Inky Horizons

Many of my LJ friends are listing the movies they've watched this year.

I read this and I feel like I've under achieved in some necessary social dynamic which I don't quite grasp. I'm actually in awe of them. I haven't seen one movie this year in the theaters. Not one. I mean, there had to have been something good that I missed. Something that would have enlightened me or made me a better person or expanded my artistic horizons in some way.

(I know. I'm trying to hold back the chortles of laughter myself. C'mon. It's Hollywood. Still.)

And the even crazier thing is...I'm okay with this. I mean, I don't feel like I've missed out on anything relevant. Then again, how would I know since I haven't watched the movies? Why didn't I watch Star Trek? I love that original series. Why wouldn't I go watch this even if it was a reboot?

The older I get the more I feel this way. All fuddy duddy and stuff. And since I'm always getting older...well, you see my problem. 

It kind of worries me to be honest with you.

Maybe I should try to watch more movies next year. As in, you know, like one. But you know what? Even typing that sentence I know it's never gonna happen. I mean, it may happen, but I'm not going to make an agenda out of it. I did try watching more television this year. I should get credit for that. Except that didn't work out well. I watched about twenty minutes of Dollhouse, guffawed, and turned the TV off. Maybe two and a half episodes of Mad Men before I started feeling cranky (Well, crankier) at the banality of its own self-importance. But then I did watch the remake of The Prisoner and actually liked that and blogged about it and an episode or two of some comedy show my writing buddy told me about on Hulu. A show I can't even remember the name of anymore even though it was funny. 

I know. I'm a mess. It's like this stuff doesn't capture my attention at all. That doesn't seem right.

I have to face facts. TV just isn't for me. That was pretty much the extent of my television watching this year. About eight hours' worth, give or take a commercial break. Man. That's pathetic.

I did watch a lot of old films on TV, however, and sports. But that's not watching TV and the sports were mostly background noise while I wrote. And, of course, I could never even pretend to watch what passes for staple television like Survivor or American Idol or whatever those other shows are. I don't grok that shit at all and never have. Bones. I don't even know what that is. And all I know about CSI is there is more than one show.Or at least I think there is. I may be wrong about that.

Isn't that kinda sad? I seriously do not know what's going on.

I know I'm probably missing out on something relevant and important. I just don't care. It doesn't impact my life in any way that I can perceive. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. All I can say is when people start talking about what they saw on TV all I do is stand there like a big dumb-ass cuz I don't know what they're talking about. And when I do ask they have to bring out like pictograms and stuff to dumb it down for me. Cuz I don't grok that shit at all and if they know me they know that.

I don't understand it. But I do envy them, believe it or not, because I think they're tapping into something that totally escapes me. But I honestly don't blame them for my own lack of understanding.

Trust me. It's not you.

It's me.

Can we still be friends?

I've been getting over a cold these last couple of days so haven't blogged much. I feel better today.

Everyone is all up in arms over the movie Avatar. People either love it or hate it which is pretty much what you can say about most things in life. I must say I have no interest in watching it. Hollywood bores me for the most part. I don't like being talked down to or patronized, and that's what Hollywood does best. Anyway, it's James Cameron, people. You were expecting something more from this guy? C'mon. Film is dead. Just enjoy the visuals and stop trying to think. Hollywood doesn't want you to think. Not anymore. And you should have known that before going in.

Plus, I've read a LOT of SF. I know all the plots and there weren't that many to begin with. (The same argument can be made for any genre.) Science fiction isn't a very wide pool, but from a literary perspective it's fairly deep. Even so you can read through and exhaust the field within a decade or so, and I've been reading this stuff (both classics and hackery) since I was eleven. So. Yeah. I've seen it all.   Okay. Hollywood made some good SF films that were ground-breaking. Metropolis, 2001 and Gattaca come to mind. Not much else, I'm afraid. Nothing pops out.

On to more important news. I had a good Christmas. It snowed! I got The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, a new electric shaver, and some DVD movies from Santa. I also ate some turkey and ham over the holidays. But now I'm turkeyed and hammed out so tonight I'll just have frozen pizza, haha. My life is simple. I prefer it that way.

