Catching Fire, still unbiased

For the appropriate background, you should go back and read my review of The Hunger Games. In brief, I have not and do not plan to read the books, so this review is based solely on my viewing of the movie.

Where the first movie failed to build a solid foundation for the world of the Hunger Games to stand on, Catching Fire came in to make that foundation more solid. Some of that is, for lack of a better term, accidental. For instance, the fact that Katniss and Peeta are the picture of good health (along with Katniss' family) is now to be expected, so that no longer worked against the movie. District 12 and its inhabitants were more rundown and dilapidated, so the contrast between Katniss and her fellow citizens (other than Gale) was more distinct. All of that was good and gave a more realistic feel to the movie than the last one had.

We got a broader view of the world in general and of the Peacekeepers in action, which was way more disturbing than the first movie would have lead us to believe. The second movie made us believe all the things the first movie only told us to believe. It's actually the whole "show vs tell" thing. The first movie tells us the people are oppressed, but Catching Fire shows us.

• It shows us when Gale is taken and flogged and Katniss almost shot.
• It shows us when the old man in District 11 is pulled from the crowd and shot in the head.
• It shows when Katniss and Peeta are offered the puking beverage so that they can continue to participate in the party.
• And it shows us when Cinna is beaten (to death, I presume) right in front of Katniss after the tube closes on her and all she can do is watch. And scream.

The political intrigue, almost absent from The Hunger Games, also elevates Catching Fire. Plutarch Heavensbee is a great character, and I was never quite sure what was going on with him. There was what I thought was happening, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was so good, I spent a lot of time doubting myself. Of course, Hoffman is great, and I was delighted to see him in the movie. Plutarch wasn't the only one playing games, but he was the primary one, and I almost felt sorry for President Snow and his inability to adequately play politics. Snow seemed to know one tactic: "Smash!" Or threaten to smash. Or kill.

The acting in Fire was much better than in Games.

• Lawrence really stepped into the part and made us feel the horror and rage of the things she was going through. Also the lost-ness in parts. She was impressive this time rather than just existing in the role.
• Woody Harrelson continued to be great as Haymitch.
• Elizabeth Banks moved beyond her makeup, which was actually rather impressive considering that you couldn't really see her face. The emotion she was able to bring through in relation to how she felt about the injustices that were happening was incredible.
• Stanley Tucci continued to be awesome.
• As I already said, Philip Seymour Hoffman was tremendous.
• Sam Claflin was really good.
• But the big surprise was Jena Malone. She was great!

The greatest success of the movie, though, was that it made me want to read the books. Almost. I'm still not going to read them, because, based on many of the things I've read about it, the movie fixes many of the problems from the first movie and from the books. The focus on the politics seems to be a movie thing not a book thing, and that's the stuff I really liked. So, still, not reading the books, but I'm slightly less set against them now. That's an achievement.

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AVAILABLE TODAY!
"Shadow Spinner: Collection 3: The Garden (Parts 13 - 21)"

This collection has a short story by none other than Rusty Webb, who also draws pictures and has drawn all of mine. It's a great story based on the world from The House on the Corner, and it has... but that would be telling. Hopefully, there will be more to come from this story line, later. At any rate, pick up Collection 3, read my stuff, read his stuff. After you've done all of that, go back and leave a review!

Another Post of Thanks

If I'm going to be honest, I suppose I have to admit to not being a very "thankful" person. Which is not to say that I'm not thankful for things, but I'm not quite behind the expectation of thanks that we currently have culturally. Actually, I sort of think that's been, to some extent, driven by the greeting card market and the "necessity" of sending out thank you cards. It has created an expectation of thanks for things we shouldn't expect thanks for. In fact, doing things in expectation of thanks is, well, kind of wrong. At least in my mind.

And, I have to say, if you do something for me or give me something or whatever, and I tell you "thanks," there's very little chance I'm going to also send you a card telling you what I already said. Especially when what you're going to do with the card (that probably cost $4 (which would have bought a whole paperback book when I was a teenager)) is say "oh, isn't that nice" as you're dropping it into the trashcan. And, then, of course, you have to remember to tell me "thanks for the card" next time you see me. Or, I've heard, send me a card thanking me for the card. What the heck is up with that trend? Sorry, I'm just breaking that cycle and saving my $4. If the "thank you" that came out of my mouth wasn't good enough... well, I don't know what to say if it wasn't, but please don't send me a thank you card for anything I might do for you, because I don't want it, and I will drop it in the recycling bag. Just keep your $4.

