Category: Reviews

My thoughts on something I read, watched, or experienced.

Post-apocalyptic overload

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

I watched some television last night.  (I tried to write while I did it, but it was tough).  One movie and onething off TIVO.

The movie was 9.  Not the musical, the animated-but-not-for-children movie.  It’s about nine Barbie-sized burlap robots fighting for survival after the apocalypse.  Well done with good voice talent (Elijah Wood, John C. Riley among others).  Very dark with a bit of uplift at the end, but hardly what I would call optimism.  I enjoyed it, I guess, but wouldn’t put it on a recommendation list.  However, if you found Avatar derivative, 9 might be the prescription you need.

I also watched the series finale of Dollhouse.  (Why does Joss Whedon even bother dealing with FOX anymore?)  It was way out there compared to the rest of the show, set five years later, after the Brain-pocalypse.  A whole lot happened in a small amount of time.  It probably should have been two hours, or an hour and a half at least.  But when your contract’s up…

It really was the definition of starting in the middle of the action.  You know how shows open with scenes from previous episodes?  Well the scenes at the start of this one were apparently from an episode that never aired, may never have been filmed.  I found that especially brilliant, but I bet it lost a lot of people.  They made references to “butchers” and “dumbshows” (I think that was the term…don’t remember) without defining them, but their meaning was easily apparent.  There was a lot of cyberpunk flavor to it, too.

The plot wasn’t all that creative but it didn’t have to be.  The characters’ new situations were interesting enough (particularly Topher and Alpha). I dare say it was the best episode, but there were some other good ones.

I’m dying for the next Whedon idea to hit the screen.  The man thinks out there.

Dollhouse never really caught on in spite of Eluza Dushku’s excellent acting and…other talents.  I suspect here “other talents” are part of the show’s failure, driving female viewers away from a show about what is essentially a slave operation.  Echo actually turns out to be a very empowered female, but the damage was done in advertising.  Much like Firefly (rest in peace, old friend) which was done in by lack of advertising.  The film 9 was doomed from the start, too dark for kids and too cartoon for mainstream audiences, but it still pains me that both of these were basically failures but Twilight breaks the bank.  *sigh*  Still, it’s nice to find a few gems in the rough.

More reviews from WotF XXV

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I finally got around to reading a couple more stories out of WotF volume XXV.  A few months back I posted reviews of three stories: Emery Huang’s Gold Award story “Gardens of Tian Zi”, Jordan Lapp’s “After the Final Sunset, Again”, and Gra Linnaea’s “Life in Steam”.  All three were enjoyable, “After…” probably being my favorite of the three.  Still, I had a feeling I wouldn’t have selected any of them as the Gold Award winner if I was asked (which of course I wasn’t).  So my search continues.

It seemed only sensible to read the other first place quarterly winners, those being the only ones that were actually up for the gold.  That led me to Mathew S. Rotundo’s “Gone Black” and Donald Mead’s “The Shadow Man”.

Let me start this pair of mini-reviews by saying these, too, were nicely executed stories that I enjoyed and couldn’t wait to turn the pages.  Still, “Gone Black” felt a touch disappointing.  I always felt a step removed from everything: the action, the character, the setting.  Like I was watching it from inside the automated cars from Jurassic Park, everything was there, but there was plexiglass and bars between us.  This wasn’t completely bad since the “prisoner” was indeed separated from everything, but I don’t think I was supposed to sympathise with the prisoner that way.  Maybe I felt a lack of intimate insight.  Or maybe some technique early in the story set me that way and I never shook it.  Maybe it was me (like a slush reader having a bad day).  Whatever it was, it overshadowed the story for me and left me feeling unsatisfied.

The alien wasn’t terribly imaginative or developed.  Most of the development went into the setting’s situation, a quarantined space outpost in a war harboring a POW and incubating a sense of paranoia among its crew.  This was effective, though a sense of things from before the prisoner arrived could have made the change more effective.  I’m not sure what part of the story made this a first place winner.  Again, it wasn’t a bad story.  I enjoyed it, cared about the main character, even sympathized with the mob and the prisoner.  I just wanted another degree out of it, in all those things.  Every person turned out to be who they were expected to be… It’s like my mother’s spaghetti: I enjoy it, I eat every bite, even get seconds, but I don’t particularly crave it.