I thought about posting a Year in Review thingy. Lots of other writers are doing it. But that's not me. It's not something I would do, listing all the stories I wrote and sold and placed during the year There were almost a dozen or so. I had a good year, writing-wise. I made some contacts and made some progress in the field. Can't complain about that. I'm satisfied. That's always been my writing goal. So long as I make progress.

I made a decision about the Haxan novel over the weekend. I'm going to write it. Dunno what shape it will take, trad western, full-blown fantasy or something in between. But I am going to write this novel. That much I've decided.

That's all for now. Hope to have other stuff for you when I get over this cold. See ya soon.  :)

If you haven't seen this phenomenal silent film then by all means do. It's a Swedish film about witchcraft and the frenzied denials and condemnations that surrounded it during the Middle Ages, and up until the present. Well, 1922, anyway, which is when this film was made.

The visuals of Haxan are astounding, on a par with any CGI magic you see today. These pics only represent a fraction of what is in the film. It's an absolutely gorgeous piece of art and seriously, if you haven't seen it, try. You will not be disappointed.

I saw this movie today and it wasn't half bad.

Randolph Scott is acceptable as Hawkeye and the story line itself moves along about as well as you can expect, though it's all "Hollywood." You lose some of the emotional impact in 1936 compared to the remake in 1992, but it's not a bad little film. Not really. Although some of the costumes and dialogue are too cliche.

Some things grate, however. All the Native Americans are, of course, white actors. You have to expect that from the time period in question, but you can't help but wince about it today. However, I must say the actors who portrayed Chingachgook and Uncas did a particularly good job, imo, though Chingachgook should have looked much older. (And maybe they should have done a little more makeup preparation than putting a black wig on the guy.) However, the final battle between Chingachgook and Magua is pretty violent and brutal, even by 1936 standards, and Chingachgook's final speech is, as always, moving. The movie nails those points.

If you like this story, and want to see a fairly good representation of the novel, and if you can view it through the lens of post-code 1936 American racism, you could do a lot worse than this movie. Give it a peek.

Now that I've finished a lot of the donkey work that was piling up I can get back to writing. Which means turning my attention back to my earlier story "Vengeance is Mine".

I've decided the direction the story is going is wrong. So I'm going to erase everything except the first scene and write anew from there.  It's the right thing.

I thought the story I was telling in the first place was the better one. I was mistaken. Now I know what the true story is, and how to write it, and how to bring it together. This isn't unusual. Sometimes you have to fiddle and shake a story before its true meaning reveals itself. Well, I do, anyway. Dunno about others.

I could have given up on this story a while back and probably lived with that decision. But I believe the basic idea is a good one and if I pull it off it will be a much darker read than I originally intended. I also think it will have a better chance to sell. Nothing wrong with that.

So I will start that tomorrow. It's not a rewrite. It's going to be a whole new story, really. I'm looking forward to it.

Right now I'm watching Earth vs. the Flying Saucers on TCM. Those Alien Spacemen mean business with their death rays. *nods*

I'm as surprised by that statement as you are. But I did watch some TV. First, I watched an episode of Wareshouse 13. It was all right. It reminded me of Friday the 13: The Series, about people who were collecting cursed objects and housing them in an old antique shop. Kind of the same premise, except these collectors/curators carry Glocks or whatever and have access to cool James Bond-inspired technology and state-of-the-art CGI effects. Overall it was enjoyable and I can see why people like it.

Then I watched three episodes of Mad Men on AMC. I watched three episodes because I wanted to give it a fair shake, being an ensemble cast and all. I must admit I didn't like it too much. The production is top notch and the writing is well done, but I couldn't get behind the characters in an emotional way, especially the men. It seemed to me most of the male characters on the show were interested in bird dogging pussy than anything else. There were lots of time period bits included which worked well, however, and I believe they are faithfully reproducing the mores and attitudes that held sway back then.  It's a good template for a writer to view for cultural background, I think.