Anyway...

This is not a ranty post, or, it's not supposed to be, anyway. This is a post to say thank you to some people that have, in the last year or so, gone above and beyond without asking or even expecting thanks when they've done those things, things that I'm thankful for, so I want to call attention to some people mostly in no special order. However, I have to start with

Briane Pagel: I don't even know where to begin when it comes to Briane. Briane is, bar none, the most supportive person of independent authors that I know of. First, he will read your book(s), but, not just that, he will also review them. And he'll do that without being asked to do it, which, you know, is just awesome, because it just gets tiring to always be begging people for reviews (especially when they take the time to email you to say "hey, I really liked this" but don't seem to have time to do that on Amazon). But not only that! He will also spontaneously put links to your stuff into his posts, his completely unrelated posts. Just as an afterthought, he will throw in, "Oh, and you should read 'Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (Parts 6 - 12)' because it was really good!" And you should totally read that, because Briane has a story in it, "Augurs of Distant Shadow," that is really quite excellent and something else I need to give him more thanks for. That he wrote it for me, that is. And, just by the way, Briane is so supportive of indie authors, he's willing to pay you to let him post your short stories on his site. That's a total win/win for you! So, Briane, thank you for everything over the past year.

Okay, so I lied, because this next one, also, gets special considerations above everyone else:
Rusty Webb: Theoretically, Rusty and I have a symbiotic relationship. He does covers for me, and I do editing for him. However, I always feel like I'm getting way more out of the relationship than he is. And, really, all you have to do is look at the work he's done for me to see why I feel that way.

And, aside from the artwork, he also leaves reviews for things without being asked, which is just gold. All of that, and there will be a story by Rusty in "Shadow Spinner: Collection 3: The Garden (Parts 13 - 21);" you should make sure to check that one out, too, once it's available.

And, since we're on the theme of reviews and bonus stories, there's also
Bryan Pedas: Bryan (and Brandon) have been very supportive for a while, but it's Bryan who gets out there and leaves most of the reviews, and Bryan who has a story in "Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1 - 5)." There just aren't enough ways to say thank you to people who both leave reviews! and write stories for you. So, just to give Bryan a plug, his book, Demetri and the Banana Flavored Rocketship, was the best book I read in 2012.

Okay, and now for some others which will pretty much just be going down the list:

Konstanz Silverbow: Thank you to Konstanz at No Thought 2 Small for the interview and supporting Shadow Spinner!

Crystal Collier for having me on her "Truth or Lie" thing, plugging Shadow Spinner, and talking to me about cheese. Although I think it might be more exceptional if she talked about something that's not cheese.

Shannon Lawrence for spontaneously posting links to things (book releases, promotions, blogfests) without being asked. There is a certain amount of joy that happens when I visit her blog and she's promoting something I'm doing when I've never mentioned it, and that's a cool thing. Not the joy, that she does that.

The women over at The Indelibles for Indie Life.

And Alex Cavanaugh for posting more links than anyone has a right to and for all of his work on the IWSG.

I think that will do me for this year. I'm sure there are probably more people I ought to thank, but, as I mentioned in my last post, my Brain refuses to remember whether I've locked the front door when I'm leaving the house, so trying to remember everyone from the last year is a bit beyond my capacity. The one other thank you I do need to give is to everyone who has read any of my stuff over the last year and doubly thank anyone else who has left a review and/or a rating anywhere. I do realize that there are a few more of you out there that have left reviews, and I really do appreciate that. This year, if I'm smart, I will make a list as things happen and I won't leave anyone out next year.

Tomorrow, I will be eating way too much, so, if you never hear from me again, there is a good chance I ate myself to death; however, that has never happened in the past, so I'm hoping it won't happen this year.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh! And in case you missed it, yesterday, drop by Out of Print and read my new short story, "The Tea Kettle."