Then there was “The Shadow Man”.  That was a story I would order off the menu.  It was a great twist on a phenomenon I was already intrigued by, the permanent shadows of people captured by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.  Factor in a little yakuza, a little haunting, a twist ending…quite excellent.

Actually, the twist ending was a bit much for me.  It did answer some questions that had nagged me from the middle of the story,  but they were questions I had already had to dismiss in order to remain in the story.  (A bit vague, to be sure, but I’m avoiding spoilers where I can.)  While it answered questions, I don’t think it was hinted at enough through the story.  I think the story could have ended without the twist and lost little (other than the author’s vision).  I was also confused as to why the POV had to switch to Four Fingers in the middle of the story.  The shift wasn’t that bad and was executed cleanly, but when I spend half the story in one head, I expect to remain there for the duration.  An earlier switch could have made it less jarring.

Still, “The Shadow Man” had nicely carved characters (I especially liked the Rice King), an interesting premise, and well-conceived plot arc.  So far, I think it would have been my choice for Gold.  For what it’s worth; it’s all a matter of taste and mine seems to lack some of the sophistication of true SF connoisseurs.

I haven’t found a bad story in the book yet.  Nor have I found one that left me scratching my head and wondering if I’m an idiot the way some stories in best-of anthologies tend to.  That’s what I really like about WotF anthologies, the stories are good reading for the common reader.  No PhDs or MENSA required.  Just nice, down-to-earth speculative entertainment.  Ahh.

Now if I could just get my story in one.

I now return to pretending to wait patiently for Joni’s call.

I’d Dance with That Smurf

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

The James Cameron film Avatar is getting some very mixed press right now.  Some critics – from what I can tell, the best-known critics – have christened it just short of a masterpiece.  Others have dubbed it the sci-fi equivalent of Dances with Wolves, aka, Dances with Smurfs.  I’ve seen other variations, but that’s the idea.  So which is it, a fantastic new world of CGI and brilliant storytelling or a tired old plot regifted in technicolor wrapping paper?

It’s both, but it’s mostly the former.

Face it, there is no new plot under the sun.  Humans siding with aliens, especially in ways that bring attention to some political hot topic, has been a science fiction staple in literature for a while.  It can be as small-scale an alien presence as ET or as large-scale as an interplanetary war (specific works escape me).  People have gone so far as to accuse Cameron of plagiarizing Poul Anderson’s novel, Call Me Joe.  I’ve not read the latter, but come on, how many people have thought up stories they thought were brilliantly original just to find out they are cliche.  A vampire private detective?  The aliens are really humans?  Anything with a dwarf in it?  plagiarism has to go deeper than a synopsis.

So what was good about Avatar?  Of course the effects were outstanding, Lord of the Rings – calibur CGI.  The environment was beautiful even if it did look a tough like Batman Forever in the jungle.  The 3d was quite good but still distractingly like a pop-up book; I’d rather watch it flat.  The aliens’ tribal culture was convincing.  Yes, it reeked of Native American influence; every alien culture has to come from somewhere. The plot was solid if unoriginal.

Bottom line, it is the execution that makes the film brilliant, not its originality.  It is feverishly predictable throughout, mostly through its own heavy-handed foreshadowing.  So what?  The pacing was great, not always the case in a 2 hour 4o minute movie.

I’m going out on a limb and calling Avatar the best sci-fi movie since The Matrix.  I may have forgotten one or two contenders, but I’m pretty confident in my statement.  It is possible to recycle things to make something better, especially when combined with something cutting edge.  Avatar is a must see.

A few review-ish type things

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

It being Halloween time, horror movies seem to be en vogue.  That and my wife loves horror movies.  Not me.

