This Is The End

Okay, so it's not really the end, although, I suppose, it could be. I mean, we never know what's going to happen, so it's possible this is the end... the last post I will ever write...

But that's not the plan.

At any rate, my wife and I went to see This Is The End, and you can just shut up right now, because it was funny. In all of its crudity, it was just funny.

Not that I'm recommending it for everyone, because I know a lot of people are offended by this type of humor, and This Is The End takes it to Kevin Smith levels of crude and, probably, even beyond. Really, you have to see it to know what I'm talking to about, because I can't talk about it without spoilers.

First thing, you really need to have seen Pineapple Express to get some of the jokes in This Is The End. In a lot of ways, TITE is the real life sequel of Pineapple. So, if you've seen Pineapple and liked it, you'll probably like TITE. If you didn't like Pineapple, you definitely shouldn't bother with TITE.

The idea is that the end of the world is happening and a group of friends are hiding out together. Let me say that again: a group of "friends" are hiding out together to escape the end of the world. Except one of the guys (Jay Baruchel) really doesn't like any of the other people, and none of them really like one of the guys (Danny McBride), especially since he (McBride) wastes half of their food on the first day. It's one of those "what would happen if you were locked up with your best friends" kind of scenarios. How long would you maintain?

And it all starts with a party where no one notices that the end of the world is happening, which is a joke in-and-of itself and pretty priceless, if you ask me. The Emma Watson bit (which is shown in the trailer), because she's at the party, too, is hilarious. As is Michael Cera.

The thing about a movie like this is that the cast, who all play themselves, really has to be able to make fun of themselves. Parody themselves. Make all the things we think about them larger than life whether those things are true or not. And who knows how much of any of it is true other than those guys, but they were brilliant at it in this film. Especially James Franco. I don't care what people say about him, I'm convinced the man is one of the smartest actors in Hollywood. Hmm... that may not be saying much, so let me say he's just pretty freaking smart.

The best part, though, is the writing. What you expect is just some pretty straightforward crude humor, and it's full of that. I mean, the f*c& count is pretty high. [Did you know that wikipedia has an entry for the movies with the highest uses of that word? I do, now.] However, there's some pretty complex and subtle writing going on, too, which is pretty awesome if you can see it under all of the depravity of the movie. But, again, I can't talk about it without giving it away.

So, here at the end, let me just say that if you like this kind of humor, even if it's a guilty pleasure kind of thing, then you should go see this movie. Or, at the very least, plan to rent it. You know, as long as the End doesn't come beforehand...

"If you decide not to make things..." (an IWSG post)

"If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff you could have brought to it."
--Neil Gaiman

This is a great quote by Neil and not something that I haven't said before, but I've never said it like that, and I love the way he put it: "...all you've done is deprive the world..." That's just fantastic.

Often, people will feel great conflict over creating. It can be debilitating.
"Is it good enough?"
"Am I good enough?"
"What if it's no good?"
"Am I just wasting my time?"
Oh, it goes on and on and on, and, if you visit enough blogs of pre-published writers or, even, some post-published writers, you will run into all of it and more.

I think, maybe, we're asking ourselves the wrong question. Oh, I get it. "Is it good enough?" is an important question if you're trying to get traditionally published and all of that, despite the evidence that plenty of stuff that isn't really "good enough" gets traditionally published all the time. Some of that stuff that isn't "good enough" even becomes incredibly popular. But that question, that question about being good enough, isn't so important in a digital age of self-publishing. If it was ever important at all.

I think the better question to be asking is, "Is it me enough?" Is it the story that you want to tell? Is it the story that only you can tell? Are you bringing to the world that thing that only you can bring to it?

Of course, that circles back around to "am I good enough?" and "what if no one likes me?" Questions, really, about self worth and esteem, and those can be... well, those can be hard to ignore. But we need to ignore them. We need to ignore them so that we can focus on that story that can only come from us.

So... some examples:

George Lucas made a short film while he was in college called "THX-1138" which is supposed to be brilliant. When he graduated, he wanted to make a movie called American Graffiti, but he couldn't get anyone to be interested in that. What he found was people that wanted him to make a full length feature out of THX. He said THX wasn't a full length kind of thing, but that's what they wanted, so that ended up being his first movie. It didn't do as well as everyone else thought it would. Once he was able to make Graffiti, which he did for almost no money because THX had flopped, it became the most successful film ever made up to that point and held that title for something like 30 years.

Lucas was under contract with Universal for two movies, and the next movie he wanted to make was this thing called Star Wars which Universal wouldn't back. They wanted a sequel to Graffiti. Lucas said that story was finished and didn't want to make a sequel. Eventually, he got 20th Century Fox to take Star Wars, and Universal got American Graffiti 2. How many of you knew there was a sequel?

Tolkien wrote this whole history of this place called Middle Earth, but he couldn't get anyone interested in what he called The Silmarillion. He ended up getting an unrelated novel, The Hobbit, published. The publisher wanted a sequel, but Tolkien didn't have a sequel in mind for it nor did he want to write one. They insisted. He did try, but what came out of that attempt was more Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings, which the publisher didn't want. They ended up taking it anyway, probably realizing they just weren't going to get what they wanted out of Tolkien. And, in the end, The Hobbit became part of Middle Earth.

Heck, even Twilight was something that came straight out of Stephanie Meyer, because, before that book, if you had asked anyone if they would have thought that sparkly vampires would be a good idea, I don't think you would have found a single person that would have said "yes."

I could go on and on with these examples and go one to debate the success or lack there of when artists strayed from what the story that was coming from them into other areas. For instance, the thing most criticized about Return of the Jedi is the ewoks, a thing which Lucas did not envision but fell back on because he didn't feel like he could realize his vision of an epic battle of wookies against the Empire. There's Kevin Smith and his decline in success as he tried to move toward making movies he thought people wanted rather than making the movies he wanted to make. And more and more and more.

