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Ever wonder what it's like to be in that moment between struggling artist and published author? Read on and find out.



Wednesday, August 28, 2013

No Flippin Way




            The other day, I happened to be listening to a young woman talk. She mentioned that her friend was so tired of “flippin’ waiting.” I suppose it’s possible that the friend was actually engaged in a series of gymnastic flips while she was waiting. That image briefly passed through my mind with a couple of mental chuckles.  
            However, it’s more likely a substitution for profanity. Someone more serious than myself might turn this into a lecture about avoiding the appearance of evil and suggest that all of us refrain from even these non-profane phrases of passion. Be that as it may, there’s no flippin’ way that I’m going to pass up a chance to poke fun at this crud.
            How many of you use the word Fetch? Or Flip? Or Snap? How about Frigging, H-E-Double Hockey Sticks, or Holy Scrud? I’ll bet a large number of people who avoid the use of profanity still will say Dang, Heck, and Good Grief. My apologies go out to anyone who is offended by such language. (You should probably stop reading this.)
            The problem is that these are obvious substitutions for the originals. And like the originals, they don’t really make sense. For example, “are you flipping kidding me?” would have to entail a person pulling a prank on the speaker by treating them like a stack of flap-jacks. Sure, it’d be funny—if the person who’s been flipped off didn’t break their neck in the process, but how realistic is it that you’re going to spend your time on slap-stick gags with a minimal chance for laughs.
            What do you use instead? Most of the phrases that accurately represented your question will just make you sound like the straight-man in an old vaudeville routine. I don’t think “are you hilariously kidding me” is going to catch on. (Hmm . . . that might be a good line for a wacky character in one of my books.) Unless, by “flipping kidding” you meant “are you earnestly kidding me” and then the same argument applies. Neither of which deals with using one -ing word to describe another. In that case, “are you side-splitting kidding me” might be a good option.
            Then we have, Snap. “Oh, snap” sounds as if you’re ordering someone to join in an impromptu jazz session. What exactly is it you’re trying to tell a person when you say that? Now, fortunately, I do have a suggestion for this phrase. Here it is . . . are you ready . . . I think you’ll like it . . . Exclamation! That’s right, just shout out the word “exclamation” as loud as you can next time you feel the need to express yourself. See if that doesn’t do the trick. And the best part of it is that it makes sense. I mean really, you’re using the word as a senseless exclamation to express emotion so why not clearly identify it as such. You can even add modifiers to the statement. “Oh, frustrated exclamation!” Or how about, “Exclamation of joy!”        
            Fetch! I’m out of time. Sorry, I meant, “Exclamation of disappointment and dismay, I’m out of time.” Try these new phrases and then let me know how well they work for you.

  

Please, help me.
            As I have mentioned over the last couple of months, my purpose for the blog has changed from a place to connect with my fellow authors (which I still want to do) to a platform that will allow the general public a chance to glimpse at the insanity that is my imagination. To that end, if you enjoyed this post—spread the word. Follow my blog. Mention it to your friends. More importantly, like it on Facebook and post a link to it on Twitter or any of the other social network options.
            And in case you think I’m directing this message to someone else, I am going to single out Mark Lindsay and ask him to copy the link in the address bar and post it on his Facebook wall along with a comment about how he enjoyed it—or didn’t enjoy it. The rest of you can expect to be tagged for the same request in the near future.

 

Monday, August 26, 2013

A New Look At Reviews - Warm Bodies


             Movie reviews are an important part of my blog. That’s because movies have played an important role in my life. Not important like the wonderful effect my wife has on my daily life or like the deep imbedded love for God that I have. Movies have been important in as much as they constitute my favorite form of entertainment. They also inspire me to write and as such have guided my path in life to become an author.
            Hopefully, that explains why a blog for an author in training posts so many movie reviews. At its center this blog is really about me and I love movies. Okay, not all movies just some of them.
            A couple of weeks ago I watched two movies that I ended up giving the same rating, but for vastly different reasons. That caused me to rethink my movie rating system and make a few changes. Films will still be rated on a scale of 1 to 4 Movie Bucks, but the determination of that rating will be based on the following criteria.  

1. Fun – how much fun did I have watching the movie? I will give one full MB if I had a blast. It gets half a MB if it kept my attention, but failed to thrill me. And a film will get zero MB if I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater.  