The Tea Kettle

There's a story behind "The Tea Kettle," but today is not the day you get to hear it. No, today is the day you get to go read "The Tea Kettle," which is a story. But not the whole story nor the story behind the story. Look, just hop over to Out of Print, sign up for the email notifications for when there's a new story posted, and read mine. Then, you can even go back and read some of the others. Mostly, they're not too long, not even mine, so do your brain a favor and go do some reading.

I Can Spell Better Than My Brain

"What are we doing tomorrow night, Brain?"

Apparently, incorrectly spelling words, the same as every night.

I think we tend to give our brains too much credit. I mean, we rely on them to do stuff for us, stuff like thinking and spelling words correctly and remembering stuff. Yeah, I expect my brain to remember stuff, and I used to think it was pretty good at it, but I'm coming to believe that was just me and not my brain.

My brain does things like this:
My kids and I are leaving for school in the morning. My daughter is always the first one out the door. By a lot. I'm not really sure if she thinks that makes her brother (or me) go faster,  but it doesn't. At any rate, she'll ask me to unlock the car for her (which I can do from inside the house, thank to modern technology (AWESOME)), and go sit in it while her brother is still doing things like packing his lunch (which is already made, he just has to put it in his lunchbox), so, sometimes she's out there for a while. I'm frequently standing around in my jacket and my hat trying hard not to say, "We're going to leave without you," because he would just come back with "Okay!" and go back to his DS or whatever it was he was doing before he had to get ready to go. Anyway, we finally get out the door and I'm dreading getting into the car and having to listen to my daughter complain about how it's already 7:53 and she wanted to leave at 7:50, and the boy and I get in the car and she starts in on why it took so long and I start the car and say, "Did I lock the front door?"

One might think at that point that I'm asking Chompyhead (that's what we'll call the boy for reasons I may explain sometime), but I'm not, because I know he wasn't paying any attention. No, I'm asking my brain. Because, see, probably, my brain did tell my hands somewhere in the getting-out-of-the-house part to lock the front door, but I wasn't paying any attention to that part, because I just wanted Chompyhead to get out the door and into the car. And what does my brain say? "I don't remember."
"Seriously? That was, like, 30 seconds ago!"
My brain shrugs at me, "I don't remember."
That, of course, makes me angry, and I have to say, "What's the point of you, then?!" and climb back out of the car to check the door which is, of course, locked.
And I can't tell if my brain is laughing at me and chuckling "got you again" or if it really didn't remember, but, if it's going to go to the trouble of locking the door, it could at least let me know that it's done it. If I have to go back and check, what's the point?

And, so, when I'm writing, I don't want to have to think about how to spell words. Theoretically, my brain should know how to spell all of those words, right? Well, evidently not. And I'm not talking about obvious finger mistakes like "teh" instead of "the," I'm talking about words that my brain misspells over and over again. Especially homophones. Come on, Brain! You should know the difference between "peek" and "peak" and "steak" and "stake" and you shouldn't be "oblivious" by typing "obvious" and it shouldn't be "necessary" for me to stop you from typing "neccesary" every freaking time! I mean, come on! You've been doing this for a long time, why am I still having to remind you that it's only one "c"? Especially when I'm willing to give you a pass on "occasionally;" that one's totally on me.

All I want, and I don't really think that this is too much to ask for after all of this time, is that you get it write the first time. See! There you go again. I bet you thought I didn't see that. And it's that kind of thing that makes me wonder if you're doing all of this on purpose just to see if I'm paying attention. Well, I am! And I don't  much appreciate having to go back and fix your "mistakes," if that's what they are. You can be replaced, you know.

yeah, yeah I hear you laughing, "Science can't do brain transplants, yet." How do you know? Just because it's not being advertised, doesn't mean it's not going on somewhere. Besides, I have a Brain sitting right here next to my computer just waiting for the chance to take over the world!

(My Brain with his pet Yoda.)

Okay, so that taking over the world stuff is why it's still sitting on the computer, because I don't want that kind of trouble, but...

Your job, Brain, is to do the spelling. That's what I have you for. You're supposed to be the one stopping me and saying, "hold on there, buddy; 'necessary' only has one 'c'," not the other way around. If I have to do all the spelling and checking and all of that, what do I even have you for?

