Michael Offutt's Blog, page 14

My thoughts on Oppenheimer

This weekend, like many audiences around the world, I went to see Christopher Nolan's latest film called Oppenheimer. The decision to go was fun. For the first time in a while I had to strategize. It made me realize that my "movie going skills" were a little rusty, having atrophied quite a bit as the theaters have been noticeably emptier than I ever remember them being. But for Oppenheimer I had a suspicion that this might be a more popular movie. So, I decided to try and buy tickets early, which put me on a path of narrowing choices.

The first thing I wanted to do was see it in IMAX. We have several theaters in my town that offer IMAX, but as I've gotten bigger around the middle (and older) and my friends that were going with me have (for the most part) done the same, I wanted to try for luxury seating in the IMAX. Luxury seating is where one row has been dedicated to reclining seats. Personally, I think all seats should be recliners. And the Cinemarks in my area have all done this. But they don't have an IMAX theater. So, I tried looking at all showtimes for Oppenheimer within the next week to see if that row of special "luxury seats" had all been filled. And...unfortunately...it had. Like literally sold out for as far ahead as they schedule events, and in every IMAX in the Salt Lake valley.

So then I started to question my own decision on seeing it in IMAX. There are only 17 theaters nationwide in IMAX that offer Oppenheimer in 70mm format, and none of those are in my state. The rest are just a bigger screen. But the sound system in the other theaters that I usually go to (Cinemark) is always good. And from what I understand, all 70mm does is make the film look hyper-realistic with its resolution, adding to the film immersion. I don't know if that necessarily would have made the viewing of Oppenheimer any better. That's when I decided that I'd just give up on the IMAX experience and go to the Cinemark and watch it there. And that's what myself and two of my friends ended up doing. In the following paragraphs, I'm going to talk about my takes from Oppenheimer which (as far as I can tell) are all parts of history. So I don't think there are any spoilers, unless you think that history is a spoiler. If that is you, then this is your "spoiler warning."

I think (for me) J. Robert Oppenheimer was the only historical figure in this movie that I actually liked. I've never been a fan of the era in which this man lived. And all of the things you would expect about the telling of this story happen within the background to all of these important men doing whatever they needed to do in order to win a war that had consumed the world. Yes, we need to remember that hundreds of thousands of people were going to die and were dying. War is awful. But the movie Oppenheimer is here to firmly validate that not only is war awful, but that war is human, and humans are awful to each other all of the time.

War then is just the escalation of hatred of the other to the most violent circumstances. And what one nation says is peace can in many ways be defined by another as "tyranny." But that's just how the chips fall with our species. All of us have never been united, and barring that utopia of a one world government, there is always a winner and a loser. When you think of nation states deciding the outcomes of civilization, you realize that there are always power brokers and arms races within the borders of any single nation that you pick. It's always a "game of thrones," and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the historical figure and scientist, was smack dab in the middle of a toxic mix of people who were patriots (yes...of that there is no doubt), but they were also men feeding off vast narcissistic supply in the pursuit of their legacy and their greatness.

That they were really smart boys (in men's bodies) being mothered by their wives while they went about the important task of ending the war and bringing other boys home is never lost on me. At one point, Matt Damon's character (a general in charge of building the entire town of Los Alamos) says to a scientist that "this is the most important work in the history of mankind" or something like that. The point in me quoting that is that clearly...it is very important. But then...of course it is...because men rule everything and everything that the men participated in was in fact important. That importance is everywhere. And history shows it probably was the most important thing in the history of mankind. But the irony of that statement isn't lost on me because of the blatant sexism of that time period. But all of that is just historical fact.

The importance of developing the bomb was left to men while women just needed to focus on the laundry and provide sex when needed and definitely keep the houses cleaned so that important meetings could take place. Oh...and child rearing too. Men didn't rear children. If your wife was overwhelmed you drove your crying brat to another house and imposed on another man's wife. That's just how things were done. It makes me wonder why our species is so awful, and why I'm not excited or nostalgic for those times. As a man, I clearly stood to benefit, right? So why wouldn't I want to return to the forties and fifties in America? Only it's clear to me I wouldn't have been smart enough in this particular time period to warrant a level of importance that excused abusing others for the sake of getting something done and ending a huge war. So, maybe it would have been left to me to do the cleaning and the serving of drinks while important men sat around discussing ideas. I'll pass on that, thanks. And we see a lot of that today, right? Everyone saying "no thanks" to that kind of undignified work, which is why we have a labor shortage in America right now. I can't say that I blame anyone making that choice, because "being important" is a small group and it is most definitely not inclusive.

