novel Dracula.
The theft was so obvious that when Stoker’s widow sued the studio that released the film she not only won a judgment against them but the studio was ordered to destroy all prints of the film. Most were indeed destroyed but luckily for audiences today not quite all and we get to marvel at this film even today.
Having said that, I have to admit: What the studios and Mr. Murnau did was… well… I wish they had gone through the right channels and created a legitimate, non-ripoff product to begin with.
As the days go by and we’re getting more and more of these little tidbits from both Mr. Snyder and the actors involved in the Justice League film, the more convinced I am that there is indeed a pretty complete Zack Snyder “cut” of the film.
To Mr. Snyder’s credit, he hasn’t been overly negative or castigating regarding what went on in the creation of the film and his subsequent departure (though there are rumors he was indeed fired, he hasn’t, to my knowledge, come out and said anything about his departure other than the initial statement that he left due to his adopted daughter’s suicide).
The biggest clap back he’s had against the Joss Whedon theatrical cut of the film was a very mild statement poking fun at the use of CGI to hide actor Henry Cavill’s mustache.
This latest bit of news concerns actor Ray Fisher, who played the character Cyborg in the film, posting a picture from the filming of the movie which showed his character playing football. He also posted the following statement with the photograph: Life doesn’t always go how we plan it. The only thing we can do is keep reaching for what we believe.
The article above notes that the character of Cyborg in the Zack Snyder cut of the film had a lot more story. Mr. Snyder, for his part, quickly posted a reply to this, showing a second image from the football game along with a one word comment: Believe.
This is the crux of the article’s headline and I find it… interesting.
Will we ever get to see what Mr. Snyder was up to?
I admit, I vacillate between thinking it will happen to wondering if enough of the work was done (and I’m talking CGI effects here) to merit a formal release.
One thing’s for sure: I’d be lying if I said all this hasn’t intrigued the hell out of me!
Laura Ingraham, a host of one of the many highly opinionated right wing shows over at Fox “News”, got into it with Parkland survivor David Hogg. She took a dig at him via twitter, writing:
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it
This… did not go well for her.
Over at cnn.com, Tom Kludt writes about the after effects of this ill-advised twitter statement:
What happened, in a nutshell, is that the Parkland students, including Mr. Hogg, hit back at Ingraham.
Hard.
It started with some of them shaming her but then moved on to pointing out her advertisers.
And her advertisers took note and, at least in a couple of cases, decided Ms. Ingraham had crossed the proverbial bridge too far.
So, facing a possible flight of advertisers (and, thus, revenue to her program), Ms. Ingraham offered this apology via twitter:
On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how ‘poised’ he was given the tragedy. As always he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion.
Ho boy.
Look, I guess she’s trying to show genuine contrition, but for crying out loud, why start with this “in the spirit of Holy Week” crap?!
She is, rightfully IMHO, getting raked over the coals for this opening line. Some have wondered if she is somehow implying that had it not been Holy Week, then the remarks made would be perfectly acceptable?!
Of course not.
However, if you remove those six words from the rest of her apology, even someone as turned off by the likes of Ms. Ingraham and her type of opinion hit pieces will recognize it is a refreshingly direct apology (no “if my words offended anyone” type garbage).
At least an attempt was made to offer a genuine apology, flawed as it was in its opening.
Well, there was a time many years ago when John Kricfalusi, aka John K, created and oversaw a cartoon show that was, IMHO, an absolute delight. The show was Ren & Stimpy and one of its funniest bits, the bonkers “Happy Happy Joy Joy” song…
The show was extremely silly bordering on psychotic and, for me anyway, was absolutely hilarious.
Now comes the following, presented on Jezebel.com and written by Hazel Cills…
This bit of news, one in a very long line of such very sad, stunning, infuriating bits of news regarding men in high positions behaving very badly (and that’s putting it in the nicest terms possible) was also…
Not all that surprising to me.
Why?
If you scroll down the above article and reach the comment section, you’ll find a comment made by yours truly regarding this situation. Understand, I have no “inside knowledge” unique to me regarding this situation. I have never met (at least to my knowledge) the man or any of the people involved in this story.
What I did have to say was the following:
I too loved the first run of Ren & Stimpy and was sad when it was done. Then, the show was revived and had a more “adult” bend and I recall seeing a “behind the scenes” video with John K. and a few of his staff working on some new concept for the show and…
…damn…
He just seemed soooooo damn… creepy.
I’m going by (likely) fading memory, but he was talking to either one or two women on the staff and showing them some concept art he created for some new character a -again, my memory may be foggy here- chicken. The chicken was plucked and looked like male genitals and John K. was giggling about its name (I forget that completely but it was some sexual double-entendre).
The women he was with were laughing but they seemed, to me, really uncomfortable… then again, it could have been me watching the whole spectacle.
As I said, I had such a creepy vibe from seeing that clip. The subsequent Ren & Stimpy show was pretty horrid and that was the last I ever cared for John K. and his stuff.
