Ironing out the kinks

I'm going through a movie review phase, so bear with me ...

I recently saw a film called The Man With the Iron Fists and it's a love letter to the classic kung-fu films that littered the 70-80's, with notable contributors being Jet Li and Jackie Chan (to name but a few). Later on a hip hop/rap group was inspired by this movie gold so much so that they created a new sound by sampling the effects and music of the films into 'tight loops' that were 'tha bomb' of the late eighties/early nineties. That group was called the Wu-Tang Clan, headed up by the masterful productionist, The Rza.

Why am I telling you this? Well, this film is written, directed and starring Mr Rza ... and he also did the score. I think if you attempt to review this film by western standards, you will think this is complete dreck. By 'ode to kung-fu' standards, it's good but it still weak where it counts. This is also 'presented by Tarantino.' because I don't know of any other director as much in love with classic films as he is. I think he contributed with the gore and maybe some of the dialogue (and one overhead shot straight out of Kill Bill: Volume 1).

Now, my favourite Kung-Fu film is called Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. I recommend the US dub because it is so terribly brilliant. The story is weak but the action is brilliant. The dub is stupendous in the cheesiest bad dub kind of way. Watch it! Now, before you think that my mind is prattling, if you read between the lines you will understand why the Rza's film is intentionally terrible. It's because the original films were quite awful ... but brilliant to watch. Cheesy antics, average acting and corny dialogue ... but BRILLIANT action / choreography. That's Kung-Fu film in its essence.

Having said that, I would have liked the Rza to stay behind the camera but I can understand his desire to be part of Kung-Fu lore even if the end result is pretty darn weak. The choreography is fine but slow by 'mainland China' standards. There are also a few too many character arcs and the film takes itself a little too seriously (although the main baddie's hair is hilarious) for it to get a passing grade by attempting to play the kung-fu/silly card. Too much focus on gore and too little on the choreography is where the film lets itself down.

I applaud The Rza for making the film ... it's just a shame that he missed the point of Kung-Fu.

My mind is mush

I watched the film Upside Down recently and, god, it couldn't have been written worse if the responsibility had been left to the drunken ramblings of a troupe of peyote-drinking retarded chimpanzees mashing their mutilated stumps for hands against a typewriter where the only keys that worked were s, u, c and k.

This film follows the romantic formula to a tee, except it does everything in its ability to be even less intelligible by discrediting science in the process. The story's premise destroys the basis of physics to such an incredible degree that even a five-year old would state that this film makes no sense and would not have a shadow of a doubt that he was correct in his assessment.

So, the premise is that you have two planets that are perfectly aligned (they spin at the same speed, with the exact same orbit and I would surmise the same mass, considering they're not smashing into each other) such that there is a bridge that transitions between the two of them. So far, so unrealistic. Now here comes the kicker; the gravity doesn't work the same between planets. Oof. Items from the one planet only interact with the gravity of their planet. Ouch. If these foreign elements are retained too long on the other planet, they burn up. Owowowow. Also this gravity apparently only affects certain aspects at certain times (or at least the way that this film conveys it). All this 'science' is introduced so that we can have the world's most convoluted romance story possible:  (narrator voice)

Two people, living in separate worlds ... but connected by love

I'm not sure why they needed to go to such silly extents to create such a convoluted mechanism to keep them apart. Anyway the cereal box summary is: They meet each other at the closest point between the two worlds and fall in love. For whatever reason, the people of either side of the planet deny people from the other side from interacting with each other and she falls back to her planet and hits her head. Dufus (that's what I'm calling him) thinks she's dead until he sees her on TV and then finds a means of reconnecting with her ... although she doesn't remember him (quelle contrived). The visuals are really quite good but, if you've seen inception (or Ring), you should be pretty used to seeing people walking on the ceiling so that novelty wears off pretty quickly. 

And so, to summarise, this was not my cup of tea. This film is like a nightmare that you keep hoping to wake up from ... until you realise you are awake and you are actually watching your mind unravel as you try to make sense of all the inconsistencies. If you do still want to watch this, do it while stoned or heavily inebriated. You have been warned.