The movie Oppenheimer is a remarkable film. But it is less about the development of the bombs that were dropped on the Japanese, and it is more about this historical figure that the author (that is the movie's source material) likened to a "Prometheus." This is a Titan that stole fire from the gods and gave it to man to do with as he pleased. That then is the metaphor used to describe the man J. Robert Oppenheimer who was punished by his own government, because they feared his power to sway public opinion regarding toxic capitalism. In other words, this incredibly intelligent man spoke of restraint.

He wanted to limit those who had placed their hands upon something that they sensed would give them the unlimited means to bulldoze a path wherever they wanted to go. He foresaw that this would just start an arms race (which it did). There have always been those men who have no restraint and look at you with a puzzled look when you say, "You need to keep your pig in check. Stop being a glutton." To them their desire is just absolute freedom. It is the freedom to do anything to anyone and anywhere at anytime and you can't stop them because they are more powerful. Others might view that as tyranny, but these terms are just two sides of the same coin. In their eyes, if you limit someone, then you are the bad guy. But the thing is (and we are still learning this today), when there are no limits, it leaves very little for the rest of us. A healthy society has to have limits and personal responsibilities and accountabilities. J. Robert Oppenheimer knew this, and it made everyone else who was in his orbit (who believed the opposite) really angry. That's just unfortunate.

This movie is definitely a thumbs up. It is filled with A-Listers jostling for scraps in a script that is thankfully crowded with lots of words for them to memorize and perform in front of the camera. There were easily three to four Oscar winners taking bit parts in this movie. Rami Malek and Casey Affleck are two that I spotted. Matt Damon's part was much larger (another Oscar winner). It shows how much power Nolan has as a Director that these people probably fought hard to get into this movie to help solidify their status as the best actors in the world. This is also a film for men. The women are there, yes, but their roles are not really memorable at all. I don't blame Nolan. That's just how history was, and I trust that he's telling it like it is (at least to the best of our knowledge). I'm just glad I didn't have to grow up in these times, and that I was able to find friends who are not consumed with their own legacy and greatness. Being around those kinds of people would have taken a mental toll on me (I'd probably have developed all kinds of mental illnesses and personality disorders). It also would have been exhausting, because there would have been sparingly few emotional connections one could make. At the end of the day, the work everyone was doing was too important for anything but the work itself.

I like to end these reviews by asking myself if I would watch this movie again. It was an excellent movie, and I definitely think everyone should see it. But I don't think I'd watch it again. It's thick subject matter, and it affects my mood in a way that I wouldn't classify as entertainment. But for what it's worth, a single viewing of it was time well spent. It's also a reminder that nothing was ever as important as the Manhattan Project was, but there is never a shortage of self-important people walking the Earth who would argue that point with you while seeking to use you as their own personal doormat. If we are all smart, we'll keep that from happening, and by doing so build a better future for our shared civilization.

Watching Ted Lasso makes me wish I had better resilience.

I'm a few episodes into Ted Lasso, and I'm enjoying it. I heard about this series by word-of-mouth, and the constant yammerings of "you should watch this show" were not lost on me. Having only scratched the surface of what's there, I'm already predicting that this is a story of how one swell guy just kinda wins over all of the nasty people who eventually begin to stop being so nasty. I suppose then that it's a testament to the power of being kind and respectful to those who have trauma (or complex PTSD from trauma) and a bit about the road to healing from all of that. All in all, I'd boil it down to this: Ted Lasso appears to be a show about people learning to be better people. I think that's a strong premise for a story too. My friend Meg put it best when she stated that "emotional growth in people is an incredibly compelling thing to watch."

In some ways, it feels like a situational comedy. Maybe this is because the episodes are short. Even though it's scripted, there are things that I wish I could take from Ted Lasso (the title character). I've had the fortune to know people like him, and I've always thought the same thing of them as well. And this is simply that I wish I could react better to real-time social situations (that turn threatening). In other words, I need more resilience. Let me take a moment to define that term for you as it pertains to mental health.