The bottom line?
The news of John K.’s alleged behavior isn’t all that surprising to me, given the very uncomfortable feeling I had following seeing the above video.
Bear in mind, the reason this video was presented was to promote the then new Ren & Stimpy show. For me, anyway, all it did was make me real uncomfortable regarding John K.
As I mentioned before and as is pointed out in the graphic above, Book #7 in this series presents a conclusion to the main story line, though there will be a Book #8 (I’ve already written the full first draft of it) that presents an Epilogue to the story.
So a month ago I wrote how I was done with the 4th draft of this novel. It was a big event, given that with this completed draft I had most of the elements of the story in place and felt that future drafts would tilt more and more toward grammatical/stylistic/spelling revision rather than adding new story elements.
Welp, in the month that followed I finished reading this latest draft and adding a cornucopia of notes, revisions, and deletions. There will be some stuff I need to work on harder than others. Toward the middle of the book there is a part that needs work and likely some new passages/pages. Similarly, the book’s climax and conclusion also needs more work.
However, the rest of the book proved essentially what I thought: Needing work on a grammatical/spelling/presentation level. This includes, obviously, making passages clearer and more precise, perhaps eliminating some repetition. Streamlining and making sure the reader will have a smooth, clear work to follow.
As opposed to the 4th draft, it took me, despite plenty of other things robbing me of time, three weeks or so to re-read and provide written notes on the work, compared to taking something like 2-3 months to read through and make notes on the 3rd draft!
As of a few days ago, I’m hard at work on the computer putting all those notations into the new draft. Once again and in comparison to the previous draft, this is so far moving quite smoothly. In two days I worked through 41 pages of the 288 and hope to keep a similar pace up to the end. Of course, things will slow down when I get to that middle section and climax, as these will require more work.
Regardless, things are so far moving very smoothly and I feel like this novel, at this stage, is farther along -and therefore closer to being “done”- than were all my other books at a similar point in time.
I’ve noted before that for most of my novels it takes something like 12 (!) drafts to feel a book is indeed “finished”. Considering how far along I feel this book is at this point in time, I suspect it won’t take me quite that many drafts before declaring the book done.
Several years ago the term “jumping the shark” was coined by a very clever fellow to explain the point where a popular/enjoyable TV show reaches a point where it suddenly is no longer that.
The term/reference, for those unfamiliar, relates to an episode of the once very popular TV show Happy Days (it had a whopping 11 seasons, airing from 1974 to 1984), and had one of the most popular characters in Henry Winkler’s Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli. It was his character in an episode presented in the 1977 season of the show that had the proverbial “jumping the shark” moment.
Quite literally!
Here it is -and, yes, Ron Howard (that Ron Howard) was still in the show and driving the boat. He was still primarily known as an actor and hadn’t yet transitioned to the powerhouse director he subsequently became:
The absurdity of the scene and subsequent pointing out of it made the term “jumping the shark” shorthand for the moment a TV show crosses the great Rubicon and, through the silliness of that moment, is no longer looked upon as the powerhouse it used to be.
In the case of Happy Days, the show would continue for several more years after presenting audiences with this particular sequence, so while it was silly (and that’s the nicest way to describe it), it was hardly “fatal” to the TV show.
The fact is that TV shows that become popular can do so in several ways. It can be a relatively slow process, where the show may start out barely hanging on while interest grows each and every day to the point where the show becomes a powerhouse. It can explode almost from the get-go, a so-called “water cooler” type show that almost everyone comes to love almost right away (The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones are two such recent examples).
Here’s the thing though: Good as any TV show is, there is always a risk that things will get… stodgy. Dull. Repetitious. As funny and fascinating as the term is, many shows lose steam and audiences and eventually get cancelled without necessarily giving a “jumping the shark” type moment.
Way, waaaaaaaay back when a cartoon show appeared on one of the “big four” networks and, to put it bluntly, the show absolutely blew me and my future wife away. The show premiered in 1989 and it was so damn funny I distinctly recall gasping for air in a few of those very early episodes, so hilarious was the product.
I followed the show for a number of years but somewhere around the fifth season or so it was like a switch had suddenly turned off in both me and my (by then) wife and, quite suddenly, we no longer had an interest in seeing the show. In fact, the show, The Simpsons, continues today, having reached an incredible 30th season, easily the longest running TV show out there today.
And neither my wife nor I have seen a full episode of it in some 25 years. In fact, the very last full The Simpsonsanything I saw was the feature film, which I felt was pretty damn mediocre and didn’t exactly change my mind and make me want to see the show again.
Please note: There was no “jumping the shark” moment regarding the show. We just felt like we’d gotten our fill and no longer felt the need to catch any more of it.
As the saying goes, your mileage may vary and, given the show still airs today, clearly there is still considerable interest in the series. But for me, there is absolutely none.
