Mindless Blather | drfreex.com

Ramping Up

Yes, my writing contract is finally renewed/resurrected/whatever. No, my entry did not win the focus group sweepstakes. I’ll still be writing it, as the scope of the project has expanded. I’m being literally literal about that: My entry, which was once a diverting little Twilight Zone-type yarn, has suddenly become an end-of-the-universe tale. Trying to wrap my head around that has been… entertaining. The conflict which the story’s previous version was based upon now seems rather trivial. Except the characters are the same, and it’s not trivial to them.

I’d be in more of a tizzy if I hadn’t just spent a half-hour at the local washateria (turns out 25 year-old washing machines can suddenly decide to just not work. Who knew?) and that half hour was spent with MP3s blaring through earbuds and yours truly scrawling out four pages worth of handwritten story notes. This might turn out to be not so bad.

Many times I find I can come across the solution to a problem by not thinking about it. So I didn’t think about it by watching a couple of movies that were pretty much diametrically opposed in their audiences, except where those two audiences intersected, ie., me.

The first was The Raid 2. I have rhapsodized about its predecessor and its predecessor’s predecessor, so this was inevitable. I was down with the flu the one friggin’ week this was playing at cinemas, thanks a lot Sony. Finally, it came out on blu-ray – of course, the month I was beyond broke. Thank God for Next Projection and a promotional giveaway, which I won, and was finally – finally! – able to watch it.

The words holy and shit get used a lot when you’re watching The Raid 2. Also ow and oof and gaaaaaaah. If you consider The Raid and The Raid 2 as one long story – which it is – and if you get a bit delusional and consider that one long story to be a toothpaste tube, with plot being the toothpaste, then all the plot toothpaste got squeezed over to the Raid 2 end. If you want to find any nits to pick, it would be that the plot is very familiar.

The Raid‘s Rama (Iko Uwais) finds out that surviving the first movie has put himself and his family in real danger. There is a very large portion of the police force that is corrupt, and he finds himself on a very small task force that is bent toward taking the bad cops down. To this end, Rama is sent to prison to get close to one of the mob boss’ son (Arifin Putra). After two years in prison, Rama is released and joins that gang, just in time for an upstart mobster (Alex Abbad) to start a gang war.

That’s a setup we’ve seen many times, from numerous Hong Kong dramas to the TV series Wiseguy. There are certainly enough top-drawer fight scenes to keep holdover fans from the first Raid interested (hell, Rama basically beats up a wing of his new prison home barely 14 minutes into the film), but the final hour of this two-and-a-half hour movie shifts into action movie overdrive, becoming as tense and relentless as the first movie, and culminating in a seven minute-long hand-to-hand fight scene that had yours truly (hardened veteran of more martial arts movies than you’ve had hot meals) curled up into a ball in his easy chair, with a pained grimace on my face.

After three movies which I have loved, there is no doubt in my mind that Gareth Huw Evans is one of the premier action movie directors of our time. He is aided in no small part by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian (who was killed as Mad Dog in the first movie, and returns as another off-kilter assassin in this one), who have formed the core of his repertory company as actors and fight choreographers. It’s surprising how these two, basically martial artists, have developed into such good actors (a quality evident in the team’s first movie together, Merantau). Iwais in particular has magnetic star quality.

I anxiously await the next one. I’ll still have these three movies to keep me warm (and grimacing ow!) until it arrives.

The Raid 2 on Amazon

Now, to grind the gears as we do a bootlegger turn of the imagination: The Lego Movie.

This was something of a surprise hit earlier this year when released in February, traditionally No Man’s Land for movie openings. Once again we have a terribly familiar plot: a prophecy, a doomsday weapon, the Chosen One, the Hero’s Journey. But The Lego Movie has a lot of silly, satirical fun with that increasingly misused plot. The creativity on display is bracing, with little details proving the care the animators put into this. The dazzling, shared Lego universe provides for a lot of surprising cameos, and it’s all such infectious fun I really resented it when the Real World intruded on the story. But that was unavoidable, I suppose, and it does give rise to the best ending twist I’ve seen in a long time.

One of the best reasons to watch it is to consider that the movie’s villain is named Lord Business, which meant that every right wing pundit in the universe was decrying it as an anti-capitalist movie. Right. A movie based on a highly successful toy line and a marketing tool for that highly successful toy line is anti-capitalist. Pull the other one, idiots.

I’m not saying anymore about the movie itself; this is a joy of discovery type movie. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, you should do so at your earliest opportunity.

Now I need to go translate my handwriting.

The Lego Movie on Amazon

July 31, 2014
Categories: Mindless Blather, Movies That Do Not Suck . Tags: everything is awesome, gareth huw evans, iko uwais, merantau, the lego movie, The Raid, the raid 2 . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

No New Normal

Thanks to my piecemeal work, there usually arrives each month a Hell Week, when everything happens at once, and I have absolutely no free time. This past week has been that week for July. Tonight will be my first and only evening off, and the question is will I catch up on work in other areas or just relax, by which I mean possibly watch a movie.