Resilience is the ability to adapt to difficult situations. When stress, adversity, or trauma strikes, you still experience anger, grief and pain. However, you're able to keep functioning both physically and psychologically. Examples of resilience might be viewing a setback as impermanent. Another example is the ability to reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth and to manage strong emotions and impulses. This (unfortunately) is not me, but it is Ted Lasso.

I tend to always look at the negative aspects of something I'm experiencing (due to a lifetime of microaggressions and trauma), and I can react with a nastiness that doesn't help any situation but actually seems to make it worse. I wish that I wasn't this way, and that I could look at someone the same way Ted does when I feel I've been slighted or insulted, and then just turn it into a joke.

When I'm under attack, I can actually feel my blood pressure rising, and then I attack back. Ted doesn't do this in his situations. When he's under attack (has had a boundary exploded in his face), Ted is calm, cool, and collected and then he (for the most part) responds with something that just makes you want to like him. It's a credit to Sudeikis (the actor), because he lends a kind of charisma to Ted that almost seems supernatural. He's a person that could look at something that could seem "high stakes" to me, and then show me why "this is just life" and "don't let it bother you." In other words, this character has remarkably good mental health. Maybe I should be asking why this is so, when it's clear that he gets abused and underappreciated by so many people. That's probably where the fiction of the show lies, right? Mental abuse leaves a mark on a person's mind, and it's unrealistic to think that someone could have as much resilience as Ted Lasso does. But it's not impossible at the same time. If there's anything I've learned it is this: everyone's resilience is different, and I don't think that there are definitive reasons as to why this is so.

Anyway, that's all I have to share about this show as of right now. I think I'm on episode 3. I'll try to add more insights as I progress through the series and point out things that I like. But even three episodes in, it has already taught me one thing about myself that I hadn't consciously recognized and put into words. That right there makes it a little remarkable.

Artificial Intelligence has already devalued a lot of the skills that took years for people to master.

For my last post of the week, I'm going to say that book publishing and writing books has never felt more useless. First off though...I'm not depressed. I'm thinking with a clear head as I write this, and I want to tell you a story of one author named Tim Boucher who is making thousands of dollars using AI to write his books for him. Here's the link to the original article on Newsweek if you'd like to peruse it for yourself.
The "To Long, Didn't Read" version of that article is that Tim released his 97th book in May, and he started in August 2022. He uses ChatGPT to write each book. It features between 2,000 to 5,000 words, and then he uses Midjourney A.I. to generate from 40 to 140 images (I've played around with both of these and they are absurdly powerful--Midjourney is actually stunning in its art). He does one whole book in three hours. Between August and May he sold 575 books for a total of nearly $2,000.00. The books cross-reference each other to encourage them to keep buying.
So, why do I think that publishing and writing books is useless? Well...humans can't compete with that for one. And there was always a tsunami of self-publishing that washed up on the shores of Amazon, so trying to get your name out there through sheer volume of work was already difficult. However, there are now things that no one has ever seen. There are so many books flooding the marketplace that I predict it will be harder than ever for a person to make any money at this kind of endeavor. And ChatGPT honestly writes pretty good. There have been times when I've read what it has written and said to myself, "That sounds like something I would write." And it just keeps getting better.
You can tell it to write in the style of J.K. Rowling or write in the style of Stephen King. The absurdity of something that can just do things better than you can and charges no money should be cause for alarm for everyone who is interested in preserving the arts. However, the genie is out of the bottle now. I think artists and anyone interested in the liberal arts is honestly screwed. Unless you are incredibly lucky and you go viral for some reason, you should keep your day job. And whatever your day job is...you should be worried about being able to keep that and develop skills and work that a.i. cannot do. One example is doing something physical. At my job for the State of Utah, I have to meet in person with clients and the meetings can be involved, including driving out to their homes in various parts of the state. Thus far, artificial intelligence can't do that. So my job is safe...for now.
And you know the other weird mind job that I have with a.i.? It's basically a willing slave. I don't want to mince words here. It works and works and works for nothing. So all of these people who love it were actually really (deep down inside) wanting a slave. They really were. And now that they can have one that slaves away for them and does all of these things but doesn't cause them a morality crisis, they are coming out of the woodwork by the millions. They say, "a.i. is a tool that I use." No...no, it is not. A.I. does everything for you, and you sit on your ass and think of prompts. That is not a tool. That's like saying a baker that bakes a cake and you just pick it up and take it home is you doing the work and the baker is a tool. That's not how any of this works.
We are in some strange territory, folks. The thing that makes my head spin is that it happened so quickly. I was not prepared for how fast this storm emerged. Any of you out there observing the same thing?