But the one thing that was, imo, just a howler, was the cigarette smoking. Not that people didn't smoke all the time back then. They did. Even pregnant women, which the show portrays. No, I'm talking about the actors on the program who are smoking.  It doesn't look natural. I'm sorry, it just doesn't. Instead, they look like modern day actors who are pretending to smoke.  There is no apparent grace or ease between the cigarette and their body. Now before Mad Men fans get irate, let me explain the context in which I make this judgment. Look at an old Hollywood film from the 30s or 40s and watch how they smoke.  Watch Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall or Bette Davis from that period. Compare that,or anyone else from that period who smoked for real, to the actors smoking on Mad Men. It's just not the same. I admit it's a small thing, but it jumped out as anachronistic to me.

This isn't the first time I've seen things like this, though. I get tickled when I see a period film about the Middle Ages and they show someone in an open mouthed scream and you can see their teeth fillings, or back in the day a smallpox scar on their arm. Or you watch a television program about the 1920s and the actors are making urban street hand/body movements as they deliver their lines. One of the most egregious examples of this, including modern rhythms of swear words, is the Old West series Deadwood.

Look, I'm a writer. I pay attention to detail. If I don't, my stories have less of a chance to be published. Little things like this jump out at me. I know, I know. We can't go back in time and hire a person from the Middle Ages to act in a modern film.  More's the pity. But I  can't help my reaction. Sorry.

As a writer I am so focused on making the story believable that when I see a mistake on film or whatever it is magnified to me. I'm sure it's all my fault. Mea culpa.

Anyway, I did see good production values, good acting, and very, very good writing on Mad Men.  And everyone looks bedable which is why it's touted as the sexiest show on TV. I guess. But, to be fair, they handle the prurient factor pretty well. Better than most commercial television, imo, that delivers the sex with a sneer and a giggle.

But, and here's where the rubber meets the road, if I want to watch a film about an ad agency man with a hidden past that looks hard and uncompromisingly at the stifling mores and narrow attitudes of cultural America, I'll watch The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit with Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones.

*shrugs* Sorry.

As good as it was, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead has done more to destroy the zombie genre than any other movie or book I can think of.

And that's not a good thing. Here's why.

Prior to this zombies were never about eating people. And they sure as hell were never about eating brains. God knows where that got started. But here's the problem with Romero's film. It took what was once a genre filled with mystique and made it into splatter-chomp. And now that it's splatter-chomp there was nowhere else for it go go except over-hyped splatter-chomp cum Apocalypse. Now served with brains on the side. And it wasn't long before the genre devolved (yes, devolved, imo) into slapstick and parody. Now we have zombies no one can take seriously. That's what faces us today.

It's too bad, really, because zombies had so much going for them prior to Romero's film. Take Bela Lugosi's White Zombie. That was an awesome film. So was Val Lewton's uber-supreme I Walked with a Zombie which used Jane Eyre as source material.


Val Lewton's take on Jane Eyre...with zombies, voodoo, pathos, and Gothic imagery

These movies and others like them portrayed zombies for what they were supposed to be: living people (and sometimes dead, you couldn't always tell) transformed into the unliving. Usually to serve as slaves or to make them pay for some horrible crime. But there was always something poignant about the zombie and its plight in these movies. There's nothing poignant about the modern flesh eating zombie. He's a cartoon.

Okay, he didn't start off that way. I concede that. Romero's film was both horrifying and artistic with a steady dose of nihilism. He was making a deeper statement about the world he saw and he just happened to use zombies to get his point across. But lesser filmmakers, and writers, only saw the cannibalism and ran with that single idea. And now we're left with zombies eating brains and there's nowhere else for them to go.

No pun intended, but, imo, that's a dead end, artistic-wise. Better to have examined the deep mystery, the Gothic imagery combined with Carribean mysticism of zombiedom, rather than turning zombies into fast food consumers.

Be truthful. Zombies as they are now portrayed are no longer frightening or horrific. They're gross. I'll give you that. But they're not scary.