The thing is, though, when you try to make what you think people want, everyone is disappointed, because you can't meet the expectations of everyone and, then, you haven't even made something you're happy with, so no one is happy. Make the thing that only you can make -- the book, the movie, the painting -- and don't worry about the rest. Don't deprive the world of that thing that only you can bring to it.

I'll leave you with this:


[This post has been brought to you by the Insecure Writer's Support Group.]

Ninja Killer

I'm gonna come right out and say it: I'm not a big fan of ninjas.
Yeah, you heard me. In the whole Pirates vs Ninjas thing, I'm totally for the pirates. Not that I like pirates all the much either, but, you know, at least a pirate is honest about what he is. A scurvy dog, right?

But the ninja? No, the ninja has spent centuries developing this idea about themselves that just isn't true. That they're these awesome fighters and all of that. It reached a peak in the 80's, and, I have to say, I was as sucked in as the next guy. I loved the show The Master, for instance, although I may have been the only one considering how quickly it went away. Huh, I didn't remember Demi Moore being in that. Weird. Of course, it has been nearly 30 years since I've seen it. Heck, even the original Transformers animated series had a ninja robot in it built by humans! And I can't even get started on G. I. Joe. I have only one thing to say about that: Snake Eyes! In the 80's, ninjas were cool.

Then I learned about them. Not on purpose, mind you, because, like I said, I was as sucked in as everyone else, but, as I've mentioned before, I went to nerd school, and my world history teacher gave us some actual ninja learning. That was my introduction to the web of lies that ninjas have built around themselves. But, then, it does serve their purposes, because, what they want, is not to fight. If everyone thinks ninjas are all badass, which they're not, people will run away from them, and they don't have to do any real fighting. See how that works?

No, a ninja's real job is to be a sneaky killer. They don't do direct confrontation. They're the guys that sneak around and poison food or kill you in your sleep or sneak up behind you. Anything not to be seen, kill their target, and get away, again, without being seen.

My favorite ninja story?
This ninja needed to kill this guy, and, to do it, he hid in an outhouse. But not just in the outhouse, in the outhouse. As in under the seat down in all the urine and feces. He brought supplies so that he could camp out down there, which he did for three days. Three days! Three days in a toilet making no noise while people did their business on him. After three days, his target finally showed up. The guy sat down to do his business, the ninja took his spear and, while the guy was reading the equivalent of the Tokyo Times, the ninja shoved his spear right up the guy's bum. What a way to go.

See, if I was a ninja, and I was willing to go to that kind of length to kill someone (which I'm not), I would totally own it. I would own that... um... forget that next word... um... stuff! I would own that stuff! And, then, I would respect the ninja. But, then, I guess the whole lying thing is just a part of what they are in order to do their job.

The thing is, though, in a straight up fight of pirates vs ninjas, the ninjas would all run away. Of course, there's always waiting for the pirates to get drunk and fall asleep, which is what the ninjas would do.

Anyway... all I'm saying is that if ninjas were honest about who and what they are, I'd be okay with them.

But all of that is not really what all of this is about, now is it? Because this is the

Question the first:
What does Alex look like?
Alex looks like George Clooney with a guitar. Probably not as well dressed. I imagine him walking down railroad tracks with the guitar slung over his back.

Question the second:
Who could play Alex in a documentary?
Well, of course, George Clooney. Or, maybe, Ben Affleck playing George Clooney, because, as Kevin Smith says, "Affleck could be the shark."

Question the third:
Who does Alex remind me of?
At this point, how can I not say George Clooney? I can't not say that, so I will: George Clooney.

Flash Fiction (bah! I mostly dislike flash fiction):
George Cavanaugh was making his way down the tracks one day with his guitar slung over his shoulder. Cavanaugh had stolen the plans for an IWSG from a secret government installation, but he'd found that no one paid any attention to hobos with guitars, so it was his MO to sneak away in this particular guise. Besides, if he needed to be inconspicuous, he could always stop and play on a street corner, because even fewer people paid any attention to those guys other than tossing some bills into his case, which would mean he wouldn't have to pay for supper, either, so, really, it was a win-win. However, a ninja had tracked him and was, at that very moment, sneaking up behind him, sword drawn. Cavanaugh knew all about the ninja, though, and was just luring him out. At the last moment before the ninja struck, Cavanaugh spun while drawing his cosbolt and shot the ninja right in the eye slit. "New pajamas," Cavanaugh thought, as he stripped the body.

Bonus Points?
Wait, who said anything about points? This is an arbitrary thing, right? Besides, I've used up all my words. I'll just keep it short: Thanks for sharing!

Unexpected Applause: the After

I'm going to do something a little bit different with this review in that I'm also going to review the author, at least I am to an extent. Book reviews really aren't about he authors but about their products, but I really feel like talking about the author of this one a bit.

One of the things I see most frequently as a "rule of blogging" is to keep your posts short. I get it. I do. At least, I get the idea of it. I don't really agree with it, though. I don't agree with it for this reason: most short posts I see just don't say anything. At best, they talk about the idea of talking about something, but, because the blogger is trying to keep the post short, s/he never more than touches on a subject. Maybe s/he gives a list about the topic, but, honestly, a list doesn't say anything. They're good for a trip to the store but that's about it. The end result is that I don't tend to short posts or spend much more time on them than it takes to scan through it.