I did love the first Saw movie.  Brilliant, people fighting for their lives in Jigsaw’s twisted games.  Then they made another.  And another.  Now the well is dry so they send the bucket down and pull up the mud, bottle it, and sell it like it’s going to satisfy thirst the way the well did in the beginning.

Yes, I saw Saw VI yesterday.  It wasn’t a terrible movie in and of itself until you look at the characters.  To be fair to the writers, some of it was the acting, particularly the brooding, mouth-breathing replacement for the series’ long deceased killer (Costas Mandylor).  To be fair to the actors, some of it was the writing.  There are still clever ideas in the script, but more of them are simply brutal and sadistic.  The last minute or so — involving the new killer — is fairly clever and sets them up to do something different with the next film.  Will they?  Who knows.

I am mainly disappointed withhow far the movie has diverted from its original warped morality.  For instance, there is a part of the movie where a man must choose which two out of six employees will live.  Another where he picks one of two to live.  In the first movie, everyone was supposed to have a chance and they were responsible for their own survival.  More and more, the Saw franchise has gotten away from this.  Twisted morality was what made the first film such a viral success.  With the morality lessened, it’s just twisted.  What’s unique about that?

The style and composition of the movie are also very different in ways that lessen my enjoyment.  If I ever sit through the film again (not likely), it will be to tally the number of flashbacks.  Most are flashes to previous movies.  It has become a soap opera, not a film.  The attempts do not make this movie a stand-alone film.  You have to have seen the others — all of the others, by my calculation — to appreciate what’s happening in the plot.  What’s more, some of the flashbacks actually weaken the morality of prior movies.  I understand a movie based on a dead character’s ideas is going to have flashbacks.  A house with cats will have a litterbox, too, but that doesn’t mean it has to reek  of urine.  It was exhausting to try to keep up with the twists and turns and doubletalk.  Just rip someone’s head apart and get it over with.

In summary, I didn’t like it.  (Did you get that?)  Not the worst film I’ve seen this year, but in the lowest quartile.  C-.  It was good enough that I didn’t feel like I flushed my money away, but bad enough that I wonder which doors in that hallway would have been better investments.

While I’m at it, I’ve been reading WotF XXV (lots of Roman numerals today).  Only three stories so far: Jordan Lapp’s “After the final Sunset, Again”, Emery Huang’s “Gardens of Tian Zi”, and Gra Linnaea’s “Life in Steam”, those being the three that really leapt out at me based on outside experience.  Jordan’s a friend, Emery is a message board acquaintance, and Gra is…out there somewhere, so these will not be scathing reviews.  They wouldn’t be anyway since all three stories were quite good.

The question that most entertains me is “which of the three was the best?”  It should be an obvious answer since Emery won the Gold Award, Jordan’s story placed first, and Gra’s was a third place finisher. Apparently that means nothing.  I found “Garden of Tian Zi” a bit derivative with the secret society man with super-speed and super-strength…  Still, the setting and backstory and such were quite unique (frogs for computers?) and interesting.  But it didn’t scream cream-of-the crop to me.  “After the Final Sunset, Again” was more out of left field (where all great ideas come from) and had me revetted through the first two-thirds.  The Phoenix idea was inspired and the Phoenix charactyer was breathtaking.  The ending blindsided me and left me staggering, muttering “what?”  I think I needed just a touch more twist to it resonate in my palate.  Nonetheless, a great story.  As for “Life in Steam”, I was thrown by the ancient-theory-as-science in the beginning, but I suspect that’s a favorite steampunk ploy, reminiscent of Moorcock.  Once I got into things and met Wood, I was swept away bby the storytelling.  A bit more poetic than I’m used to.  On the downside, the protagonist made the rest of the story almost moot since it was obvious where this was going; I feel like there might have been more interesting ways to get there.

All three stories were fantastic, but none flawless.  (When’s the last time you read a flawless story?  Really?)  Their quality gives me great hope for the rest of the volume.  I intend to select my own “Gold Award” (Bear Claw Award?) winner (not that they’ll get anything but some comments here) and I’ll be surprised if it ends up being any of these three.  I think a strong, surprising ending is what I look for most in a story (probably because endings give me so much trouble), and I didn’t feel like any of these endings wowed me enough.  But who knows.  Congratulations to all three writers on their excellent stories; I expect great things from all three careers to come.

