Spoiler-free review of Jurassic World

Plus:

1. Jurassic World cost Universal $150 million to make (or so I’ve read), which is relatively cheap for a big summer blockbuster, and every last penny is on the screen. Almost non-stop visual splendor (thanks to a seamless blend of ultra-realistic dinosaur effects and striking cinematography), which is more than I can say for recent productions like Godzilla and Skyfall, both of which had much larger budgets and far less to show for it.

2. I don’t know much about graphic design, but that logo up top is flat-out brilliant. The design, the colors, the textures, the font, the blue tracing inside the lettering. You could teach an entire course using this graphic alone.

3. Dinosaurs.

4. If you’re a crankypants who is too sophisticated to acknowledge popular entertainment, why are you reading this?

Minus:

1. The screenplay appears to have been written by an eight-year-old with ADHD.

2. This plot has more dropped threads than a yarn store after an earthquake.

3. All the 3D glasses in the world won’t give these cardboard cut-out characters depth.

4. And since when does an “embedded dinosaur tracking device” look like a vacuum tube from a Marshall guitar amp?

Overall: You really have to love dinosaurs or you will get absolutely nothing from this movie. I guess if you think Chris Pratt is hot…

My 3 favorite Christopher Lee movies

By now you’ve probably read that horror movie icon and cinema legend Christopher Lee has died at age 93. One of the most prolific actors in movie history with 281 screen performances spanning 8 decades, Lee found fame portraying Dracula but is probably better known to young filmgoers as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films and as Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels.

I’ve been a huge fan since I was a wee lad, so I simply must come out of blogging retirement to pay tribute to the man. For Sir Christopher Lee, my three favorite of your many great films:

3. City of the Dead (1960)

(sorry he’s not in the trailer than much)

2. Horror of Dracula (1958)

1. Horror Express (1972)

 

I’m finally one of the cool kids

If you want to be popular, you usually have to be good-looking, wealthy, charismatic, famous, athletic, or have some sort of talent in the arts. I arguably possess a bit of the last one, but widespread dissemination of said talent is often needed before you can go clubbing in New York with an entourage that may or may not include current NBA stars, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and at least two former Nickelodeon starlets who are now 25-going-on-50 and totally wacked-out on cocaine.

However, there is a secret side-door for us normies into the world of the cool kids: Resembling a newly famous celebrity. Remember all the girls getting their hair straightened to look like Jennifer Aniston back in the ’90s? Teenage girls are probably dressing and styling themselves after Rihanna and Taylor Swift these days, though I wouldn’t know because I haven’t worked in a shopping mall since VCRs.

I’ve never had the good fortune to resemble a trendy famous person. I look more like Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, than I do Justin Bieber, and I can’t believe this sentence now exists.

Then, two weeks ago, things changed. British actor Peter Capaldi took over the lead role in BBC’s global phenomenon Doctor Who. Whenever a new performer steps into that iconic role, he instantly becomes the most talked about actor in Great Britain.

And what are people discussing about Mr. Capaldi? His acting? No. His eyebrows. Dude’s brows are already legendary.

I was chatting about the latest episode with a friend the other day when she stopped in mid-sentence. “Holy crap, Eric,” she said. “You got Capaldi brows!”

I immediately took to Twitter with this boast and, as if to prove my point about side-door popularity before I even thought of it, BBC picked it up and retweeted it to thousands and thousands of people. Somehow I doubt uncool kids get retweeted like that.

Here’s the photographic evidence:

 

Capaldi vs Baker

Note: If you’d like to be in my entourage, please submit an essay explaining why you are cool enough and how many drinks you are willing to buy me. Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A bit of sad news this week: Lost amid the chatter about the Jennifer Lawrence photo-hacking scandal was the death of singer Jimi Jamison of the ’70s and ’80s pop-rock band Survivor, whose hits included  Eye of the Tiger (with a different singer), The Search is Over, I Can’t Hold Back, and High on You. Survivor never received critical recognition and, to be real, their music didn’t have much substance. However, they did know how to craft a good pop song. Regardless of their place in music history,  Jimi Jamison had a killer voice. You don’t have to like their music (which I do) to admit the guy owned serious pipes. He could have sung for Journey.

Jamison died this past Sunday at age 63. Rock on, Jimi!