Briane Pagel is the only blogger I know that routinely writes longer posts than me. And not just on one blog! Briane writes about half a dozen different blogs, is a lawyer, and has twin 5-year-old sons. And writes books! He's by far the most prolific person I've ever known, and it wouldn't surprise me if, one day, his body of work surpasses Asimov's (generally considered the most prolific author to have ever lived). However, I think Briane is also one of the most overlooked bloggers I know. People are daunted by his long posts, and I think it's their loss. It's unfortunate that so many people are willing to not invest in worthwhile things. Like taking the time to prepare a meal rather than just heating up processed crap. What I'm saying here is that the time you would spend reading half a dozen other posts would be better spent reading one of Briane's posts.

Often Briane is like Kevin Smith, and I like that. Not just that Kevin is dialogue heavy, which I like, but the way that Kevin talks is how Briane writes. Have you ever seen any of Smith's Q&A DVDs? If not, you should go get one and watch it. It's a simple format: someone asks a question; Kevin answers it. But it's how Kevin answers the questions that make it so great. Often (almost every time), he'll go off on some tangent and, then, another, and, sometimes, another, and you're left thinking, "Where in the heck is this going? What in the world could it have to do with the original question?" But he always gets back to that question, and, when he does, there are great "ah-ha!" moments where you see how all of the tangents fold together to make that one story and how a simple answer to the question in no way would have been as satisfying as the story he told. And that's Briane Pagel.

And he has six blogs, so there's bound to be something that you'll like. I follow two of them myself: Thinking The Lions and The Best of Everything. Seriously, you should go check out his list of blogs and try a couple or few out. Don't be daunted by the length of the posts. They're worth the time.

Other than the blog stuff, Briane writes books. I've previously reviewed some of his other works (Eclipse and his Xmas story), and I just finished his latest release, the After.

Considering that this is the third book by him that I'm reviewing, not to mention hyping his blogs, you may make the assumption that I like his work. You may even make the assumption that I really like his work, and you would not be wrong.

So, as usual, let's start with the technicals and get the bad stuff out of the way. Briane's not much of an editor. He admits that he doesn't find it to be fun so doesn't spend much time on it. Fortunately for him, he's really very good without the editing. I'm pretty sure he doesn't do any editing on his blog posts, and they don't tend to have more than the occasional typo. the After, though, could have used some more editing. A lot more in all actuality. On the plus side, there are no consistent errors caused by not knowing any particular grammar rule, but there are lots and lots of left out words, wrong words, and just plain typing errors. There's also an issue with the formatting. The big issue, for me anyway, was that he gets the character names mixed around a few times, especially with Ansel and Austin, which caused me to have to go back and make sure I knew what was being said before I could go on. Due to the sheer number of errors, I'd have to give a "D" on the technicals.

So, if you are a person that has a problem getting into a story due to these kinds of things as I usually am, you may need to skip this one.

Pay attention to what I said though: "usually am." Generally speaking, poor editing is a big roadblock for me, but not this time. Briane's story sucked me right in. His main character, Saoirse, is easy to identify with, empathize with. You want to know what's going on with her. And I don't really want to say more than that, because you should really just experience it for yourself.

Be aware, though, that this is no straight forward story that takes you from point A to point B and you have everything laid out for you by the end. Briane doesn't really write that way. There is much of the surreal in this book, and, as in Eclipse, you don't always know what's real and what's not. But that's okay, because the After is not about the destination; it's about the journey, and all that's really ever important is what's happening at that given moment. It doesn't matter what's real or not, because what is "real" anyway? And that is one of the big questions in the book, "what is real?"

There is an answer. Or, at least, what I'm taking as an answer. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. Maybe, you know, after you read the book, we can sit down and discuss what you got out of it and compare it to what I got out of it, but I'm not going to tell you going in, because, then, you'll just be looking for my answer, and I wouldn't want to ruin the journey for you in  that way.

Hmm... in many ways, reading this book is like looking at an impressionist painting, especially Van Gogh. In fact, there is one scene that made me feel like I was looking at The Starry Night while I was reading it.

At any rate, I would call this a beautiful book that needs to be read by the more than just the few people that have read it so far. The story is so strong, in fact, that it far outweighs the poor editing, and I give the book a "B" overall. This is the kind of book that really makes me sad to have to even point out the editing/formatting issues, but I'd hate for anyone to pick it up and not be able to get into because of that, especially on my recommendation if that's actually going to be a stumbling block. However, it's only $0.99, so, you know, for less than a buck, you have nothing to lose. Okay, so you'd lose a dollar, but it's worth so much more than a $1.00 that it's worth the risk.

Do We Really Prefer Author's Preferred?

Roughly ten years ago, American Gods was released. The book won a lot of awards in a lot of different categories leading Neil Gaiman to believe that people don't really know what to make of his book. Having been such a big deal, the publisher wanted to release a special 10th anniversary edition, and Gaiman requested that he get to put back in about 12,000 words that had been edited out of the first edition. The publisher agreed, so we now have an "author's preferred text" edition of American Gods. I want to read it.

Why? I really don't know. It's not rational. Despite having thoroughly enjoyed it the first time through (and enjoying Anansi Boys even more), I've had no desire to go back and re-read it. I don't do a lot of re-reading (mostly because there are too many books I haven't read for the first time, yet), so the thought of re-reading Gods had never entered my head. But, despite reviews that mostly say there's nothing significant added back in, and despite the fact that it's been so long since I read it the first time that I wouldn't recognize any changes, anyway, I want to read this new edition. Even Gaiman says, based on how well the book sold, that his editor was probably correct in having him cut the 10,000+ words, but, yet, he wanted them back in the book. So, even though the book might actually be better for the lack of a dozen thousand words, I want to read the book that Gaiman intended it to be before the publishers and their editor got a hold of it.