So in my opinion the zombie genre is in bad straits. I hope someone comes along soon and reboots it with an eye toward reviving its mystical past. If they can reboot Star Trek and Spider-Man then they should be able to reboot this. Anyway, I hope so, 'cuz I kinda like zombies. The old time zombies. The cool zombies. The mystical zombies. The scary ones.

Until this happens, where can you go to read good, memorable zombie stories? Look no further than Marvel's Tales of the Zombie. This was a black and white comic published in the Seventies and it rocks. It's what zombies used to be about. It's sexy and violent and Simon Garth, the zombie in question, is cool. The only carp I have is it's written in second person, a forced literary affectation I have always despised because it calls too much attention to itself. But even so the artwork and characterization overcomes that limitation.

If, like me, you miss the old time zombies then check out this collection. I think you'll like it.

I've seen this movie on TV several times. Okay, I've never watched it all the way through, but I just can't get behind the story to do that. I don't get it. I guess it was racy or controversial for 1959 but now it comes across as melodramatic. And not in a good way. And who can take Sandra Dee seriously in a dramatic role like this one unless they've ingested mescaline? And even then.

Funny how social mores change over time. What was considered risque now comes across as embarrassingly painful or sappy and coy.

I guess it depends on the story material you pick to write about. Let that be a lesson for all you writers out there. Sophocles got it right. His story about humping your mother and gakking your father has staying power.

Which says a lot about Sophocles. And us.

I saw this movie on TCM last night. Man, what a sad movie. But the ending was lame and drawn out.

I learned he died today at the age of 80. I really loved the TV series "The Prisoner"  and thought it was one of the best things I've EVER seen on television.  Funny that I posted a link to this series just a few days ago, too. He was also very good in Ice Station Zebra (he often played the same type of character) and the series "Secret Agent" which was one of the few believable cold war spy shows on TV. 

He'll be missed by me. I liked him a lot.

I guess I'm the only person alive who never cottoned on to this guy. I don't see how ordering pancakes in a Shakespearian tone at an IHOP and making it sound like life or death -- works.  Not all facets of life incur stentorian, metaphysical drama.  When you buy toilet paper at Wal-Mart  or perform any other mundane task, there's no real need to make it sound impressive and dramatic.

I guess it's because (to me) he's so self-conscious about his vocal presence that makes it sound forced and phony to my ear. It's almost like he's parodying himself.

Okay. We know I'm always behind the pop culture curve. Still.

Last night I saw The Dark Knight for the first time. Wow. Am I ever glad I didn't spend money on this when it was playing at the theater.  

I had forgotten how much I liked this film. It's one of my favorites. I saw it again last night on TCM. It's very, very good.

It has the quiet understatement of Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Sigourney Weaver is beautiful, Mel Gibson is great (and he made this film before we all knew what an anti-Semitic fuck he was) and Linda Hunt as "Billy Kwan" is nothing short of phenomenal.  Deservedly so, Hunt won an Academy Award for her performance.

The soundtrack is extremely memorable, as is the color and the look and feel of the film which was directed by Peter Weir. Apparently it was adapted from a novel which I haven't read. Maybe I should because the movie is very well written. Anyway, I think this is an amazing movie. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to do so. I think you might like it.

While I like the 1922 film version of Nosferatu, I LOVE the 1979 remake with Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani.

Vampire movies are notoriously difficult to make, in my estimation. Think about it. How many good vampire movies can you name?  Now think of how many vampire movies have been made: a veritable ton.  Yeah, they're hard to make. They don't always stand the test of time and damned few are memorable.

Even Dracula, with Bela Lugosi, is a bit creaky by today's standards.  But it holds up because of Lugosi's mystique -- if for no other reason. 

But sometimes there's a movie where the female victim (and in this case heroine) outshines the vampire.  Such an example can be found in Isabelle Adjani's performance in the 1979 remake of Nosferatu.  Kinski is very, very good as the Count...but Adjani is who we remember, both for her quiet sexuality and understated heroism as she keeps the vampire by her bedside until the cock crows.  She is absolutely beautiful in this film and her performance is superb.