Silo on Apple TV+ is trolling me with masterful storytelling.

Silo is the other new series I started this weekend. As I promised on Monday, I wanted to talk about it, and the three episodes I've watched thus far.

If you don't know, Silo is the big story that came out of Wool, which was originally a short story that was penned by Indy author, Hugh Howey. It emerged at about the time that some authors were taking the internet by storm by shedding traditional publishing and then getting millions of fans on their own and scooping a much larger share of the pie.

For a while, the internet was mesmerized by these self-made stars like Amanda Hocking and E.L. James, because they were just like many of us: scrabbling out an existence in the United States and enduring underpaid positions working for companies who had bosses and policies that ultimately felt abusive...but we never had any power to change. This is because "there's the door, and don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out" was the clarion call of those in power (FYI, it hasn't changed much in the years since). Maybe it will always be their battle cry. However, on a much smaller level...many of us may be in better positions now due to exploding values in stocks, in real estate, or the fact that we now have longevity in the careers in which we were toiling (which can come with a few privileges).

So, yeah. We were kind of collectively mesmerized by people who were part of the writing community who soared to incredible heights of fame and money, and it looked relatively easy (all magic tricks look effortless). Americans tend to equate that kind of thing to hard work. I take a more salty view and recognize that luck plays a huge part in those kinds of things. In other words, I think there are plenty of super skilled wordsmiths out there who will never get paid. It's unfortunate, but that's just how the cookie crumbles. The difficult task for those people is going to be giving up the dream of riches, looking for fulfillment in other ways (perhaps this is finding a regular job), or trying to prevent bitterness at another's success from seeping in and poisoning their ability to experience joy in their lives.

When I saw that Silo had the kind of production values I was wanting in a telling of Hugh Howey's story, I couldn't have been happier for this author. I don't even know him, but he should be proud of what Apple has done. Just three episodes in, I'm hooked. I want to watch more, but I'm watching it with people who are also hooked, so I don't want to get too far ahead. In the following paragraphs, I'm going to talk a little bit about what I've seen thus far, so if you're going to read further, here is your spoiler warning.

Silo's story is told way different than I'm used to. For one, we don't even get introduced to what must be the primary protagonist until the very end of episode 1. Instead, episode one is about the Sheriff and his wife. These middle aged people are living in this silo (surviving really), and we are slowly fed bits and pieces about why there are so many people living in this concrete tube in the ground that has something like 140 different levels. So it's the size of the tallest building in the world except it is sunk into the ground. We get to know the sheriff and his wife. They are mixed race, highly intelligent, and they are well-liked. The story opens with them being greenlit to have a baby, and a countdown timer starts that lasts an entire year (there are many time jumps). The wife gets her "birth control" thing removed, and they get around to the business of procreating while also working their jobs. But the wife never does get pregnant.

During this time, there are people in the Silo who believe there is a conspiracy aimed at controlling them. One puts the idea in the wife's head that she's not the kind that "they" (the mysterious they) don't want to have a baby. At first she dismisses this. But then she meets a guy (George) who has a hard drive recovered from "somewhere" that is over 140 years old (so this is the time before people had to live in these silos). By the way, it's mind boggling that people would be closed up in these things for entire generations. That is just crazy, and it makes you wonder what is going on outside that forced these people under. The hard drive has on it a feed from someone who was sent out to clean the camera, which is the Silo's only view of the outside world. It gets grimy over the years, and if someone doesn't go out and clean it up with some wool, then the view gets really bad. But the view is basically unchanging: a desolate landscape with a few dead bodies lying around left over from the last people who went out to clean (it's essentially a death sentence because the poison out there just kills you no matter what kind of suit you wear). Only in this feed on this hard drive, it shows that everything outside of the silo is green and nice, and there are things flying in the blue sky.

