In the same wonderful spirit as Wes Anderson’s Spider-Man, here’s a taste of what Tim “Frankenweenie” Burton might do with the noir classic Weekend At Bernie’s.
Johnny Depp features. But then, it’s a Burton piece.
It’s here. I’d have embedded it, but it won’t. So.
I wish I’d come up with this. Kudos.
As a Chan fan from years before most people in this country ever heard of him, I agree 100%.
Jackie with Michelle Yeoh, who still retains full mega awesome to this day.
No one, not even me, ever knew my father’s first name.
Everyone always just referred to him by his last name, in classic tough guy style, and my dad was definitely a tough guy. Yet he was no thug, no bully, but a protector of those that needed protecting. A warrior, as defined by ninja Shihan Jack Hoban is “a man of action, guided by reason, and motivated by love,” and that was my father through and through.
My last name is Byrd. But that wasn’t my father’s last name. His was Spenser. And if you needed help, he was for hire.
Spenser wasn’t my real father, alas. He wasn’t even actually real. He was a character in thirty-nine novels by Boston novelist Robert B. Parker, who died of a heart attack while writing the morning of January 18th, 2010. He was 77.
So why do I claim Spenser as my dad? Continue reading
Inspired.
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Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, this is pretty much an official sequel to the first two films, and is a lot better than the movie Ghostbusters 2. A lot.
The original actors return to do their own voice and motion-capture performances. Bill Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Ernie Hudson as the intrepid foursome, Annie Potts as their nerdily hot secretary Janine, William Atherton as bureaucratic douche-bag Walter Peck, with Alyssa Milano and Brian Doyle Murray joining the cast as the new love interest and the mayor.
The player takes the role of the new guy, a young rookie stuck with the job of trying out the newest, untested equipment. That equipment of course includes the proton beam, the ghost trap, and the PKE meter from the films, but you get three new weapon types to play around with (the slime gun proving the most fun).
The game captures every element of the Ghostbusters franchise perfectly. The writing is sharp and clever. The performances are lively and dead on. The gameplay is tight and exactly what it should be. The locations are complex and colorful and highly destructible. And the ghosts are varied, entertaining, and multifarious.
The storyline is far better than I’d expected. It starts in familiar territory, with new encounters with old friends like Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and to be honest I had my doubts about that. But they fully rationalize the inclusion of the old stuff, making it an organic part of the present storyline, allowing you to enjoy the nostalgic encounters early in the game, then moving into lots of new, original material. I’m glad they did this. It was loads of fun blasting the Hotel Sedgwick to pieces, and the battle with Mr. Stay Puft proves to be even more epic and fun than it was in the first film.
Apparently the actors all had so much fun making the game, they finally agreed to do another film, and Ghostbusters 3 is set to start filming next summer.
I played this on the Xbox 360. It’s available on PC and Playstation 3, but if you’re deciding between the Xbox and the PS3 version, definitely go Xbox. The PS3 version’s resolution is 56% of the Xbox version (I base this on several online sources, not on my own observations, and I have both machines, so I’m not speaking out of any particular brand loyalty). There is a Wii version as well, but it’s effectively a different game, with more cartoony graphics.
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This was a year in which I got to enjoy two creations called “Avatar,” and how often does that happen? Perhaps it’s a sign.
The first was the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender…
The second, of course, was James Cameron’s science fiction epic Avatar, in theaters now earning a billion plus dollars.
Let’s talk the Cameron film first, saving the best for last. Continue reading
Recently, I blogged about Earth2.net’s podcast of the Doc Savage radio adaptation NPR did back in the eighties. At the time of my post, only chapters 1 & 2 (of seven) had been broadcast.
They’ve now broadcast the entirety of the story, and I’ve updated the pertinent post with all the links: original post.
Recently, I posted about a screenplay that Steve Antczak and I wrote called Blood of Eden, which got fairly close to becoming a Die Hard movie.
In that post, I mentioned that the producer’s “coverage” (a detailed summary/review of the script for in-house use) had been leaked, but I wasn’t able to find it.
Thankfully, “belzecue” posted a comment to that entry, pointing to a copy of that coverage posted to a screenwriting news site.