You know what, I can, too, get along just fine without you. I think you're really more trouble than you're worth. And, no, they don't check for brains before they give you a driver's license. That's dumb? Well, yeah, I know, but have you seen the other people out there driving around? You, of all brains, ought to be able to recognize brainless driving when you see it, so you can't hold that one over my head. I'll just drive like everyone else; they seem to get along just fine. Oh, I'll be dead within a week? We'll just see about that!

fklg l;jhghh ;zufhkl ;ljsdhg ;zhghg ;[ioghdfs lasdjgiou ;';kzjg ;pjfo ;lajlkhui aldhi0rt ...

Obliviated

There is, sometimes, a desire to see a movie that you know is going to be bad, but you just can't talk yourself out of seeing it. For whatever reason. Maybe, like with the Die Hard movies, you've seen all the other ones and can't make yourself not watch the newest one despite all the dumb pouring off of it. Or, maybe, there's just some cast member that you just have to see every movie that he's in, like I was with Harrison Ford back in the 80s. Or, maybe, the movie just looks cool and you hope you're just wrong about how bad it's going to be. That's kind of where I was with Oblivion. It just looked cool, and I was hoping, maybe, it was one of those things that the masses wouldn't get into but was really kind of good.

I was wrong.

So here's the spoiler warning, because I'm not going to try to not talk about aspects of the movie, so, if you think, like me, that the movie looks cool and you're probably going to watch it anyway despite what I say (just don't do it. really), you shouldn't read this. If you want to know about all of the dumb (you should!), read on.

I realize this isn't an issue for some people, but it is for me, as I've mentioned before: The movie did that opening narration thing to explain what's going on. I'm convinced that opening narration is almost always a bad thing. If you have to have it, you have either (1) started your movie in the wrong place (2) failed to provide information within the movie in a way that works for the viewer. The Star Wars movies are one of the few places where you can find effective opening narration (in the form of the prologue scroll). And, then, not only did Oblivion open with the narration providing the viewer with an out-of-character monologue of events, but all of that same information was provided about halfway through the movie in almost exactly the same format. Please, do not provide me the same information more than once in your movie. I can almost guarantee you that I got it the first time (which is why I tell my kids to not repeat themselves when they do something they find funny: I did just see it happen).

Despite the opening narration, the movie doesn't make much sense. Ostensibly, Jack and Victoria are a team placed on Earth to defend these large fusion reactors, but, really, why are they needed? There's actually no good reason for them to be there. Sure, sure, he's some technician who has to repair the drones, but that's flimsy at best, because that whole set up is just to support the fact that they want this character that doesn't have any memories, but from any kind of logical standpoint, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, it might (almost) make sense if the stated premise of the movie was true, but you know it's not, because, even if it was, what would be the point of erasing the memories of the support teams? However, with the knowledge that the aliens are really in charge, there is absolutely no good reason to have things set up the way they are. Why do they need humans to repair their drones? And why, after the Jack clones fought for them as their army when they took over the Earth, do they need to trick the clones into believing they're normal humans anyway?

Then there's the problem of Jack having this whole wilderness retreat that he's built, somehow, without anyone finding out. He's able to just turn off the tracking unit in his (what I'm calling) dragonfly ship (which  is very cool, by the way) and go "off comm." What the heck? His navigator person (who never leaves "the tower") doesn't have any idea where he is when he does this and neither do the aliens. Seriously? They just allow him to go off and do secret things without bothering to know what he's up to. Completely implausible. Sure, it makes sense if you believe the story as it's presented at the beginning of the movie, but, again, you know that's not the whole story fairly quickly, and the idea that the aliens (or whatever) would just allow this is beyond imagining. It's what the writer/director do to support the lie and get the audience to buy into it, but those things need to make sense after the truth is revealed, too.

Jack has these dreams... dreams of being in New York before it was destroyed, but that was 50 or so years ago, and he's not that old. My wife kept joking about them being "clone dreams" because, at that point, we were trying to go along with what the movie was telling us. Trying. But we both knew she was right. Right in that being what the movie was going to say they were: memories of Jack's life before he was cloned by the aliens. Seriously? This isn't the 80s anymore, and we already knew in the 80s, even in sci-fi, that clones don't get the memories of the being they were cloned from. The memory flashes work if his mind really was "wiped" before his mission, but it doesn't work as some remnant from his genetic donor. It's just dumb. Why can't we seem to get past this stupid idea that clones have the memory of whatever they were cloned from? (And, again, I just have to point out that Star Wars does not do this, the only sci-fi clone movie I can think of that doesn't fall back on that tired idea.)