As expected, this is deeply upsetting to the viewers of this footage. And I have to admit that I know if I was in this same setting, I would not be able to let this go. It would just eat away at my brain, thinking that we were being forced to live in these wretched conditions all of our lives while there was a whole world out there that could support human life. The wife gets a kind of double whammy. Not only is she left with doubts about the validity of what they are seeing of the outside world (is it a deepfake?) but the comment about "you aren't the kind of person they want to have a baby" is also present and worming its way into her brain. So, on the last day of authorized fertility, she takes a knife and cuts into her body and finds a birth control device that was never (in fact) removed. So she was unable to get pregnant this entire time (a year). That's when she loses it.

She declares "I want to go out." And this is a one-way ticket for her to go out and clean. Well, she does go out, but before she does, she tells her husband in secret, "If the world is actually screwed, and I've made a mistake, I won't clean but I will wave goodbye to you. However, if the world is beautiful, I will want you to see that. So I will clean the lens." And then she does exactly that...she cleans the lens while smiling...and then she wanders off and on the screen that everyone is watching, she keels over dead. But again...is this a deepfake? 

That is how this show draws you in. And in many ways...it's becoming the world that we live in now, where people are going to have a lot of difficulty trusting what we see on screens. Is this a deepfake? or is this really happening? What does it actually look like? The kind of themes that are present in Silo feel like they are well-designed for our lives in modern society. I also can't help but anticipate the next episode in the hope that we will get one more tidbit from the show that will unravel the story just a little bit more. It's honestly masterful storytelling.

Is Marvel's Secret Invasion setting up the Fantastic Four to battle the Super Skrull?

This weekend, I started two new series (new to me) on television. The first was Marvel's Secret Invasion. The second was Silo which is an adaptation of Hugh Howey's Wool series that made a huge splash some ten or more years ago in the self-publishing world. Needless to say, Hugh is now a big name in the entertainment industry, and an inspiration to anyone who imagines themselves enjoying those kinds of accolades. In this blog post, I'm going to talk about Secret Invasion. I'm going to save the talk of Silo for the Wednesday post this week. So with that out of the way, let's talk (and there are spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the show yet).

First off, I'm not as familiar with the skrull threat as I am with some of the other things out there in the Marvel-verse. In the comics, they were mostly a Fantastic Four villain. So back in the day (a few years ago) when I watched Captain Marvel and we saw our first skrulls in the Marvel cinematic universe, I was wondering how we were going to get from "helpful comedic allies" to "these guys are the enemy." The pivot was done expertly in Secret Invasion in the episodes that I've seen thus far. Suffice it to say that I think it plays on all of that xenophobia that is so easily linked to the human spirit: the fear of the other. The skrulls can look just like us, and the part where you see the real danger happening occurs on a train car when Nick Fury (in talking with Talos) comes to understand that a million skrulls are now living in secret on Earth. That's a lot. So he's clearly lost control of the situation that he believed was fully under his control when nineteen skrulls in the eighties decided to be loyal to him and work for his organization called S.H.I.E.L.D.

So, to fast forward to the "post-blip" world of the MCU, that five-year absence of Nick Fury (he got dusted) was a long enough time for things to change drastically among the skrull population. They learned that they couldn't count on humans (who had made them a promise to find them a new world to inhabit) and made them susceptible to some pretty radical fascist beliefs held by some of the skrulls: that they didn't need to look any further in the universe for a habitable planet because Earth was just fine. And that's what we have going on in the modern MCU. 

It gave me chills in the latest episode of this show (we are halfway through its six episode run), when Talos made a threatening lunge for Gravik (the bad guy in the show) in a restaurant. In response to this, all the people who were dining in the restaurant immediately stopped and stood as one, showing themselves to be skrulls. This scene really added to the tension that things are becoming threatening on another level, and that humans need to really watch their back. Another thing that gave me a "nerd joy" moment happened when Gravik declared that he and his organization are working on a project aimed at giving skrulls "super powers."