So a vampire film can work if you really believe in the vampire, or it can work if the female lead is unbelievably awesome. As good as Kinski is, I think Adjani outshines his performance. This is her film, her story. It  is the story of one woman's struggle to rid her village of a plague.  You really must see this film if you ever get the chance.

And for those of you who don't think Adjani can possibly be anything like what I describe, here are a few pictures from the film.

Isabelle Adjani as Lucy

Isabelle Adjani Looks Into A Mirror

Isabelle Adjani Sees the Vampire

Lucy Sacrifices Her Life To Keep The Vampire With Her Until Dawn

On my entry about the movie Sunrise we got to talking about Nosferatu which was also directed by F.W. Murnau, but in 1922. 

Here's a public domain link to that ground-breaking vampire movie.  If you've never seen it I think you'll be intrigued.  It's pretty darn good and there's never been a freakier, or more repugnant, vampire than Max Schreck.

NOSFERATU

I love film. I'm not a huge fan of movies per se, but I do love film.  I saw a great one recently, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

This is a silent film from 1927 with a great score.  It's the only film I know in which an entire category was invented so it could win an Oscar that year. It's an Expressionist film, but it's not Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Expressionism, even though the characters are named The Man, The Wife, The Woman from the City and they hail from places like The Farm and City.  Very fundamental. But the use of light and shadow, and Murnau's interest in light as a character in the film, is nothing less than fantastic. Murnau also directed the original Nosferatu, another silent film you should definitely watch should you ever get the chance.

But back to Sunrise.  Of course, the woman from the city is a typical man-eating Vamp who smokes cigarettes and likes showing the outline of her legs through her black dress.  She has mesmerized The Man and while they are making love on the shore of the water by moonlight she talks him into drowning his wife and making it look like an accident.  He is tormented. We see scenes of him wrestling with his conscience as ghostly images of The Woman from the City embraces and kisses him.  He decides to go through with the murder.

Everything in this film works, even, I suspect, quite by accident. In one scene, as The Man and The Wife are in a boat headed across the water and come to tie up at a pier, we see a black swirl of water behind her. It's a spooky metaphor for the danger she's in, and I'm quite certain it's real and not a special effect.

Janet Gaynor plays The Wife. Rarely have I ever seen anyone as fragile and innately vulnerable as she appears on screen. She is perfect for the role, as is Margaret Livingston who plays the Vamp.

I don't want to say much else about the plot. I don't want to spoil it for you. But the search on the water by lamplight (an incredible achievement considering the technology back then) has been copied in a ton of films since.  And for good reason: it's fucking AWESOME. The play of light on water, the light and shadow on the faces...Wow.

I highly recommend this film. If you ever get the chance I urge you to see it. And if you do, you'll find your outlook on life changes a little.

It's that good, and that powerful.

Remember some while back I told you when I was twelve I used to have the pre-teen hots for a horror movie hostess called Moon Maiden?  Well, here she is, I finally found her!

The article says she was a cult favorite, "outstripping" the movie as the main attraction.  Well, from the perspective of a twelve-year old boy in Effingham, Illinois -- who was cutting his teeth on H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs --  I can say that was for damn sure.

I found her, I found Moon Maiden!  Ah, da wonders of teh Internets.

Horror, more than any other genre, has the ability to manifest its power in many different forms. This stems first and foremost from the fact horror is primarily an emotional and visceral genre, whereas science fiction, say, might have more of a cerebral background.

Because this is true for horror we often find stories that work on many different levels: poignant, evocative, and fundamentally human.  When these stories find their way to film, and when everything clicks from characterization to script, we have a real gem on our hands.

Monster House is such a movie.  In fact this is one damned cute movie.  The script is not only well-written, it's highly intelligent and at no time condescends to the viewer.  That's something we don't see everyday from the formulaic schlock normally churned out from Tinseltown.

I mean, come on, let's face it.  With dialog like this from a little girl: "If that's its teeth, and the carpet is its tongue, then that (a chandelier) is its uvula."