2. Story – as a writer I can’t help but pay attention to the storyline. This category takes into consideration the innovative level of the concept, how well the plot was developed, and the quality of the dialogue. I will subtract half a MB for each of these areas that fall seriously short.  

3. Technical – covers the quality of special effects, continuity of the story, style, and editing of the film which can lead to a choppy or hard to follow movie experience. Most of these are responsibility of the director. I will subtract half a MB for each of these areas that fall seriously short.  

4. Acting – how well did the actors do with their roles. Were the actors clumsy in their delivery or were they charismatic? I will subtract half a MB if any of the main actors performed poorly and a whole MB if any of them were atrocious. Also, I will subtract half a MB if the secondary case as a whole performed poorly.  

            Now let’s put this new system to work. A while back I rented Warm Bodies and failed to post a review on the film. Here is my delayed review of that film.

 
 

Warm Bodies   $$$     
 

 
 

PG-13

98 Minutes

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, and Rob Corddry.

Director: Jonathan Levine.
 

            You knew it was going to happen—the zombie apocalypse. And it did.  

            R (Nicholas Hoult) is your typical run-of-the-mill, foot shuffling, brain eating zombie. He hangs out at the airport because it seems important to him. Like most of his memories, the reason he’s drawn to the airport have drained away along with his life force.
            Then along comes Julie (Teresa Palmer). She awakens an emotion inside R and he hides her from the rest of the zombies. During the next few days Julie starts to realize that R is changing. He is becoming human once again. Okay, more human than the rest of the flesh-eating monsters.
            With the help of R’s friend, M (Rob Corddry), they plan to return Julie home to the safety of the fortified walls of the human encampment.            

            I have to admit that even though zombie movies are not my thing the previews for this film caught my attention. It promised to be—different. And it was. The portions of the movie that are told from R’s point of view are hilarious. I found the thoughts and motivations of a zombie to be highly entertaining. I give it a full MB for fun based on the character of R alone.
            Story gets a full MB as well. The concept is original and stands out from the army of droll undead films that are available everywhere. The plot was nicely developed, moving from a boy meets girl story to a look at society wide acceptance of something new and scary. And the dialogue, especially R’s, was very witty. 
            Technical gets a half MB. The special effects were on the cheesy side, but the continuity and editing were acceptable.
            Finally, I gave the acting a half MB. Hoult and Palmer turned in reasonable performances in their roles, but neither stands out. The secondary cast, except for Rob Corddry and John Malkovich, were definitely B-Grade performances.
            The total score for Warm Bodies was 3 Movie Bucks. If it were still in the theaters I would recommend catching it as a matinee or other discounted showing. However, since you can now find it at your local movie rental location I highly recommend checking it out.  Grab World War Z at the same time and you can have a zombie double feature with the two movies this year that really surprised me.


                        Randy’s Rating System 

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.
$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.

 

 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

This Is Only A Test


            Testing . . . Testing. Can everyone hear me?  

            The Gathering comes out in January, thanks to the help of the wonderful folks at Cedar Fort, and they have agreed to let me put together an audio book for it. That way if you are like my sister and don’t have enough time to read my story of the events leading up to the Second Coming you can listen to it instead.
            In preparation for the upcoming task I decided I should do a test run. Here is my reading of a flash fiction piece I previously did on the forum and that showed up in the Flash 500 anthology. Just click on the link below to listen.
            If that grabs your interest go ahead and check out the rest of the Flash 500 stories. They are free to download at this time. Thanks to Nicole Pyles and Carrie K. Sorensen who put all the effort into collecting and e-publishing the stories.

Please, give me some feedback on this audio version of Window View.
 




Monday, August 19, 2013

Movie Review - Pacific Rim


 Pacific Rim  $$ 1/2    
 
 

PG-13
131 Minutes
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, and Ron Perlman.  
Director: Guillermo del Toro.  
 