-Oso

Braaaaiins…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

zombieland-posterI am not generally a fan of horror.  Not horror movies or books or stories or comics…I just don’t get a thrill from being scared.  (Plus, I’m a jumper.  That lame moment when everyone knows the killer is about to jump out and scare the babysitter…I’m the lame-o that jumps anyway.)

But I love me a good zombie movie.

Not the classic stuff, mind you.  Every zombie movie aficionado out there would likely consider me a low-brow heretic.  But I love the direction the zombie movie has taken of late.  The latest incarnation of Dawn of the Dead remains one of the most watched DVDs in my collection (after my daughter’s collection, my Firefly set, and Clerks — tied with Hot Fuzz and From Dusk Till Dawn…another of my rare horror favorites).  Shaun of the Dead is another, mostly for the incomparable wit of Simon Pegg and his pals.  I particularly enjoy the irreverence of these recent zombie flicks.  And running zombies are so much scarier than moseying zombies.

Today I went to see Zombieland.  Brilliant.  The young main character reminded me of Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Superbad) in all the best ways.  Woody Harrelson was inspired casting and did a great job (as usual).  The love interest (Emma Stone) was a smokin hottie in a goth-tough disguise.  Even the kid was pretty good.  And the cameo actor (don’t want to spoil it for you if you don’t know) was brilliant from both the writing and acting sides.

But the movie itself outshone the acting.  In a world of zombies, a survivor must have a list of rules that got them as far as they’ve made it.  The main character’s rules take center stage and keep popping up in ways that warm my writer’s heart.  It reminded me of Douglas Adams if anyone.  Wit and plot sewn nicely together in an almost credible package.

So I am inspired.  I want to write a comedic zombie story.  Alas, I have read very few zombie stories in my time and do not desire to reinvent the wheel.  I want my own perverse twist that hasn’t been done to death.  I have an idea or two.  If anyone can recommend a good, funny zombie novel or story, I’d appreciate it.

It will be tough to go my own way with so established a trope as zombies, especially considering what a fan I am of the current trend.  I’ll probably have to plan for a few weeks, even months, befor find my place on this particular wave.  But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

-Oso

WotF XXIV trends

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve been filling my commute with the sounds of the Writers of the Future vol. XXIV audiobook.  It’s my way of multitasking, catching up on reading as I drive.  Being the perpetual writer I am, I have been looking for patterns.  I was surprised by what I found.  (Keep in mind, I still have four stories left to go.)

A significant number of the stories have low-activity or even non-active protagonists.  A book (an intelligent talking compendium) is the protagonist of “Circuit”, lending its thoughts as it passes through the possession of apparently significant figures in future history.  Gina in “Hangar Queen” is a bomb that is not allowed to fly.  She has ideas, opinions, even seeks information, but she can only do so much.  The protagonist in “Snakes and Ladders” starts the story crippled by an explosion and proceeds to fade in and out of consciousness, a spectator of what occurs inside his body.  He does manage to move around a little, put out a fire, stuff like that.  “Cruciger” is a ship that ferries the last of humanity into space to build a Dyson Sphere or Ringworld.  She is more active than the others, interacting with jellyfish-like natives as she prepares to destroy their world for raw materials, but the story as a whole is very much a treatise on the pros and cons of religion and whether the ship is a better deity than God.  The teacher in “Crown of Thorns” makes reference to prior acts of futility, but mostly goes along with what she’s supposed to do (though I might have missed a bit of that one due to attention to traffic).

These stories are all, in different ways, passive.  They are all fine stories of their own right, so do not mistake me, but there’s a lot of watching and thinking that goes on.  Does KD Wentworth (WotF coordinating judge) particularly prefer stories with voyeuristic protagonists?  If she does, she’s not alone.  “Cruciger”, “Hangar Queen”, and “Circuit” were all first-place winners.  It is interesting to peek into a well-developed world, but is it not more interesting to live in that world? to interact with it?