July hasn’t been a great month. July is never a great month. It’s the first month you realize you’re really working for the electric company. We’ve already heard me gripe and moan about the Independence Day festivities, and this year’s was a corker, with a storm cell blowing up an hour before the parade start, causing all video equipment to quickly be bundled inside; there was still a parade (although one float had been destroyed by the storm) and I was one of the lucky few to be manning a hastily set-up camera.

But hell, I got a free T-shirt.

After a week of private shows and city meetings, today’s entry on the extra side of the ledger is a writer’s meeting, which is good, because it means my contract goes off hiatus and I can stop calculating gallons of gas versus eating lunch, but it also has a dark side because, yep, even less free time. But I can stop fretting over the bills for a brief while.

Periods like this always create an urge that itches away in a unscratchable portion of your brain, a feeling that something has to change, but the feeling comes with no real idea how to accomplish that change. I’m not going to walk away from my Day Job, only found almost by accident after a year of unemployment. It may only be part-time, but it’s work I enjoy in a field that is not terribly friendly to a person my age. Given all my other responsibilities, including the about-to-be-reactivated writing contract, seeking another part-time job was not feasible. That left Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes and precious few other options.

Notice what’s missing?

Another area of desired change is my methodology for watching movies, and, again, no real idea how to effect that change in current circumstances. Last year, I did a couple of movie-watching challenges (and one this year), and I find it takes a terrible toll on me: I seem to want to take a day or so after watching a movie to consider it, to glean what I have taken away from the experience. That’s the part I have no idea how to change, but if I do not… well, there is no way in the world I am going to get to watch every movie I want anyway. Treating each movie like a pebble that has to be thrown in a rock polisher for several days to be fully appreciated is just cutting that available time down even more.

So yeah, the only solution I see is to become suddenly, undeservedly wealthy and spend the rest of my days doing nothing but watching those movies. And then having the rest of those days cut short by congestive heart failure because I’m doing nothing but sitting in my easy chair watching movies.

So that’s a less than ideal solution. (Though I’d be lying if I said it didn’t appeal to me on a certain level)

There is also the killjoy section of my brain (which is quite highly developed, it seems) that points out this is rationalization on my part, to make up for not having time to watch all the movies I like. (“Hey, remember when you watched The Red Shoes and The Searchers the same day? You weren’t whining then.”) I’ve had evenings free when I did not watch a movie, but killed time on Facebook or watching murder investigation shows on Netflix. Those nights rankle when I am too busy to watch a movie; they feel like squandered time and wasted opportunities, but downtime is so necessary.

So, in the final analysis, one does what one always does, I suppose. Muddle through, hope for the best, and remember that surely there was some freaking reason you bought that four-hour cut of Heaven’s Gate.

July 24, 2014
Categories: Mindless Blather . Tags: too busy for tags . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

The Lone Ranger and the Trouble With Reboots

So. We know I take a long time to get to movies. I will go to a movie theater maybe three, four times a year; I like to engage on my own terms. Some movies I know will lose very little impact by waiting a while and watching when I want, not by making an appointment with it. There are some movies, admittedly, that I will strive to see in their natural setting (no matter how degraded that setting has become), but let’s face it: there is much more fare I know can wait. I knew The Lone Ranger was going to be such a movie before the first negative press was ever unleashed.

Yeah, I’m old. I remember watching the Clayton Moore TV series when I was a kid, somehow never realizing he was wearing tights, not jeans. There was a Lone Ranger cartoon in the good old bad old days of violent Saturday morning cartoons that was cheap but thoroughly bizarre, inflected with its prime time contemporary, The Wild Wild West (there was a later, Filmation cartoon that was typically sanitized and useless). In the pulp movie revival fueled by Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, there came Legend of the Lone Ranger, which I have never seen.

Our old pulp heroes have a built-in problem, being creatures of the pop culture of their time, and that is the not terribly-enlightened handling of sidekicks of any color but white. Mandrake the Magician would probably make a decent movie character, being so visually oriented, but the muscle-bound, leopard-skin wearing, be-fezzed Lothar would have to be re-booted several times before he could even begin to be acceptable. More on sidekickery later.

Despite this, Disney still went ahead with The Lone Ranger. Casting a white actor, Johnny Depp, as the traditional “faithful Indian companion, Tonto” is really the least of its problems. America has a particularly shameful history in its dealings with the native population, and most modern Westerns have at least a small portion of their running time devoted to this. The Lone Ranger has at least two instances of genocidal imagery, and in a better-structured movie, either of them might have mattered. But here, it simply becomes part of the white noise that slowly engulfs the story (and no matter what anyone else says, Depp is doing a superb Jay Silverheels imitation).

Through some judicious editing and – I know this is heretical, but what the hell – another run of the script through the writing mill, unhampered by focus groups, this might have been a much tighter movie at only two hours, and possibly a kickass, exciting one at 90-100 minutes. This is a problem I have with Gore Verbinski movies in general, and the major reason I never got past the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I don’t mind a meandering path in a movie, as long as it builds to its set pieces and provides what I came to an action movie to see: action, preferably of the cathartic kind. But chances are, if you took Verbinski or Depp out of the mix, this movie would not have gotten made.