            Giant monsters fighting equally super-sized robots. What else could you ask for in a movie? And the good news is that if the above is all that actually you do ask for in a movie—you are in for a treat. 
            In the future, a rift opens up at the bottom of the ocean and belches out a Godzilla like monster that wreaks havoc in San Francisco. Then the same happens in Tokyo. In response to this trans-dimensional invasion humanity develops robots to give battle and protect the cities.
            The problem is that monsters are coming out faster than the humans can build robots. Not only that, but the monsters are getting tougher. With the extinction of humanity on the near horizon, veteran robot-jock Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) has to come back to pilot his old mech and help close the rift.
            First off, I enjoyed the movie. Then again, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise—I enjoy the low-budget Godzilla movies of yesteryear. For everyone else this may fall short of their normal film expectations.
            The acting was reasonable. Even though I didn’t find myself rooting for Raleigh, I did like several of the other characters: Raleigh’s co-pilot for the big mission, Mako (Rinko Kikuchi); the geeky scientists Newton (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman); and most of all  Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) who turned in the best performance of the film.
            Special effects were quite good and makes this a movie you really need to see in on the big screen. If you ignore the silliness of the whole concept I think you might enjoy the behemoth slugfests that abound in the film. And then we come to the story itself. Let me just say that there’s a reason why I gave a movie that I enjoyed so much only two-and-a-half Movie Bucks. The plot is really that humans in robots fight big monsters. Okay, I admit that they attempted to give it some depth with Raleigh and Mako having to face their own personal demons before they can suit up and bash baddies. But I didn’t care about that.
            If you can ignore the plot holes and continuity flaws in the film I think you might enjoy watching it. And even though I gave it a lower rating I suggest you catch it as a matinee.

                        Randy’s Rating System 

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.
$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.

 

 

Friday, August 16, 2013

Movie Review: The Wolverine


 The Wolverine   $$ 1/2    

 

PG-13
126 Minutes
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamato, and Rila Fukushima.  
Director: James Mangold.
 

            This is the second movie about the Wolverine. If you are reading this review and thinking about watching the film you probably already know that Wolverine is one of the X-Men out of the Marvel super-hero universe. If not, I guess I just told you.
            The story takes place after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. Logan (Hugh Jackman) has given up his role as The Wolverine over the guilt for having killed Jean Grey and is hiding out in the wilds of Alaska.
            He is tracked down by a mutant named Yukio (Rila Fukushima) in order to bring him to Japan so that her master may properly thank Logan for saving his life. After some convincing Logan agrees to go and discovers when he arrives that his WWII associate, Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) has really asked him there in order to obtain Wolverines mutant healing ability to save his life. He offers a chance at mortality and the peace of a life of a person who eventually grows old and dies.
            Logan refuses and ends up getting involved in the family politics when he saves Yashida’s granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamato), from an Yakuza attack during Yashida’s funeral. The task is made more difficult when Logan discovers that his regenerative powers no longer work as they should.
            The main problem that I had with this film is that it drags. Logan is mourning the loss of his love, Jean Grey, and the rest of the cast aren’t much livelier. This film has a single emotion to it—morose. It felt more like a soap opera than a super-hero movie.
            Hugh Jackman does a reasonable job with his one allowed emotion in the movie. The rest of the cast are proficient enough in their roles that the audience isn’t spending any time noticing the acting quality of the film. All of the technical aspects were perfectly acceptable, but I have to advise you that this is not a special effects movie. The writing? Yeah, I have some problems with the writing and the directing, the combination of which left a story that is quite predictable in some parts and left me scratching my head in other scenes as to why the characters were doing what they were doing.
            To sum up the experience, the movie held my attention, but I didn’t find myself enjoying it or caring about any of the characters. I give it two-and-a-half Movie Bucks and recommend that you see it as a matinee or even wait for it to arrive at your local discount theater. 

 
                        Randy’s Rating System 

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.
$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.

 

 

Monday, August 12, 2013

Movie Review - Sea of Monsters


 Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters   $$$     
 
 

PG
106 Minutes
Starring: Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T Jackson, and Douglas Smith.
Director: Thor Freudenthal. 
 