Yesterday I watched the latest -the fifth- episode of Season 3 of Ash vs The Evil Dead. This represents the half-way point of Season 3 as there are 10 total episodes in the season.
I’m a HUGE fan of the character of Ashley “Ash” J. Williams (and Bruce Campbell, the actor who plays him), who first appeared in the movie Evil Dead, then Evil Dead 2 (the best of the lot, IMHO), then Army of Darkness, before disappearing for many years before being revived in the Starz! series.
As I said, we’re in the third season of Ash vs. The Evil Dead and as much as I like most of what’s come before, I’m finding this season… not that good.
Don’t get me wrong, the regular nonsense is there: Plenty of blood and guts mixed with tongue in cheek humor and a main character who remains a complete idiot. However, something about this season seems… off.
To begin with, the cast has been curiously split apart, with Bruce Campbell’s Ash often doing things on his own while the various other main characters we’ve followed to date (Ray Santiago’s Pablo Simon Bolivar, Dana DeLorenzo’s Kelly Maxwell, Lucy Lawless’ Ruby Knowby), seem to be off on their own doing their own thing. In fact, it occurs to me we’ve seen very little of these characters together. They are often split up in their own stories and, frankly, while interesting characters they don’t have the same level of interest in this viewer as Ash does. In fact, their best moments are their incredulous reactions to Ash, something that can’t happen if they’re not around him.
But it goes beyond that.
The story itself, after two solid season (which, for the record, I felt nonetheless stumbled in their conclusions), is starting to show its seams.
Ash is a blowhard idiot, a delight to watch stumble along yet somehow always get the upper hand over evil. But its becoming clear many of the show’s ancillary characters are simply cannon fodder, killed without much thought which makes you realize how capricious the story lines are. We present a new character, we kill them off, they come back evil, and are subsequently dispatched by Ash.
Ash, still standing, doesn’t seem to suffer so much as a scratch, even though he does get slapped around like one of the Three Stooges.
Thing is -and I realize I’m offering a “serious” critique on what is, at its heart, a purposely goofy show- why hasn’t the Evil simply gotten rid of Ash already?
I mean, he’s mortal.
If its too difficult (now anyway) to take over Ash’s body, why not simply have a spirit take over a human body, purchase a gun, stalk Ash, and when he least expects it, blow his brains out?
Instead, the Evil creatures are becoming tediously predictable in their actions, taking over their human hosts, showing off their ugly mugs (usually while screaming/cursing at Ash), then moving around and around, slapping -or worse- Ash before he gets a bead on them and takes them out with maximum gore-age.
I really liked seeing this for a while but now, after three movies and while in the third season of the Starz! show, its becoming… predictable.
Dull.
There are still five episodes to go in the third season and, intriguingly, in an article by Nathalie Caron over at SyFywire.com, she notes…
The fact of the matter, it would appear, is that Starz! may well not renew the show after this season. Perhaps the costs are too high and the ratings no longer justify a continuation. Perhaps the principles in the show also recognize this particular creative endeavor is reaching its end-point.
Who knows.
But based on my current feelings regarding Ash vs The Evil Dead’s third season, I’ll repeat what I said before: The formula is starting to become too apparent and I’ve found myself far less impressed with this season versus the ones that came before.
Maybe it is time to lay poor Ash to rest, before he “jumps the shark”.
Found this chart over on reddit. It was produced by the US Census department…
As the chart states, this is the number of living World War II veterans from 1960 to 2016.
World War II officially ended in 1945 so if you were an 18 year old at that time, by 1960 you were around 33 years old. This is, of course, assuming the youngest age for conscription, though there were people who lied about their age to join the army!
By 1970 you were 43. By 1980 you were around 53 years old. By 1990, you were around 63. By the turn of the Century, the year 2000, you were 73.
By 2010, you were in/around 83 years of age.
By 2016 and the end of this particular census, the youngest recruit, again assuming they were in/around 18 years of age in 1945, was now in/around 89 years of age.
Add two more years to get us to 2018 and you’re now talking about this individual being in/around 90/91 years of age.
And, again, we’re talking about recruits/veterans who were at the very youngest age possible in 1945, the year the war ended.
Once again one can’t help but be confronted with what is the ultimate reality of life: Time marches on for everyone.
When I was in High School, there were approximately 12 million WWII veterans still alive. Today, there are less than a million.
My brother-in-law’s father was a WWII veteran and he passed away a few years back at the age of 96.
Soon, too soon, there will be no more veterans of that world wide conflict left alive and one can’t help but be saddened by that reality.
Ann-Margret Olssen is a singer/actor/dancer whose professional career in music began in 1961.
She would go on to appear in movies, including co-starring with Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas!, co-starring with Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid, appearing in the film version of the famous Who album Tommy, as well as co-starring in the critically acclaimed film Carnal Knowledge.
Still active today, Ann-Margret’s had a long and very productive career!