Now, the Lone Ranger story is such an antique, we did need the origin story retold (I suppose), especially since we’re taking a few liberties with it to give our new version of the character his Hero’s Journey. This time, John Reid is a hastily-deputized Texas Ranger, who follows his brother in a posse tracking escaped outlaw Butch Cavendish, who is now a cannibal (just in case he wasn’t villainous enough before). Surviving the ambush, John is chosen by a “spirit horse” to be the “Spirit Walker”, the man who cannot be killed, at least according to Tonto. Then again, we will also later be told that Tonto was driven insane by causing the death of his tribe by leading two white men to the silver mine that will be the McGuffin for our plot.

I counted three separate instances where the movie’s plot had obviously entered its end game, but the script then undercut that and decided to keep going for an hour or so. The bizarre egregiousness of some of the story problems has no better example than Helena Bonham Carter’s character, Red Harrington (some junior executive took a three-martini lunch and the rest of the day off after coming up with that name), a whorehouse madam with an ivory prosthetic leg that conceals a shotgun. To justify her prominence in the advertising materials, the plot will then twist itself into a few more topologically improbable shapes to accommodate her part in the complex end sequence.

Armie Hammer does everything he is asked to as John Reid. Sadly, what he is told to do is often some pretty stupid stuff. There are times when the template seems to be lifted from The Green Hornet movie, where Britt Reid (yes, notice the last name, Warren Ellis fans) is the comic doofus and Kato (again, your mandatory sidekick of color) is the competent one. And more than once The Lone Ranger reminded me of another ill-starred Western reboot, Wild Wild West, especially about the time we go to Red Harrington’s whorehouse, so reminiscent of Fat Can Candy’s that I kept expecting to see Kevin Kline in drag.

There are borrowings from other movies, tributes that I can accept: the use of Monument Valley (though I don’t remember it being in Texas), and a complicated love triangle with two brothers and one’s wife straight out of The Searchers. Three locomotives are wrecked in this movie, one named The Jupiter, in deference to Buster Keaton’s train-centric The General (and Depp’s love for the comedian is indulged in several of the action set pieces). I’m okay with that.

Disney had a similar failure with John Carter, the difference being that John Carter was a much more solidly-constructed movie and deserved better (it also hedged its bets, as its indigenous noble savages were aliens). The Lone Ranger, though, is a morass of story ideas that are often in the wrong order, and the viewer simply waits, tapping its foot and checking its watch, to get to the action sequences, which are gorgeously shot, exciting, and expensive.

I do get why some people don’t like the movie, and it has a lot to do with what I’ve outlined above. What I don’t get is the hate directed toward it. I’m pretty sure there’s a “worst movie ever made” review or three thousand out there, and my response is always going to be, “You don’t watch near enough movies.” Yes, despite all my bitching, I did enjoy The Lone Ranger. Not enough to watch it again, but I had a fairly pleasant time.

I’ve said it before, I will say it again: my relationship with a movie is very simple. I ask that it entertain me, and I will allow myself to be entertained. It’s not that hard, but a lot of movies manage to fail that simple deed.

And I really feel that sometimes, what is missing from many people’s approach is that, simply, they will not allow themselves to be entertained. Like a character in an Ingmar Bergman movie desperately seeking their one version of God when evidence of God is all around them, a lot of movie-goers demand that rush, that tingle they got the first time the star destroyer rushed overhead and kept rushing, or Indy ran from the boulder. And when that rush does not come, the movie is obviously worse than the heat death of the universe. People. You’re not always going to get that. And if that’s all you’re looking for, you’re going to miss what is offered to you. Permit yourself to have some fun, for God’s sake. And I absolutely, honest-to-God do not understand the concept of “hate-watching”. What the hell. There is a doctoral thesis waiting to be written on that life-wasting nonsense.

Having said that, I am now going to undercut myself, because that’s another takeaway from Wild Wild West: undercutting and demeaning your source. At the end of WWW, as was traditional in the TV series, when they had some time to fill or a plot point cheat that needed explanation, Artie would ask West, “Mind if I ask you a question?” They did this in the movie, but Will Smith’s answer was a dismissory, “Actually, I would mind.” In The Lone Ranger, Reid finally, finally, rears up on that gorgeous white horse and belts out, “Hiyo Silver! Away!” to which Tonto says, “Never do that again!” It’s supposed to be a laugh line, but we’ve been waiting for that a long time. We have, in fact, been waiting the entire movie to hear that trademark line. And that is probably the reason why “Fuck you, movie!” is the last thing anyone remembers about The Lone Ranger.

Buy The Lone Ranger at Amazon

June 24, 2014
Categories: Mindless Blather, The Wonderful World of Crap . Tags: gore verbinski, Johnny Depp, The Lone Ranger . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments

The Situation Report

Even for a tax week, this one has managed to excel in getting increasingly sucky.

I won’t go into the income tax woes; everybody’s got those stories, mine are worse than some, better than others. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I’m a survivalist in movie matters and have been stocking up on movies for some time, just against a buying moratorium like that which is about to be enforced. I have a fallout shelter full of, not cans of beans, but DVDs.

Typos. Mainly I’m afraid of typos.