Affirming your resolve

Why do we have to wait until some predetermined day before we decide to put a plan in place to change the bad habits that hinder our potential? I certainly don't.

I am certainly not waiting until I am old and decrepit before (hopefully) planning to ensure my final years are not too troublesome. Maybe it is my distaste for working for someone else that agitates my desires to find a shortcut to early retirement. So far, so unsuccessful ... but I am trying.  

It bewilders me that there are not more people questioning why their world seems to revolve around a 9-5PM 'jail sentence' and, in particular, doing nothing to change the situation. I think people have fallen into a distorted form of Stockholm Syndrome whereupon they actually enjoy being confined to their cubicle and  enjoy whittling away the long business hours with solitaire and coffee breaks.

How many of you can honestly say that your life-long dream was to work in an office? I know when I was growing up I wanted to be a pilot, computer programmer (guilty) and maybe an artist. I never thought of writing because I always held authors in such high esteem. Maybe it was a lack of confidence that made me so reticent to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) but I pushed through and created something that I am proud of even if not everyone is as appreciative. This is but one step. One stepping stone towards a path of  independence but, as you know, you don't climb a staircase with just one step. 

My ongoing resolution is to succeed in being capable of independence, even if that freedom simply allows me to remain in my cubicle because, hey, it's pretty comfy and I'm pretty sure meetings are therapeutic for my mental well-being.

The Buddhists are right

Throughout the life I would best describe as a series of fortunate (and unfortunate) events, my mind tends to wander. From Chaos Theory to Neo to Buddhists to Quantum Physicists to six degrees of Kevin Bacon, they have all come to the same conclusion. We are one with everything.

The basic principle is that, although from an external perspective we're individual entities, there is an unseen bond that connects us. Even the vacuum of space is connected by things like 'dark matter' that we have yet to fully grasp or perceive.

The more I think about it, the more I think that they must be onto something. If you zoom in or out far enough, you no longer see the individual elements you once perceived as disconnected. With the much vaunted 'god particle' nearing the point of being irrefutable to its existence, we can no longer follow the belief that the space between neutrons, protons and electrons is 'devoid of stuff'. How long will it be before we discover the sub-elements that make up the Higgs Boson particle?

If we were to zoom in on any human being, in the end all we'd see are spinning electrons and protons and nuclei - the concept of a human would be completely alien at this scale. Now all these seemingly disconnected nuclei are interacting with all their neighbours with varying degrees of influence based on distance and strength. The same can be said if you start scaling out to the scale of planets and galaxies. We would no longer see humans, cities or towns.

At this scale, the celestial bodies interact with each other through gravity and energy transference  If we were to scale out farther still, at what point do you no longer see stars, planets and galaxies? How far out would we need to scale before we see the resulting form of all these seemingly disconnected elements? Could the culmination of  all these galaxies and humanity somehow be contained within something as trivial as a marble? 

Give me a moment ... I'm thinking.

The disney formula

I love formulas. My world revolves around devising the formulas that rule our world. The one place I do not like them, however, is in my stories and films. If I recognise the trope early on, and the storyteller does nothing to deviate from this well-worn path, is the moment I begin getting irritated.

Romantic Comedies almost never deviate. Let me see whether you recognise this: An attractive but unlucky in love female meets an attractive rogue whom she instantly hates while this rogue annoys and teases her. They somehow form a pact where they're forced to be in each other's company (usually to assist the heroine in her plight to attract the man she's got her sights on  and that is coincidentally less attractive and has at least one character flaw). They fail in their quest but realise they're in love with each other. The End.

Examples:

Did You Hear About the Morgans, What's Your Number?, For Richer Or Poorer, French Kiss, The Wedding Planner, The Bounty Hunter, Killers, He's Not That Into You, The Proposal, The Ugly Truth, The Dictator, Failure to Launch, Mr & Mrs Smith, 50 First Dates, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Maid in Manhattan ... and the list goes on

Horrible, because that's all I see. Sure, you can mix this up with different contrived scenes through the length of the story, but the trope still remains. Which brings me to Disney films. I hate them ... well, apart from the very few exceptions where the maniacal reigns are momentarily loosened and something less abortive is created. Anywho: I shall now divulge the Disney formula in all its gory.