There are plenty of active stories.  I was very fond of “A Man in the Moon”, the one finalist to round out the bake’s dozen tales.  It was by no means an action story, but the protagonist stood up for himself well.  “Epiphany” is a story chock-full of action — murder, magic, escape, sword-swallowing, and a hermaphrodite.  “Taking a Mile” was a good balance of discovery and action, the protag stepping up when necessity called.  And “Bitter Dreams” was one ugly zombie-slaying after another, perhaps a little too violent for my usual taste, but still filled with subtle character interaction and introspection.  So there is a balance.  Still, I generally consider the passive protagonist an exception, not a 50% possibility.

I agree that a good story is about characters.  That does not prohibit action from entering the equation.  Often characters are more interesting when they are acting than when they are observing.  Not always, but often.  A less-active story draws more attention to the ideas it represents.  Is that what WotF is looking for, the ideas?  Or is it just that beginning writers tend to create their finest early works when they focus on ideas without letting all that action get in the way.All these stories are quite good, and I do not intend these comments to detract from any of them.  I am just trying to analyze patterns.  These patterns may only run as deep as issue XXIV.  Further investigation is necessary before any statistical correlation is defined. I’m eager to hear other people’s opinions as well.

-Oso

The Rookie

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

TheRookieI recently finished reading The Rookie by best-selling horror writer Scott Sigler.  I discovered the book through Mur Lafferty’s podcast I Should Be Writing.  This was a significant departure for Sigler, not at all a horror story, and he self-published a limited edition.  Mine is number 1122 out of 3000.

Like every writer that thinks he/she read a book before you did, I’m going to write a review.

In a future only a few hundred years away. football has become the intergalactic pass-time of all races.  Teams are composed of players from all races, some fitting certain roles better than others (big races are linemen, fast races are receivers, humans get a lot of the multi-faceted roles).  The book follows rookie quarterback phenom Quentin Barnes (QB the QB) through his journey from lowly Tier 3 ball to a Tier 2 team poised for a shot at Tier 1 (the system works similarly to Europe’s soccer leagues).  Quentin battles his ignorance of and prejudices against the other races as he tries to  earn a starting position and lead his team to the promised land.

To say that The Rookie has a formulaic story is to put things mildly.  Young, arrogant talent comes to the big leagues and discovers he’s not half as good as he thinks he is, then tries to lead the team to victory.  That’s only eighty percent of the sports movies ever made.  But then, I was reading a sci-fi football book.  What should I expect, War and Peace?  The book delivers on its formula right up until the last game where I felt a bit let down.  (I am resisting spoilers since there are two versions of the sports formula: victory and just-missed-but-we’re-better-for-the-run.  This is one of those.)  It wasn’t the result that disappointed me, rather the lack of suspense and mundane events that lead to that ending, specifically events that fail to hinge on the protagonist.  You don’t expect Notre Dame’s success or failure to revolve around Rudy at the last second, but I did expect the Krakens’ to revolve around Quentin.

The alien races were nicely developed.  I particularly liked the speedy Sklorno race that has made football into a religion and canonize exceptional athletes, especially quarterbacks.  The Ki were intriguing but left too mysterious; I wanted Quentin to really connect with them.  Maybe that was asking a bit much of a reluctant bigot like Quentin.  The Quyth were probably the most developed and the least interesting, with an obvious caste system that dictated everything about their culture that wasn’t a criminal enterprise.  And the ruling class of Creterakians was odd at best and distractingly trivial at worst.  All that said, I was amused by the races and the story would fall apart without them.

I had a hard time sympathizing with Quentin in the middle third of the book.  His thoughts were flawed in obvious ways, insisting people were trying to sabotage him when they were obviously trying to help him and getting way too tied up in his own ego.  I like flawed characters, but it was very juvenile.  But then, so was Quentin.  The characterization goal was achieved without the subtlety I hoped for.