No, other crap’s been going wrong out in the world. The saddest one is the shuttering of FearNet, which was a damned fine resource. I’m especially going to miss the reviews of Scott Weinberg, who is that rare critic that, while I may not have always agreed with him, was always enthusiastic and perceptive in his reviews, and was valuable in pointing the way to movies I might have otherwise passed over. I hope to hell he lands on his feet and gets a post somewhere else, because he deserves it.

Well, there’s not much I can do about that, except to send good thoughts his way and the way of many of my friends who have found themselves unemployed this year; I did that a few years ago and I don’t have to tell you how much it megasucked. Finding a new job when you’re over 50 is a thorny proposition, at best. I think my worst day there was being informed that I was not worthy of working at Walmart, for God’s sake.

Making matters worse is the fact that my wife came down with the current flu two weeks ago, and it is one of those that just sets up shop in your lungs and hangs on, so constant coughing in the night is a given. Neither of us has gotten much sleep, and I’m exhausted enough that the damn bug has slipped through all the vitamins and supplements and set up shop in my mucus membranes, and when you work three part-time jobs, you literally do not have time to be sick.

This Friday is Good Friday. I expect to be unconscious for most, if not all, of it.

But enough bitching. Here’s some good news:

I am now a three-time Telly Award winner under my nom de guerre, Randall Williams. Honestly, I got really cynical choosing this last entry, and went for the cute animals. It worked:

But this is the one that cemented that, my story on a specific breed rescue organization:

But the one that started it all, the one I fought to have entered that first year? Zombies. Though a few cute dogs were included:

One of the better non-work things that I do, that I do not plug near enough, is the Daily Grindhouse Podcast, which I started doing again this year along with DG regulars Joe Cosby and Jon Abrams. Do you want to know more?

Episode #16 – Street Wars – Jamaa Fanaka’s last movie is a typically intriguing mix of solid exploitation tropes and painfully earnest social issues – earnest enough to keep you guessing. I think we were all surprised at how easily this came together for a first episode.

Episode # 17 – Vigilante Force – The under-appreciated George Armitage fights the American Revolution in vigilante terms in an odd thriller starring Jan-Michael Vincent and Kris Kristofferson. Mayhem ensues.

Episode #18 – Ghosthouse – It was Joe’s turn to pick a movie, and I believe my response to this was “Umberto Lenzi? You bastard.” A surprisingly restrained – until the very end – haunted house story that we fell on like hungry zombies. This was the first movie we universally trashed, and it felt good.

Episode #19 – Thriller: They Call Her One-Eye – This one was my choice, I admit. I had been meaning to see this since Synapse put out their limited edition of the uncut director’s version with the original sub-title, A Cruel Picture. Our first divisive picture – I recommended it (with caveats), Joe didn’t like it and Jon outright hated it. A really good episode, though, as we kick around why our opinions differ so much.

Episode #20 – Raw Force – Edward R. Murphy only directed two movies, and trust me, this is the one you want to see, as it is insane from the first frame. This thing is like an exploitation smoothie with everything thrown into the blender, and then garnished with incompetence and cheap visual effects. Cannibals, boobies, bad kung fu, boobies, Cameron Mitchell, boobies, black magic, and finally, some boobies. And Fake Hitler backed up by The Village People. Code Red is supposedly working on a remastered version, and screw the IRS, I’m spending money on that. Needless to say, we have a ton of fun discussing it.

Episode #21 – Ganja and Hess – Hands down, our best episode so far. Mike White from The Projection Booth (pound for pound the best movie podcast out there) drops by to class up the joint as we mull over Bill Gunn’s moody, ethereal vampire movie.

Episode #22 – The Devil’s Express – This is how I repaid Joe and Jon for Raw Force. The Devil’s Express is another of those movies that seemingly has everything – monsters, murders, gang wars, good old bad old New York, Warhawk Tanzania, bad kung fu, Brother Theodore… we had a fun time picking this apart, but don’t be fooled. we loved this movie.

Episode #23 – The Twilight People – This was Jon’s choice, because it was a Pam Grier movie he hadn’t seen. I could have warned him that this is not truly a Pam Grier movie, but… our Guest is Dr, Gangrene, who loves the movie, which is good, because someone has to. I like Eddie Romero movies… except for this one.

Well, this has taken me a thousand words and two hours closer to that lovely, lovely Friday and my bed. (Homer Simpson drooling sound) Beeeeeeeddddddddddddd….

April 16, 2014
Categories: Mindless Blather, The Wonderful World of Crap . Tags: daily grindhouse, daily grindhouse podcast, death, devil's express, gang wars, Ganja and Hess, ghosthouse, joe cosby, jon abrams, pug hearts, raw force, street wars, taxes, telly awards, thriller a cruel picture, twilight people, vigilante force, zombie walk . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Chapter 9: Some Blithering

I’m in the bizarre, unenviable position of having too much to do, yet not being able to do any of it. I’m waiting on too many phone calls or e-mails to be returned, I have a teleconference coming up in two hours, which would be an okay space to pop in a movie but I’d feel like I was cramming it into that space, like a book slapped on top of other books on a shelf just to get it out of the way. That’s a bulky, cumbersome analogy, but I’m also operating on short sleep rations, so that’s all I’ve got.