The story revolves around an attractive young male/female from a less than ideal background. The protagonist gets together with one or two plucky side kicks which provide levity to the stale-as-toast personality of the main character that is as boring as ... well, something really, really boring. There is invariably some kind of rom-com partnership along the way (where the two of them inevitably fall in love) and there is almost always an adversary that needs to be defeated. Nearing the end of Act 2, there's always a lull where the main character needs to find themselves and loses hope ... before they discover the strength they need through the support of friends/family. Needless to say, cheesy morals abound, where believing in yourself, relying on your friends/family and following your heart is the true path to happiness etc. This gets bludgeoned into your head multiple times throughout the course of the story ... and the moralistic theme is always introduced early in the story so that the viewer knows exactly what kind of path the protagonist will take towards final redemption. The End.

Examples:

Dumbo, Bambi, Snow White, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, The Rocketeer, Aladdin,  Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Tangled, Enchanted ... and the list goes on.

The by-the-numbers story telling and head-bangingly moralistic message makes watching Disney films an exercise in torture. 

please note the whitebread heroine and quirky sidekicks

I saw 'Brave' recently (against my will). A story that revolves around a spoiled child who does everything in her power to avoid responsibility. She has three younger siblings who help her avoid her Mother's ire through magic (and provides levity in the place of the boring main character). Hilarity ensues and she discovers that if she listens and respects her family's wishes, all will be well. She reconciles with her overbearing mother and learns her place (like a good little 1950's stay-at-home wife). Of course, there's an evil antagonist who adds drama/excitement to the mix. Ooooh ... way to break the formula, there.

I honestly don't want to dislike Disney films but there's no good reason that a multi-billion dollar company isn't able to make something fun, original and at least entertaining. Heck, they've had enough attempts. It's just that I want the formula to change. Please change the formula, Disney. Please.

Side note: I remember one of the producers (or something) discussing how they'd paid all this attention to imbuing the heroines' hair with personality. He seemed proud of that. There has to be something wrong with your priorities if you focus more effort towards injecting personality into her hair than into her character.

Another interview with CM Gray

Today I'll be interviewing 'a regular' to my corner of the internet: CM Gray. He has a new book called The Flight of the Griffin and is earmarked for release in early 2013.

Hi Stephen, great to be here, thanks so much for having me!

Since the last time I interviewed you, how has life being a writer changed for you?

Well, I think I’m getting the hang of book promoting a little better. I’ve tried a few things and given up on several others but along the way I’ve discovered some good ways to bring traffic to my books on Amazon in particular. I’ve been spending too much time trying to draw attention to my books this year and not enough time writing, which is crazy, so I’m on a slightly different path for 2013.

One of the main changes since I was last here are the number of great reviews I’ve been getting for my first book Shadowland as a result of my marketing efforts. On Amazon US I now have 41 reviews and still an average of over 4 stars. I’m now on to The Flight of the Griffin, which is also getting some good reviews and I have nearly finished the sequel, Chaos Storm.

Give me an elevator pitch of your new book: "The Flight of the Griffin"

Okay ... bunch of kids, living on a boat, stumble on a magic book and its rather cool female guardian. The book sets them a task of seeking out three crystal skulls, lost in different locations, which must be united to complete an ancient spell. Once the skulls are brought together the spell will stop the world being thrown into chaos. However, there just happens to be some evil people and a whole bunch of demons that are trying to stop them!

I love the premise; your book appears to hearken back to my childhood loves of Enid Blyton, CS Lewis and Piers Anthony. Who or what inspired your story?

Oh I’m sure a whole lot of those kinds of books influence me in some form. I’ve been reading from an early age and have always loved the myth, legend and wild fantasy. I wanted to tell a fantasy questing adventure a little along the lines of a writer like C.S.Lewis but then with a few modern twists that are more David Gemmel. What I did try to do, despite having read so many books from all those great authors, was to be original. I don’t want to write like someone else and I hope you will see that I only write like me!

Is the Griffin (the Ship) as much a character as the children of this story?

Oh, it most certainly is. I won’t give one of the major twists away but there is a whole lot of magic in this book. The boat is very much a character in its own right and one that most readers love!