Also, the drones, which can follow Jack's "DNA trail" (really? we leave a trail of DNA in the atmosphere even when we're in an enclosed, airtight vessel?) have a problem with his voice identification and consider killing him more than once. I suppose they can't sense his DNA when he gets too close. That's only a long-range thing. (Do you sense the sarcasm there?)

And there's the bit where the drones are flying through the human hideout blasting everyone into cinders but, when one of them corners Jack's wife, Julia (introduced only to be a princess-in-the-tower character), and a bunch of other humans in a dead-end corridor, it pauses and decides to scan them. Again, really? The drone, programmed to kill humans, suddenly needs to stop and scan them? For just long enough for it to get exploded from behind, of course.

And, after all of that, we're not even up to the stupidest part of the movie. I know! I see your jaws hanging. The stupidest part is when he finally flies up to the alien ship, this huge, upside-down pyramid thing, and it's just full of vast expanses of space on the inside! When did this become a thing and what kind of sense does it make? So, yeah, he's flying through this huge space and, every once in a while, he has to fly through an opening in a wall, and the walls are covered in clone pods. The only other things in the huge alien space ship are drones. No aliens. And, when he finally gets to the center to arrive at "Sally," it's just another inverted pyramid thing with a flashing (talking?) red light. NO ALIENS! So tell me why they needed to take over the Earth and use it as a source of material for their fusion reactors IF THERE ARE ACTUALLY NO ALIENS? And, if that's all they needed, why didn't they just stop at any of the unpopulated planets on the way into the solar system? Wouldn't that have been so much easier than having to fight a bunch of humans for the materials they wanted? AND WHERE WERE THE ALIENS?

There was also an even more stupidest part. The part where somehow the flight recorder from Jack's spaceship from when he first got captured by the alien ship went from being in the command module, recording what was happening, to being in the sleeping quarters of the ship even though the sleeping portion had been jettisoned. Because that makes all the sense.

The acting, though, wasn't bad. Not great but not bad, either. And the tech was decently cool. But there was a reason (many of them, actually, as I've pointed out) the movie didn't make back its production budget domestically. So, unless you just have to prove to yourself how dumb the movie is, this is not one I could suggest to anyone.

You Know You've Made It When... (part 2)

Sometimes it's good to ask questions. My last post on Lego minifigures inspired a friend of mine to go into research mode and look for figures that I may have missed, and he came up with some. It made me feel a little inadequate, actually, because I didn't even think to check for most of these guys.

First, though, the fails. The Lego fails, that is. Here are some ones that at least one of us checked only to find out that a very obvious character has never been made into a minifigure.
1. Sallah:

Despite being in half of the Indiana Jones movies, Sallah was never made as a minifigure. John Rhys-Davies does appear as this minifig, though:

Rhys-Davies did do the voice for this one, so I guess he can get partial credit for it:

2. Jane Foster:

Despite having more than a dozen Avengers related Lego sets, Jane does not appear as a minifigure.

Natalie Portman does appear as this figure, though:

3. Galadriel:

Explain to me how, exactly, Galadriel

does not get made into a minifigure while

Irina Spalko gets a figure in three different sets (while Sallah has none!). If I was Cate Blanchett, I'd feel robbed.

Also, a retraction. As I was working up this post, I realized that I was in error about Chris Evans.

The Fantastic Four have not, yet, been made into physical minifigures, although I could have sworn they had some sort of Lego set out several years ago with their flying car. When the FF re-boots, soon, it will no longer be Evans as the Torch, so it still won't count for him. He got robbed, too!

But there are a few new editions to the list of actors made into two different minifigure characters!

1. Ryan Renolds

2. Ben Kingsley

(Again, really? Nizam from Prince of Persia gets a figure but Galadriel doesn't?)

3. Alfred Molina

Another Prince of Persia figure on the list? Seriously? And he gets one from Raiders of the Lost Ark, too!

Which brings me back to my question of how the heck does Sallah not have a figure? Satipo, here, dies in the opening sequence of Raiders, but Sallah doesn't get one? I smell a conspiracy! Or a rat! Or Denmark!