So I might as well just ramble on here.

At the end of the year there was another “streamageddon” panic when a bunch of movies got cleared off Netflix Instant. Cooler heads attempted to prevail, some pointing out that licensing arrangements usually began or ended at the, yes, beginning or end of the month, and we seem to go through this at least twice a year when a bunch of licenses expire. A lot of the movies come back, some don’t.

Link that to something I see at least once a day on Twitter: “What? Why isn’t (Caddyshack/1941/insert name of movie) on Netflix?”

Then tell me again how physical media is dying.

Well, I’m going to admit that you have a point there, at least, but I think it’s largely because certain people want it to die, not because of any need or essential evolution of entertainment.

Up to roughly a hundred years ago, if you wanted to hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, you had to go to a concert hall where it was being performed. If you didn’t live within easy traveling distance of one, or they were playing Mozart that evening, well, tough. No glorious Ludwig Van for you. The invention of the gramophone mitigated that somewhat, though admittedly the scratchy wax cylinder was a poor substitute for a symphony orchestra in the same room as the listener. New technology would work toward closing that gap in experience and quality.

Then again, sometimes you don’t want any Ludwig Van.

I was struck at one point last year by a critic talking about seeing The Seventh Seal at an art house in the late 50s, then having to wait years for the opportunity to see it a second time. To a modern film buff, that sort of experience is almost unthinkable. My copy of Seventh Seal is not ten feet from my desk. I can watch it again any time I want.

Yet, this is the same experience one gets from streaming media services. Am I somehow to believe this is better?

Ooooh dear.

Netflix cannot provide access to every movie everyone might like to see at any imaginable point at any time; that is simply impossible, so they of necessity attempt to maintain the most commercially viable mix they can. I’ve seen my fair share of odd, non-commercial movies on Netflix, so I can’t complain too loudly – but it still can’t beat a large collection curated by myself, for myself.

Where streaming does beat that, I will admit, is in the realm of clutter. I sit here typing this, surrounded by stacks of books and movies. If they ever, like in some EC comic book or episode of Twilight Zone decided to turn on me, I’m doomed, hopelessly outnumbered. The huge stacks of Marvel Essentials and DC Showcase Presents have already tried to end me twice. This, however, is the choice I made: movies I want to watch, books I want to read. There is some point I am going to require a viewing of Evil Roy Slade, some point where discovering the exact issue of Teen Titans the Mad Mod first appeared will be paramount. This is how I shape my world, and move about in it.

The general move toward streaming and that intellectual construct they call “The Cloud” is a move toward licensing content rather than selling it. I have somewhere around twenty books on my Kindle, and Amazon has proven they can rescind my access to any of these books at any time. I didn’t buy them, I only rented them, apparently. There is no such muddiness of ownership with a physical book. I have exchanged money for an item, which I can now deal with as I see fit; I can keep it, resell it, give it away, use it to level out an uneven table, or – heaven forbid – burn it.

Physical media is not, I think, truly going away, at least not in my lifetime. I’ve been hearing the death knell tolled for DVDs for quite some time, and the only real evidence I’ve seen there is the vanishing of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores. But that’s been the death of a mode of business, not the medium – they could not keep up with the one-two blow of streaming and Redbox kiosks, which offer, once more, convenience at the cost of choice.

If you’re a film buff, if you’re a collector, the realm of physical media is still quite robust. The last year or two has seen enormous growth in boutique labels catering to those markets. Warner Archive and its highly successful Made on Demand discs of vault movies, largely ignored in any realm except Turner Classic Movies (until they launched their own streaming service). Outfits like Vinegar Syndrome, Grindhouse Releasing, Code Red, Severin, Scream Factory and old friends like Blue Underground and Synapse, all producing niche product of outstanding quality.

So basically: streaming has a place on my buffet, but until A) their inventories truly proliferate, and B) I no longer have to pay an arm and a leg for broadband internet so I can enjoy such services at the same consistent level of quality as physical media – it’s going to stay at that subsidiary steam table with the egg rolls and the fried bread, while I’m concentrate on the entrees of the main table.

Dammit, now I want Chinese food.

January 11, 2014
Categories: Mindless Blather, Senile Ramblings . Tags: blu-ray, dvd, netflix, physical media, streaming video . Author: drfreex . Comments: 5 Comments

Out of the Gauntlet…

…and into another trap.

March was an interesting month. As both of you reading this blog know, I thought it would be fun to participate in the Letterboxd.com March Movie Madness Challenge, which resulted in a bunch of short reviews under the “ABCs of March” heading. That involved going through the alphabet by watching a movie every night. I have a sort of sick jealousy towards people who could actually do that – I indulged in a tremendous amount of gaming the system, watching several movies a day during my enforced week off (Spring Break at the college). Coming off that glut of movie watching and following up by a rather ravaging Crapfest also had an unforeseen consequence: I was completely burned out on movies.