Because the coverage is, naturally, full of spoilers, I don’t want to just dump it here or just post the URL, lest it ruin the reading of the actual full script for someone. It has a tricky twist or three I don’t want you to have spoiled.
So, I’m going to post a heavily redacted version first, editing out most of the plot details, but leaving in the writer’s general opinion of the story.
Then, after the jump, I’ll post the entire coverage, in the hopes that people won’t read it until they’ve read the actual script (you can find the link to it in the original entry). To make the read easier, I’m adding some paragraph breaks where there weren’t any, as the original uses huge blocks of text that won’t read well online.
EDITED, NON-SPOILERY VERSION
Title of Submission: Blood of Eden
Author: Tim Byrd & Steve Antczak
Date Covered: 9/2/99
Genre: Action Adventure
STORY
This screenplay’s story is a very complex and sophisticated tale, presenting its drama and tension in an undersea setting. While there are more and more space- and sea-oriented films these days, this screenplay stands out on the merits of its excellent writing and the incredibly detailed, yet believable, environment in which it takes place. I have some plausibility questions, but they are minor and can be easily addressed….
CHARACTER
While the characters’ main personalities and motivations are clear, I’d like to see them developed a bit more…In this story, it’s very refreshing to see all the bad guys (the ninja) referenced by name, rather than by Ninja #1, Ninja #2…it’s a nice thing to have the bad guys be real people names…
DIALOGUE
Dialogue in this screenplay is a mixed bag. Overall, it’s fine, and it’s especially refreshing to hear the Japanese bad guys using realistic dialogue. Unfortunately, this quickly unravels into typical American macho expletives. The contrast of Japanese thought and phrasing versus the language we are used to hearing is one of the points which made this screenplay unique. Also, some of the American dialogue is either weak (“then the bad guys struck”) or too obvious as exposition (Travis and Desmond comparing backgrounds). In an otherwise very fine screenplay, dialogue is an area that could use improvement.
THEME
“Blood of Eden” is more action-packed than theme-packed, but does touch on several interesting topics, including nationalism versus Pacific Rim countries, maternal and paternal instincts, heroism and honor.
WRITER’S STYLE
The writers do a stellar job of writing action, weaving a tense, sophisticated and compelling tale. Their descriptions of environment and physical action, in particular, are exemplary. All of the hand-to-hand scenes are vividly depicted. The descriptions of the Edensphere do a great job of making the complex “seeable.” Lots of the action and other descriptions are almost literary in their quality, such as the spattering of bullets, the rushing of walls of water, etc. The writers’ challenge is to bring the quality of their characterizations and dialogue up to par with the rest of the screenplay, but I’m sure they can do it.
STRUCTURE
The structure here provides a strong foundation for the story. All scenes are vital and either propel the action or impart necessary information…
SETTING ORIGINALITY
The writers have done a great job of imagining and describing an entire undersea environment and the rules for survival there. Edensphere’s location in the Pacific, however, is unclear. It’s not too far from San Francisco…but it’s clearly far enough north to be in frigid waters. From the “Northern Pacific” slug lines, I kept imaging someplace off the Alaska coast.
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE
This screenplay has great potential as a very entertaining and marketable commercial venture. It gets off to a good start, jumps into action very quickly and keeps the action going til the very end…
And now, the un-redacted version… Continue reading
Art by Ruben Procopio
It’s no secret that Doc Savage, Lester Dent’s pulp hero from the 1930s and 40s, is a huge inspiration for my own character, Dr. Spartacus Wilde (who saves the Earth from Lovecraftian batrachia in Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom). I grew up on paperback reprints of the Doc Savage novels and they, along with other pulp sources I’ve written about, are strong strands of my literary DNA.
In fact, Grandpa Wilde (Spartacus’s father), the original Doc Wilde who was famous in the thirties and forties, is my intertextual acknowledgment that the original hero is parent to the current hero, but also speaks to the fact that the younger Wilde is his own man. As similar as he is to Savage, he is also very different in ways, not least of which is that he is a warm, emotionally accessible family man, unlike the stern and remote man of bronze.
Unlike The Shadow, the only character more popular during the pulp era, Doc Savage isn’t very well known these days, though his influence on characters ranging from Batman to James Bond is widespread. But there are still quite a few fans, many having grown up on the same books I did. One of them is Shane Black. Continue reading
This is an incredibly entertaining CGI short film from animator Lucas Martell.