Goodbye, Rik Mayall (1958-2014)

Rik Mayall

As a child of the 1980s raised on MTV, I remember three things about that channel:

1. World Premiere Videos by Journey, Michael Jackson, and Duran Duran

2. Headbangers Ball on Saturday night

3. The Young Ones

Gen Xers should know The Young Ones, the utterly demented British TV series about the four worst college students in the whole world: Neil the Hippie, Vyvyan the punk rocker, Mike the vertically challenged Casanova, and Rick the anarchist.

The Young Ones: Nigel Planer (Neil), Rik Mayall (Rick), Christopher Ryan (Mike), Adrian Edmondson (Vyvyan)

Though it ran for only 12 episodes, The Young Ones made a lasting impact on us MTV children. Everyone had a favorite character, but every good sitcom has a villain, and in this case, that villain was Rick. Played to the max by comedian Rik Mayall, he fancied himself a budding Che Guevara but, to his endless frustration, was viewed by the rest of the world as a pimple-faced twit.

Mayall went on to star in the cult hit Drop Dead Fred (1991) and appeared on hundreds of BBC shows since. He died today at age 56.

Sayonara, Mr. Mayall. You made me laugh.

***

A few Young Ones clips featuring Rik Mayall and friends (see if you can pick out some famous faces amongst the guest stars):

“Diversity” explained for racists

Warning: Eric is on his soap box again. He still managed to throw in some gags, though. Always with the jokes, this kid.

As anyone with an internet connection could have predicted, the long-anticipated and finally confirmed casting of Lupita Nyong’o in the new Star Wars movie caused an uproar among racist idiots online today.

For those who don’t pay attention to Hollywood stuff, Ms. Nyong’o won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar this year for her performance in the acclaimed film 12 Years a Slave. Meanwhile, if you have never heard of Star Wars, I can’t help you.

You can probably tell from her photograph that she’s black. This is very upsetting to a lot of people. Of the principle cast of about 15 actors announced for the new Star Wars movie, 13 are white. Clearly, white folks are being robbed of their cultural identity by the producers of this movie!

Side note: I don’t recall anyone being upset about the number of green characters in the original Star Wars trilogy. Yoda, Jabba the Hut, and Greedo vs. Lando Calrissian. Greens outnumber blacks 3 to 1!

So anyway, the racists are angry because, if I can boil it down for you, “diversity” is being shoved down their throats (the de rigueur expression of bigots who resent having to accept the existence of anyone not like them). Everyone knows that characters in popular films are all supposed to be white, so when a black (or Asian, etc.) person is cast, it is nothing less than political correctness gone mad.

These are the same folks who lament, with sarcasm, that we don’t have “White History Month” and “White Entertainment Television,” as if history and TV weren’t already that.

This explanation is for them, but they aren’t here, so please read anyway and help my words feel noticed:

“Diversity” is not a weapon being wielded against you. It’s the intermediate step between the Civil Rights movement of the past and future total engagement, in which people of all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds participate equally. It means getting used to a more culturally diverse world, whether you like it or not, because you can’t stop the world from changing. It always does.

The outrage about Star Wars is particularly dumb, considering the story takes place in another galaxy. There is no reason to believe humanoid life forms there would favor one skin color over another. Think about that next time those jerks in Hollywood ruin your favorite movie franchise by casting actors who actually reflect the variety of people living on the real planet where it’s filmed.

Lupita Nyong’o was cast in Star Wars for the same reason people always get cast in high-profile Hollywood films: She is young, talented, trendy, likable, and photogenic.

She also earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale Drama School and has directorial credits on her resume, which is more than most movie stars can say. And she is fluent in four languages. I hardly think she represents a token sacrifice to the gods of political correctness.

In other words, her “15 minutes of fame” as you say (good lord I hate that misused and abused cliché) is not going to be over any time soon. Sorry (not really).

Hard to find, work is, for green actors.

Why Godzilla is the Best Thing Ever

A group of business professionals with college degrees sat around a table in their office building today discussing the most critical topic of the week, far more important than any potential merger, major new account, or policy initiative: When to see the new Godzilla movie that opens this weekend.

Thank you, world, for finally catching up with me. It has been a lonely bunch of decades.