The Author’s Brain: Artistic Representation

I done one… one! review since. While recharging my batteries, I’ve gone back to Habit Number One, reading. Burned my way quickly through Lindsay Faye’s marvelous Dust and Shadow and Gods of Gotham. Finally finished Warren Ellis’ thoroughly demented Crooked Little Vein, which was the detective novel Hunter S. Thompson probably wishes in the afterlife he had written. And (also) finally got round to Richard Kadrey’s fourth Sandman Slim novel, Devil Said Bang, and those damned things just keep getting better.

I’d been flirting with the idea of getting back on the cinematic horse when I was hit with one of those two weeks of extreme business that seems to be your lot when you’re working a couple of part-time jobs and engaging in several freelance projects. One of those projects finishes up this Sunday, and I’ve hit a period of relative calm. Well, I think to myself, it might be time to watch a movie or two.

Then I discover that Danny Baldwin and Oscar Velasquez, the same people who came up with the March Movie Madness challenge, have come up with another one for May, and oooooh, is it irresistible. To honor the memory of Roger Ebert, participants watch Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, then one movie a night from Ebert’s Great Movies series. I mean, good Lord, look at that list. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

I’ve watched about a third of those movies, so finding 30 I had not was relatively easy. Some of them are even on The List. In the final version of my proposed watchlist for May, I already owned 19; 4 were on Netflix; 6 I could get from my local library (my local library system is pretty damned sweet, if I haven’t mentioned that lately). The last two I picked up for cheap from my own Amazon Wish List.

So I guess I’m doing this.

There are all sorts of problems I foresee. I don’t have Spring Break to fall back on. At least six evenings are already scheduled for work. Two days for my wedding anniversary get-away. One evening for the Capital Fundraising Kick-Off for my old theater. Monday and Tuesday evenings my wife must have the HDTV to watch Dancing With The Stars, so I can’t watch Blu-rays those evenings. There should be a Crapfest in there, somewhere, too. This is a field of logistical landmines, to be sure.

I am also likely the only person in the world who would complain about watching quality movies.

So there will be more system gaming, I am sure. I will likely start the process tonight, trying to build in a buffer. My portable DVD Player will go with me to San Antonio. I’ll have to save the shorter movies for nights with work and so on. And somewhere in there, find time to write about this ordeal of excellence.

I guess this why they call it a challenge.

April 25, 2013
Categories: Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

Radio Silence

I’m sure you weren’t concerned about my current silence – Jesus, there is certainly more than enough very real stuff to worry about this week – but here I am, anyway.

I’m having another of those incredibly busy two week periods. Three, count ’em three shows this week. Three, count ’em three writing projects, all of which presume they are the most important things on Earth. Special remote broadcast next week as the School Board candidates duke it out. So exciting.

Still dealing with a bit of burnout after the March Movie Madness and Crapfest. I’ve watched one movie since Hercules, Samson & Ulysses, some episodic TV, and spot-checked my Blu-ray of Django Unchained (having already seen it in the theater). After a 2012 fairly bereft of paying work, I’m not going to complain too loudly about suddenly being busy.

Hopefully back in the latter part of next week. If not, as I said, you’ve got plenty to occupy your time until I do manage to return.

Keep your head down. Courage.

April 18, 2013
Categories: Mindless Blather . Tags: too busy for tags . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

This Year’s List

We’re entering the third week of four in the production of Shadowlands at the Texas Repertory Theater. That means, so far, eight standing ovations in eight performances. I wish I could grab a bit of the credit for that, but I think it’s largely due to the performance of our C.S. Lewis, Steven Fenley. He’s wanted to play this role for years, and is by turns charming and then ripping his emotional guts out as the second act progresses. Here’s a link to a review.I got singled out for special mention. I’ll take that; after all, I’m a minor character, in only 6 scenes.

Your Long-suffering Narrator (left)

So in two weeks we’ll tear down the set. I’ll celebrate the next day – President’s Day, a State holiday for the college – with a Very Special Crapfest, then go back to spending my evenings trying to rough out that goddamn novel. At least until another, similar creative project comes along to distract me. The Wednesday following that Crapfest I’ll be reporting back to the dentist for should be my last major visit. Major because I’ll be losing the last of the worthless teeth and having a set of partial dentures slapped on, which will mean some pain and discomfort for a while, but I’m used to pain and discomfort from that particular region. Both my mother and grandmother had full dentures before they were 30 years old. Finally getting partials at the ripe old age of 55 is, I think, very much a victory.

It’s the ripe old age thing that’s particularly bothersome. I’m told that 60 is the new 40, but phooey on that. After spending two hours in the dental chair yesterday, I felt every one of those years. The dentist and assistant were concerned that I was dizzy and I had to tell them that no, I was simply stiff and my bum leg needed to loosen up, but thanks for your concern. Shadowlands has caused me a lot of pain in over-using that limb, but I think it’s gotten a little stronger through the exercise. Humor me.

It’s that, the dentures, the fact that I now take eight pills every morning and two at night. I don’t exactly have one foot in the grave, but reminders of my mortality are certainly stacking up. This is the sort of things that drives other folk to great things and lofty goals. Me, I just think about all the movies and books I haven’t gotten to, yet.