            This is the second in the series of stories by Rick Riordan about teen-aged children of the Greek gods. While I didn’t think it was quite as good as the first one I still enjoyed it a great deal.
            Percy (Logan Lerman) is having a bad case of post-world-saving blues. He finds himself doubting his worth since he hasn’t done any major league heroics lately. Then a mechanical bull crashes through the protective barrier around Camp Half-Blood and all of that changes.
            The barrier exists as the result of the death of Zeus’s daughter. He transformed her into a tree that generates the protective field around Camp Half-Blood and keeps all the half deity children safe. But someone has poisoned the tree and the only way to save her and the camp is to travel into the Sea of Monsters (The Bermuda Triangle) and retrieve the Golden Fleece.
            Percy and his crew are not selected for the quest. Instead, Clarisse (Leven Rambin), the daughter of Ares is sent along with the satyr Tereus (Connor Dunn). Since Clarisse has been routinely routing Percy in the camp games it makes sense. However, Percy and his crew decide to take on the quest anyway after Luke makes an appearance and discusses “the prophecy.” A half-blood child of one of the big three is foretold to have a pivotal role in the fate of all the gods and their children. And Percy is the only half-blood that meets that criterion.
            The plot for this film was good. It showed nice character development. The acting was not inspiring, but certainly did not detract from the story. I have to admit that I am spoiled when it comes to special effects. There was nothing wrong with the special effects in this movie, per se, but other than the scene with the mechanical bull they failed to impress me. My biggest complaint is with Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario). In the first film she had mad strategy skills and could handle herself pretty well in a fight. Unfortunately, in this film she just seems to be along for the ride. The character was totally underused in this story.
            I had fun watching the movie and look forward to sitting down to watch it again with my children. Fun but unspectacular earns it a solid three Movie Bucks from me. Go see it as a matinee.


                        Randy’s Rating System 

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.
$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.

 

Friday, August 9, 2013

Movie Review - Planes


 Planes   $$$     

 

PG
92 Minutes
Starring: Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, and Brad Garrett.
Director: Klay Hall.

 

            Let me start off with a warning that I saw this film several months ago as an advance showing and it is possible that changes have been made since then. That being said, if you always loved Cars, but wished it had been about planes instead—then this is the movie for you.
            Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) is a crop dusting plane with ambitions of becoming a world class racer. There are a couple of problems with that scenario; he’s afraid of heights and he’s a crop duster. However, with the help of the old, gruff retired Navy fighter, Skipper (Stacy Keach), he learns enough about flying fast to qualify for the race.
            And what a grand race it is. Planes from all over the world have gathered to participate. There is Bulldog (John Cleese) from England, Ishani (Priyanka Chopra) from India, and my children’s favorite El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui) from Mexico. With help from his trusy ground-vehicle side kick, Chug (Brad Garrett), he faces off against an elite group of flying machines in a race around the world.
            The story is cute. Unfortunately, it was too much like Cars. The hero is interesting in winning a race and becoming famous. He is mentored by a grizzled veteran with a tragic past. And his best friend is a deep-voiced goof. The story is predictable and I found myself frequently comparing it to Cars. On the positive side, it is a cute movie with great voice acting and a lot of laughs.
            I give Planes a solid three Movie Bucks for good family entertainment. You probably will enjoy it more at a discount showing where you won’t lament paying full price for a movie you sort have already seen.
 

                        Randy’s Rating System 

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.
$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.

 

 

Monday, August 5, 2013

Movie Review - Red 2


 Red 2   $$$ 1/2    

 

PG-13
116 Minutes
Starring: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, and Helen Mirren.  
Director: Dean Parisot.


            If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Red 2 doesn’t fall far from the parent movie. Other than a new evil plot to be thwarted and the situation of how integrate a civilian girlfriend into the dangerous world of retired espionage it’s a retread of the original movie. Not that I have a problem with that. Let’s face it, where else will the tension of a villainous plan to kill millions take the back seat to the conflict between the new girlfriend and the old girlfriend in the life of our age-handicapped hero.
            Frank (Bruce Willis) loves Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). But the zip in their relationship is stagnating because he is too busy protecting her to have any fun. Well, the gun-toting, spy shooting, risk your life at every moment kind of fun anyway. This all comes to a predictable end when Marvin (John Malkovich) shows up to warn Frank that trouble is a-brewing.  Then—BAM—the bad guys arrive on the scene and much killing ensues.
            I laughed throughout the entire movie. It was a riot. Aside from being witty the script was rather routine. Fortunately, for this story that works. The acting was great. The explosions and mass destruction of property was great. In fact, the only thing I had a problem with was the enormous disregard for human life the film portrayed. I understand that that is part of the humor of this film, but I think you can take it too far. And this film does—slightly.
            Red 2 gets a solid three-and-a-half Movie Bucks from me. It’s worth full price at your local cinema. I’m even considering picking it up on DVD when it comes out. If you go expecting more of what you got from the original movie, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.


                        Randy’s Rating System

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.
$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.
$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.
$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.
0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.