But that's not all! Because there's also

Which gives Molina three different characters in three separate movies which may just make him the greatest actor of all time! Except, then, there's

4. Warwick Davis. Davis has been four different characters in two different movie franchises, though two of the movies from one of the franchises were 15 years apart. Who's greater, Davis or Molina? I guess you will have to decide. Here are Davis' figures:

5. Gary Oldman! And, really, how could I forget him the first time? I feel so bad. I love Gary Oldman! And he was by far the best thing about the Nolan Batman movies.

And he's also

Well, there you have it. The best actors who have ever lived. Or something like that. If I ever get a movie made out of any of my books, I'm going to make sure I'm some side character, some vital side character, so that if they ever get Lego sets, I will get to be a minifigure, too! Now that's the DREAM, folks!

Winterblast in the SofA District (a local color post)

Apparently, I don't know all that much about where I live. No, seriously, every time I think I have a grip on Sonoma County, I find out that I'm wrong. Well, not that I'm wrong, exactly, but just that there's always something else I wasn't expecting.

Like last week, my wife tells me that she wants to go to this Winterblast celebration in the SofA District over this past weekend, and I was all "huh? SofA District? We have a sofa district?" I couldn't figure out why there would be a need to have a whole district for sofas. That is, unless they could fly like that one in Hitchhiker's.

"The South of A Street District. It's like the artists' quarters."

"We have an artists' quarters?"

"Yeah, that's what they call it."

Just to make this clear, this was the 9th Annual Winterblast. The 9th one! And I was only just hearing about it. But, then, I don't always pay the best attention to things going on around me. But that's beside the point. The point is that we went to this Winterblast Celebration. A Celebration which included a sofa parade. At night. Because the whole celebration was at night, which made taking pictures more difficult than I would have liked, but I managed to get some that work.

This being an artist event, though, meant that there was a lot of cool artwork on display, and, yes, I took pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't do a great job of keeping track of what artists painted what stuff, so I'm going to show you some of my favorite pieces and, then, give you some links to the artists' sites.

BrinoIsm
Saltworkstudio
Serena Hazard (actually, the first one with the tree is from this artist)

I did get the information for this last piece I'm going to show you. It's by Michele Bottaro, and it was my favorite painting I saw at the event. Really cool... and not for sale! (Not that I could afford it if it was, but, still...)

There was also art on building walls and such, like

and this heart in someone's window that I got with the full moon above it:

And there were some street dancers:

And, then, of course, there was the SofA Parade:

And, if you remember this post, you might recognize this couch (it really seems to get around):

All in all, it was a pretty good event. I would have spent a lot more time looking at the art, but it was fairly crowded and hard to move from studio to studio. I think the event could benefit from some extended hours and a parade that happens when it's still light out. I guess we'll see what happens next year.

You Know You've Made It When...

You know you've made it as an actor when you get turned into a Lego minifigure. I think it used to be when you were turned into any kind of action figure, but, these days, especially after McFarlane Toys came onto the scene in the mid-90s, almost anyone can get turned into an action figure. It ceased to be something difficult to achieve. However, it's still noteworthy to get turned into a minifigure even if minifigures don't look like the actors.

Even more noteworthy? Getting turned into two completely different minifigures. And, yes, okay, this topic completely came out of a conversation with my sons. They have a completely disregard for action figures because, well, all sorts of movies get action figures (or, at least, used to; I suppose that trend has died down somewhat in the last few years), but only the really cool ones get made into Lego.

Of course, this whole conversation started with Harrison Ford.

Star Wars was the first Lego franchise, so you can almost say this all started with him.

That's one of the very first Han Solo minifigures, back when they were still yellow like regular Lego minifigures. Now, they look like this:

And, of course, the second incarnation of Harrison Ford as a minifigure:

There ensued a long "discussion" of what other actors had two different character minifigs. [Don't ask why discussion is in quotes; just accept it.] Here's what we came up with:

Chris Evans:

Johnny Depp:

Samuel Jackson:

Ian McKellen:

Christopher Lee:

Orlando Bloom:

Those are the ones we came up with. Ones that have actual, physical minifigures. There are a few more that have two different characters but one of the minifigures is only in one of the Lego video games.

If you can think of more, let me know!