Other characters were considerably better sculpted, specifically Donald Pine, the veteran quarterback entering his decline.  His flaws were integral to the plot, too, and their handling was similarly un-subtle — more abrupt than obvious.  While on the subject of likable characters, Denver and Kill-O-Yowet were just starting to be interesting when the story veered away from them.

Now let’s discuss the book as a physical object.  Very nice.  The cover is very nice and the game program inside (with color art of the races, interviews, even advertisements) is awesome.  It definitely helped to immerse me in the story and just made the ride more fun.  The box scores and league updates after every game were neat, but they might have served better in the appendices with all the other excerts.  Sigler’s autograph is nice.  The one thing the book seemed to be missing was professional editing.  Typos abounded, in some sections. one every other page.  Breath instead of breathe, me instead of he, and on…  Distracting but nothing I couldn’t work through.  (It could be worse…someone could have omitted twenty-eight consecutive words.)

All in all, it was a pleasant book that I felt fit a Harry Potter-aged target audience (though Harry’s dilemmas were depicted more subtly).  Simple, straight-forward plot with no major logical holes I noticed (other than the Krakens playing their first playoff game on the road).  Most of the obstacles are predictable, as are the solutions (though not the juniper berries).  Could it have been stronger?  Sure.  The Barnes-Pine conflict could have been less transparent early and Pine’s confession could certainly have used more pressure, and…  It was a light read, but an enjoyable one.

The Rookie

  • Plot: C
  • Individual Characters: C-
  • Character Races: A-
  • Setting: A
  • Packaging: A+
  • Spelling: D
  • Tilt: A

Overall: B

I understand that Sigler offered The Rookie as a free podcast.  I feel like I overpaid for the book, but it’s a collector’s item.  Who knows, it may be worth money when someone makes a movie out of it.  (It would translate to the screen well, animated or live actors mixed with CGI.)

-Oso

Blogger/Writer reported missing; teacher assumes identity

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Been missing me?  Wait, don’t answer that…I probably don’t want to know.  But I have been absent due to school starting back up.  I’m trying to hit stride but feel a step slow.  It’s been a jerky start to the 2009-10 school year.  I’ll get going soon and my postings will become semi-regular again.

I have much to talk about, so I’ll spread it over a few different posts.  What to say first?  I know…movies.

It has been a while since I watched two movies back to back and could call them both good films.  For one of these films, the “experts” agree with me; the other, I seem to be in the minority.

Yesterday I saw DISTRICT 9.  It was very good.  But more than that, it was unique.  It reminded me of something you might read in Analog or Asimov’s, the way the aliens were characterized as no more or less human than the humans while still very different.  It was, on the surface, a dark action movie full of all the government greed (here the role of government played by a corporation) and bloodlust the cinema has taught us to expect.  But that was the surface.  This was a movie about people (some human, some not) interacting under extreme circumstances.

The leading actor did an excellent job that was not at all diminished by being utterly unknown.  The CGI was superb to the level one would expect with the name Peter Jackson attached to it.  Some of the science may have been a bit hinky, but who cares?  It was a groundbreaking film that bridges a gap between SF film and literature.  Still a lot of action, but a lot of story here, too.  Go see it.  Eat lots of popcorn.  And you have my permission to laugh when people and/or parts of their bodies are turned to wet red mist.  It is funny in a morbid way, so yuck it up.

The critics seem to agree with me on D-9.  They rave about it almost as much as they panned the movie I watched on BluRay a few nights before.  That’s right, I watched PUSH and I loved it.

Don’t get me wrong, PUSH is not the groundbreaking accomplishment that DISTRICT 9 is.  In fact, PUSH is a fantasy film in sci-fi clothing.  Not just because psionics have been so widely frowned upon in science fiction circles, but because a Mover, a Watcher, a Pusher, a Shadow, a Sniffer, and a Shifter teaming up to take down a bunch of Bleeders and a powerful government entity (Division) is not so different from a Human a Dwarf, an Elf, a Wizard. and some Hobbits teaming up to take down a bunch or Orcs and a dark empire.  Fortunately, PUSH had a lot of what Tolkein brought to LotR, namely the sense that the story’s universe was much larger than the film could possibly encompass.  I had the distinct feeling that the film was based in an RPG universe, but agin that did as much to heighten my enjoyment of the movie as to dampen it.

