Stacey E. Bryan's Blog, page 3

The Unexpected Villains of Howards End

I saw a movie the other day with the most disturbing villains you could imagine: the hidden, subtle, even unintentional kind.

Nobody was locked in a basement. There were no knives or guns. There was no plot to rob the bank and steal the gold. Except…maybe there was all this and more. Executed in a much more sinister manner.

How else could you explain, in 1992’s Howards End (based on E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel) a dying woman bequeathing her family’s home to someone who’s not much more than an acq...

DAVID FINCHER’S “FIGHT CLUB”

For all you movie people out there (and even semi-movie/not-very-movie people) hubby and I were watching a fascinating commentary on Fight Club the other day. There was a huge twist, in his observation, that was NOT about Ed Norton’s and Brad Pitt’s character being the same person.

His claim was that Ed Norton’s character wasn’t just visiting support groups for “fun,” but that he actually did have testicular cancer, and it was Helena Bonham Carter’s character who actually did not actually exist...

Anatomy of Time

It took a while, a lot of time, but I finally got a place to accept my short story Anatomy of Ruin for publication. It’s called The Chamber Magazine and the link is under Other Stories. Don’t worry about reading it. I rarely have time to read anything longer than peoples’ posts as it is. I’m just letting you know that even though I don’t post more than once a month here (and even though you didn’t ask) I am still writing.

I do believe it was the references to zombies that turned most people off,...

PERFECT DAY

Something interesting and kinda strange happened while I was flipping through channels and came across a cartoon a few weeks ago.  An animated character decided to have a “perfect day,” but as events unfolded, more and more worry and fear began halting all progress toward this goal.

Everything the character starts to do—games, eating favorite foods, even walking—becomes fodder for an escalating anxiety which leads him, eventually, to an isolation chamber, after arriving at this startling con...

Michel Faber tunnels Under the Skin

I read Under the Skin again recently, so I’m reblogging this book review from almost five years ago, ’cause anyone who’s into weirdness will love this book (and the movie too). A special thank you to Comics Grinder, Assholes Watching Movies, and Charles French Words Reading and Writing, my only followers back then, for giving it a like! Have a nice holiday, everyone.

“Even in the nacreous hush of a winter dawn, when the mists were still dossed down in the fields on either side, the A9 could...

EVERYONE HAD SLAVES

The essence of the closing monologue on Real Time with Bill Maher the other night was a rebuttal against “white people” being the villains of the world. Essentially diverting blame to all of humanity in general, he claimed white people may suck, sure, but so does everyone else. People are just horrible in general.

I kinda pretty much agree with that part. Take Texas, for example. Need I say more? Women charged with murder for abortion? Where were these righteous Texas lawmakers when full...

Thug Life

I wrote a blog a while back about Cats, Karma, and Christopher Walken, where Mr. Walken muses on the nature of cats:

“I like cats a lot. I’ve always liked cats. They’re great company. When they eat, they always leave a little bit at the bottom of the bowl. A dog will polish the bowl, but a cat always leaves a little bit. It’s like an offering.”

I think that’s true. But what about this video and what this cat is doing to this dog?

How does one balance the monastic behavior and offerings...

When Dying Feels like Living

I was dying. At least that’s what it felt like. We were moving downhill, but that didn’t matter. It took focus to not stagger or drag my feet. The backpack felt like it weighed 3,000 pounds, not 30. I had no moisture left in my mouth but an ocean streamed from every pore on my body.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about the time my husband and I (his idea) hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River.

We started at 6 am and had intended to arriv...

THE WRATH OF CAAN

that’s Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, screaming out his rage and frustration at his nemesis, Kahn Noonian Singh, played wonderfully by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

But isn’t it also true that the Wrath of Khan and the wrath of James Caan, the actor, and all or most of Mr. Caan’s characters, stand as equals in the arena of rage and acrimony and violent entitlement?

In Star Trek II, Khan’s thirst for revenge against Captain Kirk, who exiled him to a planet out in the boo...

WELCOME TO COSTCO

We finally saw Moonfall the other weekend, not expecting much. Which is always a good thing with Roland Emmerich, today’s Irwin Allen “Master of Disaster” type director. But the sighing and eye rolls and general contempt began almost immediately with hubby.

Even though Star Wars isn’t sci-fi but sci-fi fantasy, whenever Padme (Natalie Portman) hopped into a ship and appeared somewhere across space an hour or two later, I thought hubby would lose his religion. Similarly, in Moonfall, the astrona...