It's not just Gaiman, either. I'm a sucker for any author's preferred edition of a book or director's cut of a movie. I have an innate distaste for someone coming in from the outside and imposing their view upon an artist. Any artist of any sort. Because who's to say that an editor's opinion will actually improve the work? Not that I don't understand the necessity of editors. Especially in movies. And in writing. I mean, you need someone with a different perspective to come in and ask questions sometimes. "What does this mean?" "What's happening here?" "How did we get to this part over here from where we were over there?" Things the author may miss because they exist in his head, and he can't see that he left a piece out for everyone else. But all of that is different from the specific type of editing I'm getting at. The part where someone comes in and says "change this" or "this is too long, cut this stuff out" or... well, there are too many ors.

 Maybe that's why I like Kevin Smith so much. He does it all himself, and his movies, for better or worse, really are his movies. He writes them, directs them, edits them all to his own vision. I appreciate that.

But does my preference for the author's (or director's) original vision translate to the culture at large? Actually, I think the mass of population really doesn't care. As an audience, we tend to pretend that this whole editing process doesn't happen. We like to believe that what we read is what the author intended for us to read. What we see is the director's vision of how the movie should be and not the studio's vision. But, then, there are a lot of movies out there with director's cuts options, although, mostly, those are just aimed at people that already own the movie and like it enough to double dip so they can see the differences between the two versions. I know I'm guilty.

Still... at some level, I think people do care. When they stop to think about it. If given the choice, people will pick the author's vision over the publisher's vision (or the director's vision over the studio's). I have a lot of supposition here, but what I know is that they keep releasing director's cuts and (to a lesser extent) author's preferred editions. They wouldn't do that if people weren't buying them, right? Right? I suppose the real question is who is buying them? Or maybe that doesn't matter.

I suppose my point lies somewhere in here: people don't read. Half of American adults do not read books. At all. Only about half of households buy even one book a year (some buy more, but that other half doesn't buy any). Even of college graduates, half of them will never read another book after graduation. And here's where it really makes me start to cringe (and this is based on memory (I couldn't find the article again)), only about 1/3 of adults in the USA consider themselves to be readers, and most of them (a huge most) will only read one book a year. One book. In a whole year. I have a hard time with this. Then, again, I have a brother who has never finished a book in his entire life. The closest he got was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn during high school, but he didn't finish it before the test, so he didn't finish it. Yes, this means he hasn't read my book, The House on the Corner, and I'm not expecting that he ever will. At any rate, these are the people that will say things like "it was too long" as a reason for not finishing or not ever picking up a book.

And, yet, this is the target audience for editors when they say, "Hey, your book is too long." Or "If you want more people to buy your book, you need to change x, y, and z." Why do we try to tailor books for these people? These are not the people that are buying most books. Certainly not the people reading most books. Remember that 50% of households and how they buy only one book a year? 50% of those books will go unread. These are not the people going back to buy the author's preferred edition.

The people going back to buy the book for a second time are people that read. And I don't mean one book a year people, I mean people that read. [I did try to find a statistic for people that read more than, say, 3 books a year, but I continued to just find more and more data about how 50% of Americans don't read at all. It got depressing, so I quit looking.] My impression is that most readers, when they find a story they love, want it to keep going. So, yes, when an author's preferred edition comes out with an extra 10,000 words, they want to read it. It may not be rational, but the desire is there.

To be completely honest, I haven't experienced an author's preferred edition that was really worth buying the book twice for, but I would have preferred to have had the author's version the first time. And I've only seen one director's cut of a movie that I thought was a significant improvement over the original: Daredevil. But, then, I liked the original; I just like the director's cut more. In fact, if I'm going to have a super hero movie on in the background, the director's cut of Daredevil is my choice. But, with most movies, it's nothing more than an interesting comparison. And, unfortunately, the director's cut of Highlander II did (very) little to improve it, even if they did cut out all mentions of Zeist. The main "improvement" of an author's edition is that it allows the reader to stay immersed for a greater length of time. Maybe that's all the improvement that's needed? Certainly, that's the reason that supplemental texts to The Lord of the Rings continue to be released. Lovers of Middle-Earth just want more of it. And Tolkien's publishers told him it was too long. (Not to mention the extended cuts of the movies.)

At the core, especially for Americans, I think we all want to see what the author intended for us to see. Maybe, MAYBE, more people would read if we let authors write their own stories instead of letting editors and publishers tell the author what they think the author should be writing. We certainly couldn't do worse. We have so many people saying "this is what people want," "this is what you need to write," "this is what you need to make" that everything is the same and no one wants any of it. Okay, that's not precisely true, but the things that really make it are the things that people that "know" said would never work. Like Harry Potter. People want to see the vision of the author (or director) for the story, not what the publisher (or studio) believes people want to see (I could go into Sony's insistence on the inclusion of Venom in Spider-Man 3 and how most people feel about that movie, but I think we just assume that conversation and skip it).

The fact that we have people that are willing to go back and buy what is essentially the same product twice so that they can experience a story the way the creator of the story intended it to be experienced says a lot to me. Primarily, it says that publishers should allow authors greater creative freedom. Publishers should stop trying to make everything fit into specific molds. Authors are good enough at following the popular route on their own that they don't really need any help from publishers in that. Or, you know, maybe it's all a scheme from the publishers... edit books down to fit arbitrary criteria so that, later, they can release the author's preferred text and make money twice. Don't laugh. I wouldn't put it past them!

Deleted scene:
In the spirit of the whole author's preferred text idea, I'm going to share a paragraph that got cut out. It's a good paragraph, but my post changed directions about halfway through, and, when I went back and re-structured the whole thing, the paragraph really didn't fit back in.

 Books, as they've been for at least the past many decades, are not the work of the author. Not just the author, at any rate. Yes, the author writes the book, but, once a publisher agrees to publish the book, it becomes subject to editing by the publisher. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing. By all accounts, many of the people we view as the greats could never have been published without the assistance of one or more editors to get their manuscripts into the kind of shape that would enable an audience to read said manuscript. I think it was Faulkner (although I may be misremembering) that was notorious for turning in piles of pages with just one or two words on them each and no way of knowing what order the pages belonged. Maybe that, in the end, explains his stream-of-consciousness writing.