The main character’s story was rich and (mostly) believable.  I’ve liked Chris Evans (lead actor) since I saw him in the first Fantastic Four movie.  The guy has charisma and can become a character (maybe not in a Heath Ledger kind of way, but that may be asking too much).  And Dakota Fanning was excellent in her role.  No other actor managed to damage the performances of these two leads, though few added much either.

I do think the film suffered a bit in the editing room.  Perhaps that was just my desire for a fuller picture of things.  I was engulfed in the world the way I seldom am, more so than even watching DISTRICT 9.  Was it art?  No.  Was it good SF?  definitely.

I must confess to having a quirky appreciation for some odd movies.  Consider the only three films I have owned on both VHS and DVD: Clerks, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Spawn.  (Yes, that Spawn.)  I’ll stand behind Clerks to the end.  From Dusk Till Dawnstarts with damn good storytelling and characterization only to turn their world on its head (as an encounter with vampires probably would).  And Spawn…even poor scrit, overacting, and silly special effects couldn’t stifle the cool images and some badass nostalgia.

Anyway, I suggest you see both DISTRICT 9 and PUSH and make your own judgements.  Neither is flawless but both are entertaining.  One will become a classic, the other a cult hit.  We will surely see a DISTRICT 10 sometime soon.  And PUSH 2?  Its worldwide gross and productions cost seem to be about equal, so I have my doubts.  Oh well.

Finally saw Watchmen

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

209px-posterfeb1aI wanted to rush out opening weekend, but I’m too old for that kind of thing.  Me in a packed theater with a hundred people who could already tell you what they did wrong before the previews started…nope.  Mostly because I couldn’t get a sitter.

Let me preface my opinions with the fact that I have never read the graphic novel.  I have only read blurb comments from other reviewers.  This is 99% my own unbiased theatrical experience.

It was awesome.

This film will stay logged as an example of character development.  Heroes always have dark pasts, but the differences in how they deal with the darkness is stunning.  I will try to stay spoiler-free, so if I reveal something, it’s because it happens early.  Like the Comedian’s death.  It was a stroke of brilliance on someone’s part that a character that dies in the opening sequence can be as vile as you can make him without havng to worry about lost sympathy.  No matter how much I disliked him, I didn’t have to worry about his comeuppance; it already happened.  And his jaded, villainous character was still unquestionably a hero.  The casting for him was excellent.

In fact, all the casting was great.  Ozymandias may have been a little on the model side, but it kind of worked.  The nerdy Nite Owl, the too sexy to be that naked Silk Spectre…but Rorschach stole the show for me.  Hard core to the verge of evil yet held fast to a very personal code.  The subtle elements (like Nite Owl’s problem with…wait, no spoilers) were nicely worked in and believable.

Let’s not forget Dr. Manhattan.  I told my wife I was going to shave my body and paint myself blue for Halloween.  She laughed.  Apparently I lack his physique.  It’s good to know, however, that if I am atomized in some nuclear experiment and come back glowing blue, at least I will be anatomically correct.  No Ken dolls here.  Anyway, his character was interesting in his alienness, especially the struggle to maintain humanity.  I think that could have been done better (read: more subtly), but it was pretty good as it was.  He maintains concern (at least feigned) for humanity while losing his ability to connect with anyone human-to-human.  No more on that, but again, this is all setup, not major storyline developments.

The film’s execution was fantastic, a little CGI heavy at moments, moments that really called attention to the moments of CGI-free action.  In otherwords, I felt a couple soundstages looked like soundstages (burning building) while other scenes looked like screensavers (that big thing of Manhattan’s).  But 90% of the film maintained a good balance.  The shots that were ripped straight from comic art were excellent.