What inspired you to use Crystal Skulls as the pieces leading to 'the great spell'?

I wanted something mysterious yet something that people may be able to relate to living in our ‘real’ world. There is an ancient Mayan Legend that magical crystal skulls were placed by the ‘old people’ from a time before our records began. If you Google crystal skulls you can see pictures and read stories of skulls that have been supposedly found in different parts of the world. Many believe they are magical. I liked the idea that my characters would have something like this to focus on.

Your book seems so refreshingly unpretentious: clear goals, no love triangles and no angsty teenage ruminations. What was your goal when writing this story?

Well, don’t laugh... but the reason I started writing this was after reading J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter books. I thought, ‘I can write like that!’ Well, I couldn't and realised that I wouldn't actually want to just write like her. She did the wizard school thing so well there was no point trying to go down that path, so I went for a pure fantasy quest. What I took from Rowling was the idea of writing a story that could be enjoyed by older kids, teens and adults alike, just like she did. So no, there is no sex, no swearing and no gratuitous violence... although there are a few gruesome moments and some rather unsavoury characters to keep everyone entertained!  

I'll do a little word association. Choose one and give me a reason:

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader or Firefly (TV)
Has to be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader because I have no idea what Firefly is [hang your head in shame :)] ... am I showing my age or some huge gap in my reading list? Anyhow, loved C.S.Lewis when I was younger. I watch the films with my kids now and will be encouraging them to read them as well.


Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls or Uncharted (PS3)
Indiana Jones, not because of the Crystal Skulls... just love an Indiana Jones story... another questing adventure, love em!


The Far Away Tree (Enid Blyton) or Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien)
Lord of the Rings. I’ve read it three times. Tolkien is the father of fantasy. He took all the great legends and wrapped them into one of the best stories ever written. To be a fantasy writer these days we all have to realise we owe a debt to Tolkien... or perhaps we should be upset that he took all the best bits and left us all scrambling around to find the rest!

Do you have any parting words for your fans?

If you have read my books and enjoyed them, I thank you for sharing my dreams. If you haven’t yet read my books, then come dream with me! The sequel to The Flight of the Griffin will be out early 2013, my beta readers are saying wonderful things about it so get ready for another ride!

Thanks Stephen I appreciate the time we have spent together today, good luck with your own writing and have a great Christmas!

Always a pleasure ... and hope you have a great Christmas too :)

The sky is falling

I must be the last line of defense. I watched Skyfall (the new James Bond) a few days ago and even though it was masterfully directed by Sam Mendes and brilliantly filmed and slickly produced, where it counted, it fails.

It's all about the story, stupid.

This film went against the trope: with no discernible bond girl and a different spin on the plot other than 'just' saving the world from mass destruction. This story was a more personal mission that I appreciated but in the end felt like they cheated. Bond films have never been particularly cerebral and have always managed to play out every action scene with an asterisk that states "it's because he's James Bond." At the point where they attempt to put weight into this caricature of a human being (like Dark Knight) is the point where my eyes start to glaze over.

I won't ruin any punchlines other than to say that the film concludes in a cute but unsatisfactory way in which the entirety of the film feels like an old man rambling aimlessly about the origin of present day MI6. Other films have done the 'let me introduce you to a new version of this film's universe' better (Star Trek) whereas others have faltered (Tron). The more I reflect on the film, the more I don't like it. I feel like the second half is quite comic book while the story attempts to provide grounding and weight to the final scenes. This is the inverse of what was intended by the film maker and makes this a far more bitter pill to swallow ... and yet people will still enjoy this.

And so, to summarise, you will enjoy the 'splosions, the action and the presence of Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem ... but only if you don't fall into the plot chasms and prefer your Bond more grounded in reality while still, disturbingly, defying all laws of probability in his pursuit of justice.

Parting shot: I'm getting tired of the producers of these films overreacting to the pressures to convey equal opportunity. I'm pretty sure that Ian Fleming always viewed Ms Moneypenny to be a white woman, correct? The fact that she was a failed field agent that shot 007 and still remained on the payroll says more for reverse racism than it does for her competence or actual worth.