There you go. A rare deletion from me. Rare because I don't often go back and completely re-write. I'm pretty good at knowing where I'm going when I start writing, but this post fooled me and changed directions causing me to have to go back and start over. However, it does give me this opportunity to include this cut bit even if the post is a day later than I intended it to be.

I want my two hours!

Today is the day of the

being run by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Should be an interesting topic. See, the thing is, everyone's favorite movies tend to all run in the same direction. Which is not to say that everyone has the same most favoritest movie, but, if you go looking around at people's favorites lists, the movies listed become rather repetitive. It's not all that often you'll come across something that really stands out. However!
People tend to have different lists for movies they hate, and that list can be much more  interesting than favorites. I mean, generally, when you hear that someone loves Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you just smile and nod in agreement, "Yeah, that's a great movie." But, when you hear the list of movies people don't like, there is the opportunity for those, "What are you talking about?!" moments, "I love that movie!"

Contrary to popular belief, I quite like movies. Back when I was in high school and college, my friends believed, except for a few exceptions (like Star Wars), that I hated movies. Really, I just made them hate movies. We'd come out of seeing something, and I would point out the flaws and weaknesses, and they would go from "that movie was great" to "oh... that movie really wasn't very good." They interpreted that to mean that I had not liked the movie when that was usually not the case at all. Even though I could pick the movie apart, it didn't (necessarily) diminish my enjoyment. I just accepted that (most) movies would have issues and accepted them for what they were despite plot holes, bad acting, or predictable endings. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth shut so that my friends could retain their own enjoyment.

None of that is to say that I don't have my own list of movies that you couldn't pay me to sit through again. Okay, well, you probably could pay me, but you'd really have to make it worth my while. I mean, really, really worth my while, and I consider my while to be worth quite a bit. Mostly, I'm going to focus on big, blockbuster movies that I think are completely overrated, although there will be a few where, if I could have, I would have demanded my two hours back. Keep the money, just give me back the time I wasted.

I'm not going to do a countdown here. Well, except for the top few. Mostly, I'm going to go sort of chronologically and deal with them at the time in my life when they happened, and why I think they don't deserve the attention they get.

10. Superman. There has not been a Superman movie made that is worth seeing. I grew up watching the old George Reeves Superman television series, which I thought was great (I haven't seen it since I was a kid, so I don't know how I would feel about it, today, but I loved it back then). The first movie was so much worse than the TV series. Not that Christopher Reeve wasn't good, but the movie itself was just boring. I've never understood why so many people hold it up as the epitome of the super hero movie. Yes, it was the first, but that doesn't make it the best. Besides the boring, it had one of the stupidest endings ever. You  have to understand that this is coming from the 8-year-old me, too. The idea that Superman could fly around the Earth really fast and make time go backwards is just... well, it's stupid. If an 8-year-old could recognize that, there's no excuse for all the adults that were all giddy over the film. And that was the high point of the Superman franchise. Don't get me started on Superman Returns. That's one of those where I want my 2 hours back. Brandon Routh did a great job with what he was given; unfortunately, what he was given was a steaming pile of crap, and there's just not a lot you can do with that.

9. Star Trek. Excluding the latest Abrams version, these movies should never have been made. Again, the first one was the best, and they just went down hill from there. Yes, I hear you all out there cursing me and protesting with mumblings about Wrath of Kahn, but, really, it just sucked. At least, the first one actually had an interesting plot. It might even have been okay if they hadn't been so busy patting themselves on  the back over their less than adequate special effects that they felt it necessary to devote over 30 minutes of screen time to absolutely nothing happening. "Ooh! Our model of the Enterprise looks really cool doesn't it?" "Yes, it does!" "Let's just pan around that sucker for, like, 15 minutes so the audience can really appreciate it!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" And, then: "Ooh! Look at all the pretty technicolors we can make!" "That's awesome!" "Let's just have Spock fly into this stuff for the next 20 minutes so the audience can appreciate all the cool stuff we can do!" "Oh, yes, absolutely!" What a waste of time.
Now, to be fair, I'm a Star Wars kind of guy, and the action in Star Wars is "faster and more intense!" Action in the Star Trek movies is pretty yawn inducing. That's not tension; it's boredom.
In the end, though, the biggest issue with Star Trek as movies is that I never felt like I was watching a movie. They were just episodes of the TV show that were, for some reason, being shown at the theater. That's just not right. If they'd been on TV, they might have been okay.
The Abrams one, though, that was a movie, and doesn't belong in this list.

8. Batman. To be specific, the Batman franchise that was started by Tim Burton. I think I was the only person that came out of the theater in 1989 with the words "well, that sucked" on my lips. The thing is, if Burton had just been honest and called that first movie The Joker, I might have been okay with it. As it was, though, I hated it. And Keaton, whom everyone was worried couldn't do Batman was fine as Batman, but he sucked as Bruce Wayne. And the more of those movies they made, the worse they got. To the point of, "I want my two hours back!"
Years later, I found out why they were so bad. During a controversy with Kevin Smith, Burton proclaimed, "I would never read a comic book." Tell me how, exactly, you can attempt to make a movie about Batman without ever looking at the source material. That explains why he got everything wrong about those movies.

7. Catwoman. Is there even anything that needs to be said about this one? Well, maybe, source material. Use it. What a disaster of a movie.

6. Event Horizon. I honestly can't tell you why I hated this movie. It was so bad, I've wiped the memory of it from my mind. I just know that my wife and I barely sat through it. In retrospect, I'm not sure why we did. Stupid, stupid movie. One of those movies that forgets that people that really like sci-fi tend to be pretty smart people so failed to bring any amount of intelligence to the table.