Now, I don’t generally do New Year’s Resolutions (mainly because I don’t need a special occasion to lie to myself). But this year, I swore that I would watch a better class of movie. I honestly don’t regret a lifetime watching crap and disposable cinema; I’m not going to apologize for something I love that also doesn’t hurt anybody else. But there has been an essential part of my education that has been lacking, So I’ve laid down some goals for this year, and I am going to do my very best to keep to them. Confidence is high.

First: I have to already own these movies. They’ve been sitting there mocking me long enough, as I pass them over to watch Scott Pilgrim for the 14th time. I made one exception here, but we’ll get to that. After I’ve gotten through what I already own, we can start considering acquisition once more, which would mean movies like The Rules of the Game and Solaris.

Preference is given to movies I have not yet seen, though The List has several that I simply haven’t seen in 20 or more years. My head is in a different place now.

There are 30 movies on this list. I intend to have half of them seen by Summer. I’m a bachelor this Spring Break, and I intend to use this opportunity to its fullest.

So, here’s my list. There are probably going to be a few “You haven’t seen _______? How is that possible?“s.

1. Fear and Desire – you are going to see Stanley Kubrick’s entire filmography on this list; my determination to see it all, in order, is what started this project. This is his first movie, which he disowned, and reportedly tried to destroy. Luckily Eastman House kept a copy of it.

2. The Godfather – haven’t seen it in close to 25 years.

3. Killer’s Kiss – Kubrick’s sophomore movie, luckily included as an extra in Criterion’s The Killing,

4. Ikiru – this is the only one I don’t already own. How the hell this is the case is, frankly, beyond me.

5. The Killing – seems to be acknowledged as the first “real” Kubrick film. Nope, never seen it.

6. Chushingura – The Loyal 47 Ronin

7. Paths of Glory

8. Hara-Kiri

9. Spartacus – Literally haven’t seen it in almost 50 years, and then it was on TV.

10. Inception – I know, I know. Sue me.

11. Lolita

12. The Hurt Locker – see number 10, above.

13. Dr. Strangelove – Probably the most recent of the ones I’ve previously viewed, only about 10 years ago.

14. No Country for Old Men – see number 12, above

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey – I seem to recall a more recent viewing, but I can only only definitely recall one 20 years ago, on laserdisc.

16. True Grit – the Coen Brothers version. See number 14, above.

17. A Clockwork Orange – ugly and brutal, I think it’s been more than 20 years.

18. While the City Sleeps – Fritz Lang noir classic. Never seen it.

19. Barry Lyndon – Never seen it.

20. Godfather II- Again, it’s been 25 years. I also have Godfather III, which I’ve never seen, but have been informed it is so terribly sad-making (and not in a good way) I think I’ll be able put that one off a while longer.

21. The Shining – never actually watched it all the way through. Keep encountering it on TV, but I like to see a) the whole thing; b) from the beginning.

22. The Last King of Scotland

23. Full Metal Jacket – saw it in the theaters in ’87

24. Heavenly Creatures – Please see number 16, above.

25. Eyes Wide Shut – not necessarily looking forward to this one, but a deal’s a deal.

26. Bonnie & Clyde – as a bona fide child of the 60s, how the hell have I avoided seeing this?

27. Black Orpheus

28. Drive – time to find out what all the shouting’s about.

29. Beauty & the Beast – the Cocteau version, dammit.

30. There Will Be Blood – see number 24, above. Looking forward to finally seeing what all this “milkshake” business is about.

In case you were wondering if I had completely lost my mind, there is another list of 30 Questionable movies I intend to see in the coming year. Maybe we’ll do that later. Right now I have work to do, and we’re over a thousand words.

Not to mention resting up for tonight’s show.

February 9, 2012
Categories: Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 10 Comments

Talking Myself Into Writing

So, right on time, I turned in the final pieces of my contract writing. I picked up my paycheck. A few days later, I looked over the rewrites editorial had done. They weren’t bad, but I did wonder about the necessity of some, especially those that muddled the voices of the characters. Eh. It was work for hire. I did my,work, they liked what they got (and, I’m not too humble to admit, were impressed by the quality of what they got), I got my money, it’s out of my hands.

No, what is amazing me is the fact that I’m still busy. Thus far, this has been the busiest year I’ve had in quite some time, the old saying about “feast or famine” made concrete. I managed to get my foot tangled in some stage equipment a couple of weeks back and screwed the knee back up again, so I suppose some of the hectic nature of my schedule is due to the fact that I can’t be hectic myself. If a fire breaks out or zombies attack, I’m a goner.

But let’s see; the final weekly newscast of the semester was last week, and I had to scramble to find my last story. I like to cover things like local food banks or similar charities for that last slot, because it will run all month, until we switch over to our Summer travel magazine format on June 1. But for some reason I was anathema to the two local food banks we had done stories on before – I couldn’t get anyone to return my calls. Then I noticed the Fort Bend Boys Choir is entering its 30th year, I knew the artistic director, and there you have it. That was kind of nerve-wracking, but it got done.

Then that weekend was my 16th wedding anniversary, and my wife and I had decided that dammit, we are doing something this year, so we dumped the Teenage Moose off at the neighbors and headed to Galveston for a couple of days. Stayed at Grace Manor, a lovely bed-and-breakfast, and basically enjoyed being in each others’ company for two days without anyone else intruding.