I am a man of many interests. Music. Writing. Art. Film. Architecture. Science. Multiculturalism. Civil Rights… Drums. Guitars. Rock. Soul. Jazz. Metal. Funk. Pop. Classical… Horror and science fiction. Star Wars. Star Trek. Doctor Who. Zombie movies. Italian Gialli. Friday the 13^th. Tarantino. Kubrick. Cronenberg…

I remember where I was in my life when I discovered all these things, and I know how each interest has helped shape my identity.

On the other hand, there’s Godzilla. I don’t recall discovering Godzilla, simply because my memory has not retained anything prior to age three. I was already a veteran at that point.

My mom has photos of the toddler me sitting on the floor, staring in wonder at our grainy old Zenith TV while the world’s most famous monster stomped across the screen, kicking up a maelstrom of fire, debris, sparks, and wind as he obliterated yet another Japanese city. The TVs have gotten better, DVDs and blu-rays offer picture quality undreamed of in the days of Saturday-morning monster marathons, and a 180-million-dollar epic remake is about to shake theater speakers all across the world, but the star of the show hasn’t really changed, other than cosmetically. Godzilla is still the coolest, baddest, biggest character in all of cinema.

Yes, the budgets were low in those old flicks. Of course it was a guy in a rubber suit. No, I don’t believe Godzilla exists on the same artistic plane as Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, or Martin Scorsese.  But as much as I revere those artists, only Godzilla:

• Inspired a shy, scrawny little boy feel strong for the first time in his life
• Awakened that boy’s imagination and stimulated his drive to tell colorful, fantastical stories
• Impressed upon that boy what wonderful, unreal things were possible if he was open to them
• Put an appreciation, fascination, and respect for other cultures and ethnicities into his young, impressionable mind before forces around him had a chance to indoctrinate him to a life of judgment and intolerance

If you didn’t grow up watching this stuff, there’s little I can do to convince you Godzilla is great. I will only say that what’s ridiculous about those films is also what makes them so spectacular: The outlandish, implausible monsters and the manic plots. In one, a metallic bird monster with a buzz-saw chest and a bomb-spitting giant cockroach from an undersea kingdom team up to fight a robot that can change size at will and a 30-storey Tyrannosaurus who shoots blue fire from his mouth.

Show that to a three-year-old child and see if he lacks for imagination when he grows up. I may not recall my first experience with Godzilla, but I remember my son’s, and I will admit to more than a little satisfaction when he became mesmerized in an instant. Years later, he speaks with reverence of the different films and monsters, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention he is a rather imaginative writer himself.

I’ll also invalidate the frequent criticism that the films are “cheesy” because of the obvious special effects fakery. Realism and naturalism in art is a western convention. East Asian art has never aspired to look “realistic,” so comparisons are irrelevant. But I’ll make one anyway: watch any of the contemporaneous monster movies filmed in the west. With rare exception, the creatures and sets are rather shoddy compared to those constructed by their Japanese counterparts.

Oh, and making fun of the dubbing is misdirected superiority. The bad lip-syncing is the fault of the American distributor, not the filmmakers.

End of mini-lecture.

I have no idea if this American remake is going to be any good, though it is getting excellent reviews and appears to pay great respect and homage to the source material. I guess I’ll find out Saturday morning, when I invite the whole world into my house for two hours.

***

A gallery of big G through the decades

The 1950s, as a metaphor for the atomic bomb

The 1960s, as a burgeoning global icon

The 1970s, as a children’s superhero

The 1980s, once again as a metaphor for nuclear proliferation

The 1990s, as a super-sized commercial property

The 2000s, highly stylized and re-imagined for 21st-century tastes

Back in (Orphan) Black

Being addicted to TV shows while trying to write a novel is a futile endeavor. That’s why I have a rule: Follow no more than three series at a time.

I’m sure I am missing out on some terrific storytelling for the sake of attempting my own. But I also can’t hear every great album ever recorded or taste every delicious dessert ever baked. Life is making choices, and I want to publish a novel one day. Thus, three shows. If I want to pick up a new one, an existing one has to go.

Thank Zeus, then, that The Walking Dead just ended. Orphan Black is back and I’m not going to miss it.

BBC America’s sci-fi mystery resumes this Saturday night nearly a year after season one ended in a cliffhanger, and it’s well worth your hour. If the term “sci-fi mystery” turns you off, don’t let it. You don’t have to be a Star Trek geek to love Orphan Black (though I’d adore you even more if you were). This show is very soft science fiction: No space ships, no aliens, no laser beams. It’s all concept and story, Earthbound, and features little in the way of technical effects, aside from the ones you won’t notice.