5. The Matrix 2 & 3. These movies prove that sequels shouldn't be added after the fact. Although, now, the Wachowski brothers claim that The Matrix was always intended to be a series, that's just a way to justify making sequels for a movie that was never intended to have a sequel. They said as much before they started work on Matrix 2. But the money got into them, and they added a Terminator ending onto what had been a smart, thought-provoking movie. I want my 4 hours back!

4. Green Lantern. I already did a post about this one (you can see it here), so I'm not going to re-review it. Just give me back my 2 hours, okay? With the amount of money this one lost (like $100 million), I can't believe they're making a sequel.

3. Independence Day. The only stupid movie I'm glad I saw in the theater. It was worth seeing it that one time in the theater, because it really did have some cool scenes that would have been lost seeing on just a TV. However, that doesn't justify the utter stupidity that was the plot of this movie. Peter David (one of the greatest writers of comic books ever) did a great review of it back in the day which totally supported all the things that I had been telling my friends that sucked about it. It was one of those movies where the makers tried to distract the audience from the stupidity with cool, flashy things on the screen. Unfortunately, it worked. The only saving grace was Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum; they were great together. It wasn't enough to disguise the big platter of poo poo that was Independence Day, though. At least, not for me.

2. Highlander II: The Quickening. I loved the first Highlander movie. Yes, I realize it's pretty cheesy looking, today, but it was such a great concept. I watched everything that Lambert did for years after Highlander. And there was Sean Connery, too, who was already in my top 3 actors back then in 1986 (he's not anymore, although he probably still makes the top 10). How could they go wrong with a sequel? They forgot they're own source material, that's how. "Hey, I have an idea! Let's take this great fantasy movie we have and turn it into some weird sci-fi movie! That'll work, right?" Wrong. I got to see Highlander 2 for free at a special screening and walked out feeling like I'd been ripped off. That's pretty darn impressive, if you ask me.

1. The Dungeonmaster. Easily, the worst movie I've ever seen. Which I've mentioned before. I don't think 14-year-olds are supposed to walk out of movies feeling like they just wasted 2 hours of their lives. I mean, 14-year-olds are supposed to be wowed by anything that approaches special effects and be easy to please, right? Evidently, that was not the case with me. I walked out of that movie with the thought that it was the worst movie I'd ever seen, and that opinion hasn't changed in more than 25 years. Considering that Highlander 2 and Green Lantern are on this list, The Dungeonmaster is impressively bad. I want my 2 hours back!

There you have it. The worst movies I've ever seen. Well, many of them, anyway. There are a few more that could have made the list, like that monstrosity of a Godzilla movie that was made by the Independence Day people. And the animated Transformers movie. Probably even Cowboys vs Aliens, but I actually haven't seen that one, yet, and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it after what I've heard.
Okay, you can all scream at me, now.

The Middleman and the History of Television

Okay, so I'm not really going to give you the history of television. I mean, how boring, right? Actually, I'm not sure if that would be boring or not seeing as how I know absolutely nothing about the history of that most predominant of items in homes. Did you know that on average there are more television sets per household than there are people? How scary is that? And that doesn't include computers which can serve a similar function. It's no wonder, though, that what we watch, how much we watch, has such a huge influence on the way we write. But that's another story.

TV wasn't a huge thing for me when I was kid. Except on Saturday mornings. I wouldn't do anything without my Saturday morning cartoons.The rest of the time, I was more interested in playing. And by playing, I mean playing outside. TV was only for when there was absolutely nothing else to do. The problem was that, as I got older, the times when there was nothing to do became more and more frequent. By the time I was in middle school, I ruled the television set from the time I got home until the news came on at 10. That was my cue to shuffle off to bed and read for a couple or few hours.

All of that changed my freshman year of high school. There's a story that goes with that (I have stories that go with pretty darn near everything), but, near the end of my freshman year, I discovered there was life outside of TV, and I gave it up. Not that I made any kind of declaration, "I'm giving up TV!" or anything like that, but I just lost interest in it, and I've never gone back. Which is not to say that I never watched TV again, but it's never dictated my schedule to me again. There was a period during college when my best friend and I were addicted to Stand Up Stand UP, Whose Line Is It Anyway? and a couple of other shows like that on the newly formed The Comedy Channel (yes, it wasn't Comedy Central, yet, in those days) which was difficult because neither of us had a TV, at the time, so we snatched viewings at my parents' house (a couple of times a week when we were there) or wherever we could.

You have to remember, this was before DVDs and the wide proliferation of TV shows available for purchase. If you wanted to watch something, you pretty much had to be there at the designated time slot on  the designated day. Or, you know, know how to program a VCR for which you had to take advanced courses in college to be able to do. Fortunately, at the time, I invested in those courses. Which are totally useless today. At any rate, it took an extra effort for any show to catch my eye in the first place, and it had to be pretty spectacular for me to bother myself with recording it. Like I said, I no longer bent to the whims of television schedules.

I bet you're wondering what kind of shows I would go out of my way to record, aren't you? I bet you're thinking that if I would go to such lengths as to program the VCR to record them that they must have been pretty spectacular. Are you getting your pad of paper and a pen to make notes about the incredibly sophisticated and deep viewing I'm about to lay out before you? Are you ready for it? The list isn't very long. In fact, there are only three shows that ever demanded such loyalty from me. Are you ready? They're Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (which I misplaced my dedication to after the second season), The Flash, and Animaniacs. Yes, I'm serious. Best cartoon ever. EVER!