I can’t talk about the movie without talking about what caught me most off guard: the sex.  Nite owl gets naked (with a glimpse of everything), Silk Spectre gets naked (thank you for that), Dr. Manhattan is usually naked, and there are some other moments more Desperate Houswives than they are HBO.  As my wife put it, “I didn’t expect that much naked.  It wasn’t all just gratuitous flesh; the scenes were plot-line appropriate and tastefully done (except for the one that wasn’t supposed to be tasteful).  My wife and I both approved.  She also approved of the taste of reality the women’s bodies had (faces had wrinkles, breasts were not plastic, etc.).  All in all, a nice tablespoon of sex to go with the plateful of violence.

There were images that were quite graphic (violence side here, we stopped talking about sex; keep up).  Blades, broken bones, doge, innards…but nothing so grotesque as to churn my notoriously weak stomach.  I cringed but never cowered.  I probably have a higher threshold for violence in my cinema than many people, but my threshold for gore is at or below population average.  Still, some harsh situations (Rorschach’s backstory, Comedian and Jupiter).  I get worse feelings watching 24 on FOX.

To sum up, it was an excellent movie for those that likedark and gritty in their superhero stories.  It’s got great character development, varied characters, a much more complete story than 300, more grit than any X-men movie ever will, the right dose of sex for audiences that believe such exists, and no big name actors to pack the seats.  That’s right, none.  Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre) will probably make it big off of this and Jackie Earle Haley’s notoriety should spike (Rorschach), as should Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s (Comedian or Denny on Grey’s Anatomy).  Those are my predictions.  I also expected Lord of the Rings to make a box office draw out of Viggo Mortenson…so consider my track record.

That’s all for now.  I may break it down a bit more in the future, say when the BluRay comes out.  So much more to say but I don’t want to spoil it.  Especially you writers out there, watch this film.  It’s good.

-Oso

Bad Speculative Fiction

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

You know you’ve read some.  It may have been a big shot who sells millions or some guy that got into a magazine because the editor was experimenting with herbology, but bad sf/f/h is out there making big bucks.  I haven’t decided what I think about that.

On the one hand, I am very unhappy that some jerk out there cashed a check with mutiple zeros when I know I have stories — novels even — that are much better.  Why him (or her or it) and not me?  The reasons are there: 1) luck, 2) perseverence, 3) previous success, 4) connections, 5) maybe I just don’t get it.

Then there’s the flip side.  If this putz can gsell, I can, too.  It’s a reminder that success is 98% perspiration (and that stinks).  So reading some schlock can give me a boost of hope even as it knocks down my self esteem.

What made me think of this?  Christopher Paolini.  Nice enough guy as far as I can tell, one of my students is obsessed with him, but he needs a good editor with sharp scissors.  At least he needed it in Eldest, his second novel.  I enjoyed Eragon enough to buy Eldest.  I even enjoyed the story enough to buy Brisingr (gesundheit).  I did not enjoy it enough to get past page 2 of…that third book I can’t pronounce.

I think Paolini summarized my concern himself in Eldest when — on about page 300 — a character observes how lucky they are to have traveled from wherever to wherever and nothing happened.

reddragon3head**By the way, [SPOILER ALERT!!!]**

I further had issues with the protagonist’s efforts to become a worthy dragon rider by learning combat from an elf despite a serious injury that limits him physically and causes constant pain.  This training occurs intermittently while subtle relationships in the story are hinted at but never truly developed.  Of course the training helps him to improve, but he can just barely go through the motions.

Then it happens, some fancy dragon festival where ghostly dragons emanate and heal the protagonist of his wounds.  Yes, all of them.  Because he struggled so hard?  No.  Because he was innately worthy.  Wasn’t he innately worthy before a bunch of pages and my personal hours were wasted on combat training?  I suspect he was.  The character succeeds through the entire book despite never having any breakthroughs of his own.

Not what I want in a story.  I’ve been rejected for less.  But I didn’t self-publish a book that was successful enough to be picked up by a major publisher.  Will I one day?  Maybe.  Then some other wannabe can complain about my schlock on his blog.

-Oso