Whatever your taste in TV drama, you should watch it for one reason, and that’s lead actress Tatiana Maslany. Brilliant is too tepid a word to describe her performance, for Maslany plays not one, not two, no three, but eight (!) characters, many of whom routinely interact. At several points throughout season one, Maslany even played characters impersonating other characters. Often I forget it’s one actress, like when I get a crush on one character while simultaneously being irritated by another in the same scene.

I think awards shows are self-congratulatory marketing tools at best, but if this woman does not win a best actress Emmy next year, that event is rigged.

Here is a gallery of her characters (a few didn’t make it to the end of the season, but I’m sure she’ll introduce new ones to replace them):

Sarah

Beth

Alison

Helena

Cosima (My crush. Hey, she’s a sexy science geek. Can’t not)

Katja

Rachel

Jennifer

 

How about you? Do you allow for TV time? What’s your show?

My Wish List for The Walking Dead – Season 4B

I’d warn you that this post contains spoilers, but, for cryin’ out loud, you have had two flippin’ months to catch up on The Walking Dead. Do you expect the whole world to grind a halt while you shuffle around aimlessly like… well, you know… a zombie, expecting that someone will eventually traipse along to pin your eyelids open and make you watch the darn thing? Frankly, I’ve had it up to here with you and your sense of entitlement!

Right.

TV’s #1 drama without an acronym for a title returns from hiatus this Sunday, February 9 to begin the back 8 episodes of season 4. When last we left Rick and gang, their prison compound was wiped out and overrun with walkers, and the band of bloodied and broken survivors had scattered in different directions, cut off from each other and alone. The action-packed mid-season finale set up what promises to be the most harrowing circumstances the group has faced yet.

As much as I love this show, I’ve long thought it could be improved in a few areas. They did fix one problem in season four, but I’d like them to address a couple of others, all of which is handily summarized in this wish list:

1. Continue structuring the story so that it sustains momentum.

The six-episode debut season of The Walking Dead was pure cinematic nihilism. We met the characters, they were swept up in a maelstrom of apocalyptic terror, and they reached their journey’s end, only to have all their destination (and accompanying hopes) go up in a massive fireball. It was relentless and epic, partly because you can be relentless and epic when you only have to sustain the story for a little over six hours.

Then they doubled the episode output for season 2 and… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Those zees are not for “zombie.” They represent snoring. You can’t have 13 episodes of unrelenting epicness because it’s unsustainable, but sticking your characters on a farm and setting up a tedious love triangle with an irritating, unlikable shrew at the center is hardly the answer. Season 2 was a study in inertia punctuated by a couple of brilliant episodes that recalled – and sometimes exceeded – the dramatic intensity of the first season. Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny the overall story arc was a letdown.

Season 3, which was about Rick’s gang vs. the Governor’s gang, was a vast improvement over 2 and far more suspenseful, but it suffered from a number of pointless episodes leading up to a pretty underwhelming climax, and a dearth of zombies.

Hooray for new Executive Producer Scott Gimple, then, who finally brought momentum back to the show in season 4A. Instead of having the characters stand around and manufacture their own problems out of stupidity, season 4 introduced external threats such as plague, a new, bigger horde of zombies, and the return of the Governor, this time with tanks. The story kept moving because choice was taken away from the characters. They had to act or die. Let’s hope the writers keep it going the rest of the way.

2. Do something with Michonne.

The Walking Dead, as most of you know, is based on a comic book, and by far the most comic book-eque character is the sword-wielding Michonne, who is a bit like a superhero compared to the rest of them. The problem is, after introducing her at the end of season 2, she has had almost nothing to do but scowl and decapitate zombies. We want to know more about her! Who is she? Where does she come from? Why is she pissed off all the time? How come she never changes her clothes? Inquiring minds, people.

3. No more melodramatic, heroic speeches.

Between Rick and Herschel, I’ve had enough pseudo-inspirational speeches about the human spirit, representing the better part of ourselves by forsaking violence, the importance of working together, and the true meaning of leadership to last five zombie apocalypses. Whenever I see the others standing in a circle with Rick or Herschel at the center playing reluctant, yet earnest, orator, I get up for a chips-and-salsa refill. It’s like an episode of 7^th Heaven with zombies instead of teen angst. I realize I’m in the tiny minority here, but… Sayonara Herschel. You sure gave a great reluctant speech. But now that you’re dead… let’s go shoot us some zombies!