The Flash was the first series that I loved that just didn't make it however much it deserved to. But a higher profile show keep using up all its blue screen time and forced delay after delay upon it so that it couldn't maintain its viewers because new episodes came out only about once every three weeks. However, Mark Hamill's two episodes as the Trickster are incredible, and it's unfortunate that the show couldn't sustain an audience.

Eventually, I moved out to CA and got married. At this point, my wife and I actually did make a premeditated decision that we weren't going to have TV in our house. It's one of those things that, if it's available, it's hard to control. It starts with just one show. I had avoided watching TV up to that point by never being home (or shut up in my room painting), but you can't really run a marriage that way, so we chose no TV.

For a long time, that really meant no TV. At all. The television set was, basically, a miniature movie screen in our house, because that's all it was ever used for. Later, there was the DVD player, and, later still, Buffy. And that's how we watch television. We hear that something is really good, so we decide we'll try it out. That's extremely easy to do these days with Netflix

My wife and I don't have enough shows to keep us viewing all year long (or even most of the year long), so, between DVD releases of the shows we follow, we try out new things. One of the disappointing things we've learned is that we tend toward shows that, for whatever reason, didn't make it. Like The Flash. And Deadwood (which may be my wife's favorite show ever). Firefly. The one we just discovered, and we knew it had been cancelled before we watched any of it, is The Middleman.

I don't have a good way of describing The Middleman in any concise sort of way. Yeah, I hear you thinking. Why would I bother with concise? When am I ever concise? Maybe, one of these days, I'll explore the genius of Kevin Smith, and, then, you will understand. Or, probably, not. Yes, I've always been this way.
Anyway...

The Middleman is about this super hero guy called the Middleman and his Middleman in training, who happens to be female. They work for an organization they refer to as O2STK (Organization Too Secret To Know), and that's just the tip of the awesome that is this show. The fact that the villains are continually saying, "My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity," as they monologue about their convoluted schemes to take over the world (or destroy it) is frosting goodness.

It's a tongue-in-cheek look at pop culture that pokes fun at it while simultaneously celebrating it. The far too few episodes tend to revolve around a specific theme and are full of references to the pop culture landmarks that inspired them. However, don't mistake my praise for the show as being any kind of suggestion that you should rush out and watch it. In all likelihood, you shouldn't. By the second episode, I was fully aware of why Middleman got cancelled.

It's not that it's too intelligent for the average viewer, although it is. Despite it's campy appearance (yes, it does wear camp clothes, dressing itself up to resemble the Batman series of the 60s with such things as the Middlemobile), it is, in many ways, too sophisticated for the average viewer. If you can't catch the subtleties, you'll just think it's silly. To make matters worse, if you're not pretty well grounded in your pop culture lore, the vast majority of the jokes will go right over your head. There's nothing worse than a joke you don't get in a show meant to be funny. And, if it's meant to be funny, and you're only getting every 3rd or 4th joke, you tend to, well, think it's not funny. It's like being the person in the room staring at Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a glazed expression while everyone else laughs uncontrollably.

So... it's not a show I can actually recommend, but I liked it so much, I needed to write about it. The sad part is that it did have some really interesting sub-plots developing, and we'll never know what was to come of them. The only real reason I could suggest watching it is if you really wanted to know how off center I am. Either you'd get the show, and say "oh, wow, this is great," in which case you would be revealed to be off center, too, or you'd make the yuck face and think (or, maybe, even say out loud), "He likes this? What's wrong with him?"

Of course, Middleman did get a fairly good critical reaction. Like Arrested Development. But, when everything comes down to how much money it can generate, the bits on either end of the bell curve (the great and the horrible) become indistinguishable to the profit gurus. Which is just too bad, because everything becomes the same old bland mass market crap. Whit rice, white bread, and white TV. Read anything you want into that statement. I'm sure you won't be wrong.

Harrison Ford and the Raw Deal

For over a decade, Harrison Ford held the distinction of being the biggest grossing star in Hollywood. That position is now held by Samuel Jackson, but it took more than twice as many movies for him to get there. Ford still has the highest average film gross of any actor (although Tom Hanks isn't far behind). Ford has done something that actors are very rarely able to do; he has become, not one, but two, iconic characters. Almost three, but the Jack Ryan movies never quite became the franchise it was expected they would become (and possibly would have if Alec Baldwin hadn't dropped out after Red October).

He's Han Solo and Indiana Jones; how could he possibly be getting any kind of raw deal? The problem is that he has done that specific job too well. He is so much the rough and tumble action hero that audiences have become incapable of seeing him as anything else. They just won't accept him in any other type of role.

There was excessive grumbling when Regarding Henry came out in 1991. It underperformed, and people blamed it on Ford. The truth is is that he did a fine job in that movie, but people didn't want to see him in that role, so he was attributed with a bad performance. He tried Sabrina. It was felt that Ford was the Bogart of his time, so he would be perfect for the role, but audiences didn't accept him in that role, either. Audiences began screaming with the release of Six Days Seven Nights. There was no lovable scoundrel  in Quinn Harris; in fact, audiences generally felt the character of Quinn was unlikeable, and the film barely broke even. And despite doing well at the box office, I remember the horrified wails that accompanied What Lies Beneath as people everywhere refused to see Ford as a villain. More than any other, it was, perhaps, that movie that drove the final spike into Ford's career as anything more than an action hero. Or, even, anything more than one of his iconic roles (but maybe that will change with the release of Cowboys & Aliens later this summer). Of the seven movies Ford made between Clear and Present Danger and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, only two were hits at the box office: Air Force One and What Lies Beneath. None of the three he's done since Crystal Skull have been hits.

This is unfortunate, because he does have a broader range than that of the lovable scoundrel. It's really not his fault that the American movie going audience can't separate him from his most famous roles. And, in  the end, it's their loss.