With the riposte from the little boy: "Oh, you mean it's a girl house....!"

And other gems like semi-precious stones: "Good luck with puberty!" and, "I'm sorry about your house.  I mean your wife.  I mean, your housewife."

The characters, especially the three computer generated children, are fantastically drawn and lovingly created. These are true three-dimensional characters in every sense of the word.  Like I said, everything clicks in this movie and it's a real treat.  From the beginning we believe these children are alive.  What's more, we are willing to risk an emotional investment in their spooky escapades...and we are not disappointed in the outcome.

Horror doesn't always work.  When it misses the mark it's achingly bad to watch (or read).  But when it does work, especially in an intelligent and unforgettable movie like this one -- chock full of delicious in-jokes -- it can't be dismissed. 

If you ever get a chance, please, give this worthwhile movie a peek.  I think you'll be glad you did.

I like werewolf movies.  No, let me rephrase that.  I like good werewolf movies.  My favorite is The Wolfman (1941) with Lon Chaney, Jr.  And from a writerly perspective it gives me a tickle to know the writer of that film, Curt Siodmak, made most of the werewolf tropes out of whole cloth.  But they're as accepted today as any legend.  And it's hard to pass up a late night showing on TCM with Chaney's tour de force  performance in Frankensteim Meets the Wofman (1943).  That final scene of the dam breaking and flooding Frankenstein's lab while the fur flies is one of the best in the genre.  Not to mention the fact Maria Ouspenskaya appears in both films; she's always a treat to watch with her heavy accent and sorrowful, brooding manner.  Great fun.

 But last year I came across a trilogy and had a chance to review them again recently, and, boy, are they great.

It's the Ginger Snaps trilogy.  Never heard of it?  I'm not surprised.  They were indies shot in Canada which gives them a different feel both in tone and emotional texture than the slickly produced cartoonish efforts we see out of Hollywood.

The first movie, Ginger Snaps, dwells on two sisters who decide that if one of them dies the other will kill herself.  There's the usual teenage angst and sexual awakening you would expect to see in a film about  a 16 and 15 year old sisters.  But Ginger Snaps ties those deep and powerful emotions into a stylish reworking of the werewolf mythos.   So when Ginger gets the bite, her sister, Brigitte, must do everything she can to protect her.  It's a stylish film with a look and dialogue that really pushes the limits both in context and what we thought we knew about werewolves.  And you won't need a silver bullet to whack one, because as Brigitte observes, a big knife will do since "they aren't superheroes."  Classic.

Of course, things start going downhill fast for the sisters.  Dogs start disappearing.  Ginger suddenly has a huge craving for meat.  When a tail appears she and Brigitte have to duct-tape it to her leg.  Well, no one ever said being a wolf-girl was easy.

The second movie is called Ginger Snaps: Unleashed.  Here's where the trilogy takes a very unexpected turn.  Ordinarily, there would just be much more blood-spattering and chomping in a sequel like this.  Not so with the Ginger movies.  Now Brigitte is in an insane asylum, waiting for the curse to take hold of her while she wrestles with a horrific decision she had to make in the original film.  This movie dwells more on the psychological aspect of wolfdom than the usual crunching of bone by the light of a silvery moon.  Oh, and there's a male werewolf out there who  wants to mate with Brigitte if she would just hurry up and let the transformation take its natural course.

Just when you think you're safe, the third movie, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is actually a prequel to the other two.  Better yet, you aren't sure if this is a parallel universe, an alternate history, or the beginning of an eternal curse involving these two young women.  Maybe it's all three.  It doesn't matter because the sisters are together again in 19th Century Canada in the dead of winter and they've come upon a fort while packs of hungry wolves roam the frozen countryside.  Hang on tight to a friend when you watch this one because it's a doozy.

The Ginger Snaps movies.   You should check them out even if you're not a werewolf fan.  It's great story arc filled with pathos and sharp humor and biting (pun intended) dialogue.  Give 'em a peek if you have the time....