 

Raising the stakes for characters, using Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow” as an example

WARNING: There is a 1 in 470,000,000.27 chance your monitor will explode while you are reading this, causing shards of glass to fly out and injure you. Also, SPOILERS regarding last night’s Sleepy Hollow season finale appear in this post. Ooh. Scary!

Characters: Abbie Mills, Icabod Crane, Katrina Crane, Captain Irving, Jenny MIlls

Sleepy Hollow is a ridiculous show. Every time I think it can’t get campier or more over the top, the producers say, “Oh yes it can.” Zombie George Washington anyone? Many times this season I’ve decided they are just making stuff up to be weird and have flirted with abandoning it, and I almost sort of 15% thought of skipping last night’s season finale. After all, Doctor Who is returning one of these months, and I’m ready for a grown-up, grounded, reality-based show again.

[That last line was a horns-blaring, chaser-light-arrow, flashing-neon work of sarcasm]

Not steaks. Stakes! Jeez.

I’m glad I did not skip the Sleepy Hollow finale. Because I, like many writers, hold back too often, and sometimes I need a reminder as to what “raising the stakes” really means. The Sleepy crew capped the season with a 5-way cliffhanger that will not be resolved until the show returns in the fall. Of course, not everyone writes fantasy horror, so take this example in spirit if you lean toward realism in your work.

For the uninitiated, Sleepy Hollow is about Revolutionary War hero Icabod Crane, who kills one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in battle, but not before being fatally wounded by his opponent. His wife Katrina, a witch, casts a spell on him that keeps him in suspended animation for 250 years. He wakes up in the 21^st century, just as a demon named Moloch is about to unleash hell on Earth. Crane teams up with a cop named Abbie Mills who, based on prophesy in a heretical gospel, is a “witness” destined to take a stand against the forces of evil and (maybe) save the planet. Did I mention this show is over the top? Oh yeah, her crazy sister Jenny and her boss, Captain Irving, are along for some demonic possession, corpse reanimation, and other alternative lifestyles.

OK, I’m running the spoilers now, so don’t get mad at me if you DVRed it and still haven’t watched: By the end of the season finale, Captain Irving is being charged with 2 murders he did not commit; Jenny is bleeding to death in a mangled truck that has crashed on a deserted road; Katrina has been abducted by the Headless Horseman; Abbie is trapped in Purgatory (yes, that Purgatory); and Icabod has been buried alive by his own son. Who, if I’m not utterly confused, is also War, one of the Four Horsemen.

Not that kind of stake, either! Well, maybe.

Whew! Those are some high stakes, and, other than perhaps Jenny’s crash, none of these events seemed wedged in at the last minute for contrived tension. The groundwork had been laid in earlier episodes. Cool. Consider me inspired to up the threat level next time I put fingers to keyboard and resume my novel (Hahahahaha. Haha. Ugh).

As a blank pager (aka pantser), I’m doubly enthused. My best writing happens when I throw something at a character without knowing what it’s going to mean until I get to the end. I don’t know if Sleepy Hollow’s writers have a master plan, but I’d sure like to take a crack at writing the first episode of season 2, just for the chance to resolve a 5-way cliffhanger that I did not set up. Hello! Hollywood? I will work for cupcakes.

How about you? Do you ever hold back and play it safe in your writing, though you know it’s keeping you from finding your voice and realizing your true potential? And forcing bloggers to close out posts with a cliché that, nonetheless, has merit?

***********

P.S. I would never abandon you, Abbie Mills. I was just talking.

 

Goodbye, Karen Black

Karen Black (1939-2013)

 

What aficionado of 1970s pop culture does not adore the intense actress Karen Black, star of the horror classics Trilogy of Terror (1975) and Burnt Offerings­ (1976)? The latter film paired her with fellow oddball icon Oliver Reed and is perhaps the scariest haunted-house flick ever made.

Black also appeared in Five Easy Pieces with Jack Nicholson and the counterculture classic Easy Rider, as well as close to 200 other movies and TV shows.

She died today at age 74. Thanks for everything, Ms. Black!