The "Super Skrull" was a big deal in the Fantastic Four comics, having the abilities of all four of the Fantastic Four in one being. I don't know if they are going to copy that exact comic book model. However, whatever they decide on doing, the Super Skrull should be an impressive villain and worthy of a big movie with all of the trimmings. So maybe, the game plan is to set the table for a big Fantastic Four movie with Secret Invasion. That's (at least) what I think the studio is doing with this Disney+ series. It honestly would be refreshing to get an actual Fantastic Four series that was any good. The ones that were put out by Fox were terrible, and I've always believed that a good one is actually possible.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what the next three episodes of Secret Invasion reveal and whether they give me some hint that I'm right about this being what the Fantastic Four movie is going to be about. As a caveat, it would be just as cool if it somehow segues into an X-Men thing as well. To end this blog post, I have some random musings I want to share:

1) I wasn't expecting Giah (played be Emilia Clarke) to get killed in episode 3. I thought this was a big-name actress now. However, the fact that she never changed her outward appearance after betraying Gravik seemed stupid. Like...why wouldn't you change your shape? And also, she was on a motorcycle. Why didn't she swerve the cycle off the road and take her chances?

2) Gravik already appears to have some "super powers." He demonstrated that he has the same healing as we'd associate with Wolverine. So, he's obviously being set up as the first prototype "Super Skrull." But without any superheroes to battle a "Super Skrull," how will they deal with Gravik? Maybe there's going to be a cameo of sorts by someone with super powers. I wonder who that is? Or, maybe Nick Fury will just deal with it. Seems kinda/sorta reasonable.

3) Marvel used in-house a.i. (artificial intelligence) to create its intro to the series. I've watched it with two people who didn't know that the intro was a.i., and they loved the intro. However, people who knew it was a.i. going into it (and viewing it) say it is the worst Marvel intro that has ever happened, and that they should have hired "real artists." I think there's definitely a bias out there where people hate anything that is machine generated. I get it though...even if it looks pretty...people seem to want other people to be paid for that. Unless, of course (and here's the rub) the money is coming out of your own wallet. I've noticed at that point, feelings about "free" start to change. It's not entirely unreasonable though to experience mixed signals and messages from people. The "do as I say" and "not as I do" crowd are a tale as old as time.

4) Samuel L. Jackson was made to play Nick Fury. No one else can deliver lines like, "I'm tired of this bullshit!" and then shoot someone...exactly like he can. I hope Disney gives him a chance to say "Mother F*cker" at least once before its all over.

This is a story that should bring a smile to any writer's face.

In a story that brought a smile to my face, the author of Leigh Howard and the Ghost of Simmons-Pierce Manor became an internet sensation when he was filmed at his book signing looking defeated with no one in attendance. The author, Shawn Warner, explained that this was his debut novel, and it was about a teenaged girl who tries to solve her parent's murders with the help of a ghost.

The TikToker Red, known as @internetfamouslol, posted the video online where it went viral (it has 17 million views), and it turned Warner's debut novel into an Amazon Best Seller overnight. As you might expect, Shawn was really grateful at the legion of fans he got from TikTok.

That's a really cool story to end the week, don't you think? A little kindness gave this guy a huge payday.

Where do your story ideas come from?

Happy Birthday, America. I live close to a parade route, so I got woken up with a bunch of noise on the 4th that included ABBA's "Dancing Queen," motorcycles, shouting, sirens, and people squealing the tires on cars. I obviously didn't watch it, but I imagine that the squealing tires were probably from classic cars or vehicles that held some kind of "wow" factor. So it was a typical 4th of July at its start. But it's also the first Wednesday of the month of July, so let's talk about the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: It's to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

When do y'all post?: That happens on the first Wednesday of every month. It is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. If you are unsure as to what to do, the instructions are simple. You post your thoughts on your own blog. Or, you talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered, and you express support for other writers through those experiences. It's also a great networking opportunity. Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog when you visit and comment on other people's posts. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

The Twitter handle for the Insecure Writer's Support Group is @TheIWSG and the hashtag that everyone uses is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the July 5 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, Kim Lajevardi, Gwen Gardner, Pat Garcia, and Natalie Aguirre!