I was probably the spoilsport for the trip, as I had to stop often and partake of the plentiful benches on the Strand while Lisa shopped. The 1900-style architecture is lovely, but damn, did they ever believe in stairs. The two flights of stairs in Grace Manor were murderous enough, but they at least had the promise of a bed at the top. (Also, I could admire the woodwork as I grumbled my painful way up) The shops on the Strand, located conveniently close to the dock for the Carnival Cruise ship? I didn’t need to go up ten steps for the privilege of looking at more tourist stuff. I do, however, regret not giving in to my baser desires and buying that gorgeous statue of Ganesh I found in one shop.

Now back to reality, and the second School Board meeting in two weeks (with two more in a couple of weeks in the offing). My boss, who normally does the audio for the Planning and Zoning Commission meetings, is sick today and I might wind up doing that tonight. So I’m just as busy as I was, the events are just not so closely scheduled as they once were. They’re down to One Extraordinary Evemt a day, instead of two or more.

One of the things that nagged at me while doing the contract writing was that I really wanted to be writing for myself. I haven’t added all the sections up, but I turned out probably between 60,000 to 80,000 words, which is sufficient for a novel, I’m told. Hell, this blog entry is about to pass 700 words. Though they couldn’t be defined as mine, I still got attached to a couple of the characters. I dredged up some painful stuff so I could put some truth about painful stuff on the page. Overall, it wasn’t as hard switching from a script format to a prose format as I’d feared, though I still rank my dialogue higher than I would my descriptive passages.

So, you might ask, besides the fact that your normal writing times are being taken up with running audio for the live broadcast of governmental sausage-making, what’s stopping you from getting back on the novel-writing horse? How far had you gotten the last time you tried this? Maybe 25,000 words, before you put it aside, feeling it was too close to a commercial franchise which had, at that time, not yet been run into the ground?

Therein lies the eternal rub. There is a NaNiWriMo book near my bed, called No Plot? No Problem!, which mocks me openly. I should try reading it again, perhaps. There are germs of stories I’ve been working on, off and on, for months and years. Time was, I wouldn’t sit down at a typewriter (which ought to tell you when that “tine was”) until I had the plot pretty much planned out, or at least the major setpieces.

Then, something odd happened. I wrote two scripts where I took advantage of only things that were easily to hand. This was, I suppose, exploitation scriptwriting at its finest, as I leveraged props and effects into the script. Video company I worked for had a junker they were going to retire? Fine, I have a car to trash. Somebody knows a local artist who specializes in transgressory sculptures featuring gruesome body parts? Good, we have a psycho’s hideout. We still have those ninja outfits we bought for that training film? Great! Those yellow contact lenses we bought for Forever Evil? I have a use for them.

I didn’t have much of a plot when I started writing those two scripts, but they were fun to write, and, honestly, they are some of the best things I have written. I have to find a way to apply that feeling. that let’s-put-on-a-show moxie, to the written word. Without the need for props and junker cars to drive the narrative.

At this point, I have written 1000 words for a blog entry. As my friend Roger keeps pointing out, do that 59 more times, and you’ve got a novel.

May 10, 2011
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant, Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Yet I’m Not Mad.

Oh, Tumblr, you minx. I thought you were over that little flu.

Set up my queue this morning, with no problem. First poster fired off as scheduled. Come to work, finally pin down an interview, check my Twitter feed… oops. Should have been at least two more auto-posts in that time. Attempts to force a publish meet with the dreaded “Maintenance” page. Finally, get through, and now we’ll see what happens.

I don’t want it to look like I’m complaining; hell, Tumblr costs me nothing, and it’s something I enjoy doing. I’m sure I’m not going to see much of that attitude when I eventually journey over tot he message boards of City of Heroes, which is, after all, a paid service. The game, not the forums.

A long-awaited expansion, Going Rogue, went live officially yesterday. Yeah, there was much bemusement when Palin’s book of the same title came out, a year or so into the game’s development. The big draw here is to take your hero or villain through a falling/redemptive arc and have them fight on the other side, or even enter a gray moral ground. That’s something that has been asked for as long as I’ve been playing the game – at this point, over five years – so, as you might imagine, the floodgates opened.

I had pre-purchased the expansion some time ago, as it allowed early access to a couple of the new character types in the existing game. The temptation to make a whirling dervish double-pistol wielding Chow Yun Fat hero was too tempting… even if he did wind up looking like Black Dynamite. SO I (and others like me) got an extra day to frolic in the new city zones, an alternate dimension dystopia called Nova Praetoria.

Well, last night… the evening of the first official day… I tried to log on to find some emergency maintenance going on. When I did get one, the mapserving was frequent as the server farms groaned under the load. I eventually logged off earlier than I had anticipated, but this is old news for me. The same thing happened during other hotly anticipated expansions, and I see no real reason it to change. The system of tubes is gonna get clogged, you know?

But I’m sure there will be many dire threats to ragequit on the forums, blah blah blah. That is also the nature of the System of Tubes, and since I can’t change it, I might as well enjoy it.

August 18, 2010
Categories: Mindless Blather, Old Men Playing Videogames . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

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