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Many moons ago, I was friends with Shane Black (who makes an appearance on the acknowledgments page of my book). He’s the guy who wrote Lethal Weapon and spent a few years wrestling Joe Eszterhas for highest amount ever paid for a screenplay (Shane’s personal best was $4,000,000 for The Long Kiss Goodnight, which was then run through the mediocritizer by director Renny Harlin).
Shane also wrote and directed the INCREDIBLE Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, which is oceans full of fun, and has great performances by Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, and Michelle Monaghan.
But I digress.
Seriously, we’ll all be better off if you let Tim write the movie.
Shortly after Lethal Weapon 2 was released, I had what I figured was a great idea for a third movie in the series. I wrote a treatment, and Shane took a look. Continue reading
Streaming movies on Netflix continues to be a source of discovery. It allows me (and you, if you sign up) to try any number of films I probably would never get around to, if I knew of them at all. Sometimes they’re duds (I tried 1994’s The Favor, for instance, and couldn’t bear more than ten or fifteen minutes), but sometimes they’re treasures.
The Life Before Her Eyes is a treasure. Continue reading
The name of the next Pirates of the Caribbean flick (with Johnny Depp returning as Sparrow) has been released:
Wait, what…?
On Stranger Tides? Isn’t there already a pirate fantasy of that name, as in the one called On Stranger Tides that I blogged about in my 1/8/09 entry “A Few Great Books“:
On Stranger Tides
by Tim Powers
Years before Jack Sparrow staggered into port on a sinking skiff, Tim Powers gave us the gift of a rousing swashbuckler of a pirate novel spiced with voodoo, zombies, and a Blackbeard infested with ghosts. This book has the distinction of being the one book on my shelf for years that I consciously planned to read to my kid when I eventually had one. And I did.
Anyone out there know if they’re adapting Powers’s book to the PotC milieu, or if they’re only just stealing his title…?
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Among the great pulp heroes created by Robert E. Howard, author of the only true Conan tales, was puritan swordsman against darkness Solomon Kane.
The complete tales are currently available in this beautiful Del Rey book:
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For the roleplaying games fans among you, one of the absolute greatest RPGs in years is this Savage Worlds gamebook by Shane Hensley:
Click to Order
And this trailer for the upcoming cinematic adaptation looks very promising.
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Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall – London’s Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night’s end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.
That’s the capsule description of Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs. If it sounds interesting, trust me, it isn’t.
There are apparently two selling points for this film. The secondary one is that it has “exclusive” live performances of nine songs by various artists including The Von Bondies and The Dandy Warhols. These performances, however, are shot with artless camera work and bad sound, and are worse than many amateur bootleg concert videos you can find on YouTube.
The primary selling point is that in this movie, the actors playing the young couple in love actually have sex. And it’s shown in graphic detail. Quite graphic at times. Which means, I suppose, that it’s a porn flick, in spite of its indie pretensions at examining the fluctuations of a romantic/sexual relationship, but it’s a curiously passionless and unstimulating variety of porn at best.
Winterbottom’s characters are unlikeable, which is allowable, but also uninteresting, which isn’t. Watching them relate, in all ways, makes human relationships actually look off-putting.
There is little story here, and what there is is bookended around the song videos. It’s as if the writer/director had so little story he decided to use the songs as filler material. The result, at 71 minutes, is one of the subjectively longest damn movies I’ve ever seen.
Every few minutes I clicked up the onscreen display to see how much time was left. It always seemed far too much, even at only three or so minutes remaining. At one point, I realized I’d actually picked up a book and started reading without thinking about it. That has never happened to me during any movie before. It was like my brain was seeking to bandage a wound in its stimulation.
Consider yourself warned. 9 Songs, in spite of its dull sexuality (I started to write carnality, but there’s nothing truly carnal about it), is a complete bore. Watching a toaster will probably arouse you more.
I feel like my head’s been wrapped in plaster. Time to go find something to awaken my senses again, because I think they gave up on me while watching this thing.
No.
Here is a wonderful short animated film by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin. It’s visually amazing, and the story is very moving.
Under An Outlaw Moon 