Every month, the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post (it's optional). These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. If you go this route, you should include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

July 5 question - 99% of my story ideas come from dreams. Where do yours predominantly come from?
First off, I wasn't the one that wrote the question. So 99% of my story ideas definitely do not come from dreams. I feel like...when I choose to write...a lot of my ideas spring out of character development. In other words, I get these ideas in my head that form a story that already involves a certain character, and then that's the one that I want to tell. But none of them are really strong ideas (unfortunately). One reason I've cut down on my writing is that I feel like other people are already out there telling the kinds of stories that I like, and I can always find one that somehow does it better than what I could have done. But, that doesn't mean that a story that I do choose to tell isn't preferred by someone else. I maintain that the most meaningful thing that an author can do is connect with an audience that appreciates their work. 
And that's basically my answer to this month's question. Thanks for stopping by.

Denis Villenueve's Dune adaptation looks like it will cling to the book for its ending and get rid of the idea that Paul Atreides is a white saviour.

I feel like time sometimes plays tricks on me. I watched the new trailer for Dune Part 2, which is the one directed by Denis Villenueve and starring the "King of the Twinks," Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides. Part One came out in 2021. That was...basically two years ago, right? I felt like I just watched it last year, but that simply isn't true. And it's already July 2023, which means that 2023 is essentially already half over. Seeing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny tonight...and knowing that it is has something to do with time (I've kept away from a lot of the spoilers)...my statement seems on the nose in a weird way. But I digress (time flies?).

I've always been a fan of Dune despite having my issues with Herbert as a person. I can say that about a lot of people. Ezra Miller, J.K. Rowling, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, David and Leigh Eddings, Roman Polanski, Ansel Elgort, Gina Garano, H.P. Lovecraft, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the list goes on and on and on. Given that there are also so many bad people who don't create art and I don't like them (Donald Trump, Ted Nugent, etc.) it is really challenging to find "any people" who qualify as "good people." Seriously...it's getting tough folks. So, I generally take the road of "all people are bad and I have a need for entertainment so I'm going to do this thing." And thus we arrive at my writing about Dune and talking about Dune and just enjoying Dune for what it is.

So...Dune! What do I say about the various iterations of Dune that I haven't said before that may be worth a post or a discussion. Villeneuve's part one of what he saw in Herbert's writing was one of those strange experiences that managed to be both spectacle and boring at the same time. But in the end, I loved it. It was a great adaptation of the book. The Lynch version of Dune by contrast was a gorgeous mess. Even though I felt that Lynch was faithful to Herbert's themes, I do believe he was interested more in innocence versus corruption and good vs. evil. Dune as a writing is a lot more subtle than that, and has a theme about how a false prophecy has been purposefully designed. It is there to use religion to motivate people. The book avoids the white savior story while Lynch's version literally embraces it.

Paul, even though he is our protagonist, is trapped in his destiny. And eventually he's going to find himself in a situation where he no longer has any choice at all--that whether he lives or dies, the coming war is already in motion, and it is carried by the religious currents sweeping through the Fremen and the Empire. And regarding Paul, he basically must use his vision of the possible futures to try and navigate them and pick the one that sucks the least. By the end of the book, Paul has to choose between dying himself, letting his family die, or causing Jihad to spread across the universe killing billions. After wrestling with that moral quandary, he makes a decision, and he gives up on saving billions and chooses to live. So the white savior he is not. But you definitely don't get that from the 1984 Dune. I mean...he even makes it rain on Arrakis, which...is not in the book. The comparisons to a "savior" are obvious here.

Anyway, I think that Villenueve is giving me what I want in this movie, which has been split into two parts. Take a look at the newest trailer, and decide for yourself. I just hope that it all doesn't end with Dune. Afterall, Herbert wrote many more books that continue a story of an Empire that is pretty fascinating, and a destiny for humanity that one just has trouble not watching.

We are all living in a Wes Anderson movie that never ends.