We just watched Morning Glory. This movie has a stellar cast. Not only does it have Harrison Ford, but it also has Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, and Jeff (does anyone even remember him?) Goldblum. They are all wonderful, and it is an excellent movie. Ford plays a washed up reporter, a former legend, the "3rd worst person in the world." Although I'm sure it wasn't intentional, the role is somewhat a parody of Ford himself. He's become a crotchety old man who can't escape what he used to be to accept what he's become. It would not have surprised me he'd slipped in "I was Han Solo!" as he gave  one of his many diatribes about his former accomplishments.

The sad part is that no one saw this movie. As a Hollywood movie, it was fairly low budget. Only $40,000,000. Yes, that's low in Hollywood terms. Scary, I know. It didn't make a profit. By a lot. Didn't come close. But it was so good, and Ford was... actually, he was spectacular. He played the role to perfection. They all did. Possibly, if Rachel McAdams had slightly more drawing power, people would have gone to see it for her, but that didn't happen. In fact, Ford's non-iconic star has fallen so far, that McAdams got top billing for the movie.

We talk frequently about entertainers only being capable of doing particular types of things, and, sometimes, that's true. More often than not, though, I think it's not true. We've just decided that they are only capable of particular types of roles, certain kinds of movies, specific genres of novels, and we, the audience, won't allow these people out of the boxes we've put them in. I mean, Kevin Smith tried to break away from his formula, partially due to criticism that he was a one-trick pony, and he produced Jersey Girl, a great movie that no one saw, because it wasn't want his fans wanted.

We trap these people into "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations. Granted, some of them are quite satisfied with the boxes they get put in. Michael Bay comes to mind. He's good at what he does, and he seems satisfied with that. For now. But what if he decides that he wants to make a "serious" movie. To prove that he can do more than blow things up. No, I'm not saying I believe he's capable of more than that, but I'm also not saying that I believes he's not.

If you haven't seen Morning Glory, I suggest you give it a shot. Forget, as you should, that it's Harrison Ford. Don't think about Han Solo or Indiana Jones or, even, Jack Ryan. Think about Mike Pomeroy. Allow him to be that character. I think you'll be surprised and find that he's more than capable of filling those shoes, too.

He could be the shark!

All right pop culture fans, it's time for another pop culture edition! So grab a bowl and fill it up. Remember, pop culture always stays crunchy in milk! Or, if you don't want milk, sprinkle it with some Parmesan. Try it!

Over the weekend, I finally saw the movie The Town. It fell just short of the arbitrary $100 million blockbuster mark, so it was a solid success for Affleck, who starred in, directed, and co-wrote  the film. Just a quick summary as this post is not really about the movie. The Town is about a bank robber who doesn't really like what he does. Avoiding spoilers, the film is about what happens to him when he falls in love. Affleck does a great job of pulling off the anti-heroic role, and I was reminded several times of his role in Good Will Hunting, which he also co-wrote. The power of his performance can be summed up in this: as we were nearing the end of the movie, my wife said, "I don't want anything bad to happen. I know that bad things are going to happen, but I don't want it to."

It's good to see Ben Affleck "back." Not that he hasn't been "back" for a while, but The Town was significant in that, if it had failed, all the work he's done since the whole Jennifer Lopez thing may have been for naught, and he may have been stuck in supporting roles for, at least, the foreseeable future. By the way, if you haven't seen it, and you probably haven't, go out of your way to see Hollywoodland. There is one good thing that came out of the Lopez affair, it made Affleck more picky about the projects he's become involved in.

For my part, I never quit liking Affleck. Yeah, yeah, I hear you out there, now, "of course, you say that, now," but, really, my view has always been that the negative backlash against him (especially for something that had nothing to do with his acting) was stupid. And the worst part is that it damaged more than just him. Daredevil, which is one of my favorite superhero movies (and great to just have on in the background while doing other things), got an incredibly bad rap for using Affleck, although the worst thing most people could say was that Affleck doesn't have blond hair. Seriously? That's all you can come up with? Speaking as a comic book person, Daredevil was a great adaptation and stands solidly with Spider-Man and Iron Man. Then, there's Jersey Girl.

Jersey Girl might actually be Kevin Smith's best film. It's touching and sweet and real. And Affleck shines in it. But no one saw it. I mean, not only did it have Affleck, but Lopez has a (very) short-lived role. And, of course, Smith fans wouldn't watch it because it was such a departure from his "normal" work. What's with that? Slam a guy for only ever doing the same kind of thing, but, when he tries to do something different, slam him for not doing what he's always done? How's that okay? It is possible that the majority of Kevin Smith fans will never like Jersey Girl, because it doesn't deliver the thing that makes them like him to begin with, but that doesn't make it a bad movie, and it's no excuse for everyone else who shunned it for no other reason than Affleck was the star at a time when he wasn't popular because of whom he was dating.

At any rate, it's good to see Affleck back in the seat of respectability. He's a great actor. And he has a great smile. I cannot say otherwise: 1. because it's true 2. because my wife loves it. I'd love to see Affleck and DiCaprio in something together. Oh, the title! I wish I could remember in what interview Kevin Smith says that, but he's talking about Affleck's acting ability. I think it's in something related to Daredevil; although, it's not really important. Smith says that Affleck can do anything. In fact, he says, he could be in Jaws... as the shark!

To tie all this into writing, which, no, I don't have to do since this is an all pop culture post, but I feel like making this parallel. Sometimes, the hard times, although they seem really bad, at the time, can force good results. Affleck had to start accepting projects that would be good for his career, not just good for his bank account. Writing can be like that. Sometimes, as writers, we have to look really hard at what's good for the story, not just what feels good to us. And, sometimes, if we want other people to read what we've written, we have to look at what is appealing to the larger audience, not just at what is appealing to us. And that can be the hardest thing.