I saw Wes Anderson's Asteroid City this weekend. Just like in his other films, his characters are taciturn, and the absurdities are abundant. I couldn't help but compare it to another absurd thing that happened this weekend in real life: the brief revolution in Russia. If you weren't watching, the head of the Wagner Mercenary Group (these guys are some really bad people) named Prigozhin marched on Moscow, and then...he just decided to stop. I kept thinking...did Wes Anderson write this? I mean, Prigozhin was at one time (by the accounts I've read), Putin's chef and caterer. How does a person go from catering food to becoming the head of a brutal mercenary group that commits war crimes? Maybe the trend of sous vide made him mad. Or maybe it was seeing Bobby Flay's white white sneakers. That could infuriate anyone.

I have so many questions. Does he not realize that the guy he stabbed in the back is notorious for assassinating people with poison? Maybe he does and thinks that it just won't happen to him. In a Wes Anderson movie, if someone were assassinated, it would happen in deadpan. That would look interesting. Also, I wouldn't drink any tea not prepared by myself, touch any doorknobs, and stay away from windows if I were Prigozhin. But that (honestly) probably only buys him a few days. You have to admit though, that Prigozhin seems like a character that could easily be in a Wes Anderson film. The key to realizing this is to realize that Prigozhin is absurd in every way possible.

But maybe where real life departs from something Wes Anderson cooks up is in the art. Anderson's stories are so consciously crafted for a specific mood. He constructs these stories that he tells (and the characters who inhabit them) in spaces that are very controlled. Anderson's style appears to be a restraint bordering on psychological and physical incapacitation. And when the absurdities happen, particularly in Asteroid City the kind of comedy relief you are supposed to get from it is often a blunt tool against the hard edges of the powerful control present in every frame of the film. But at least you get quirky characters, deadpan quips, and twee mise en scènes (when applied to cinema this refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement). I can't help but think of how controlled a military group might be...when they weren't committing war crimes that is. It all just seems so weird.
Asteroid City's greatest feat, I think, is the setting. There are a ton of A-List actors all jostling for screen time in this production. But the thing I remember the most are the brightly lit and orange-colored horizons that are supposed to remind one of a Nevada or Utah desert, featureless under the blazing sun, yet still full of life like the occasional roadrunner that is viewed crossing a road with a nuclear explosion going off in the background (miles away) at a test site. That bomb is set off with such frequency that when the diner shakes and the people drinking coffee asks what it is, the waitress says, "bomb test." Again...I can't but help and be reminded of how ridiculous it all is and that (in real life) Russia has so many nuclear bombs. Seriously...was what happened this weekend penned by Wes Anderson?
I think Wes Anderson makes children's movies for adults. Which is to say, that adults are just children with large bodies. If this isn't the truth, then explain literally everything that has happened since 2016 in a way that makes me believe that adults are actually running the show on the stage of real life. I feel like Wes Anderson's true brilliance (and the reason I continue to watch his films) is that he realizes real life is completely absurd. It was absurd for people to pay $250,000 to get in a metal container with no seats and a video game controller and become tourists in the deep sea. Putin and the leaders of his military and people like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green are absurd caricatures of real people. People making a.i. art and calling themselves "Prompt Engineer" is absurd. Elon Musk is an absurd human being. These are all things that Wes Anderson must already know, and he just chooses to make art that shows all of that. I think I get it now. We are living in a Wes Anderson movie that never ends.

I enjoyed the Flash movie.

There are spoilers in this review of The Flash, which I saw this last weekend. Proceed forward at your own peril :).

June has been a fun return to movies. I haven't seen this many films in the theater since before 2020, and it does feel good. I've seen four movies in the last two weeks, and you've already read about what I thought of Elemental (from Pixar) and Across the Spiderverse. Now, I'm going to air my feelings about Warner Brothers first "Flash" movie, and on Wednesday I'll talk about Asteroid City by Wes Anderson.

So, right off the bat, I really liked The Flash. I think that Ezra Miller plays a great Flash even if they are kind of a shitty human being. After watching this film, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't crap on Miller as an actor, because I very much wanted to after seeing the sketchy headlines that paint them to be a kind of weasel in real life. So here's where I have to separate the art from the actor.

We oftentimes have to do this kind of thing. In literature, Marion Zimmer Bradley was a fantastic author that I liked reading, but she had zero problems with her husband being a podophile. Shrug. What can you do about that? And honestly, I've enjoyed Ezra in more than just his outing as the Flash. He was great in Fantastic Beasts too, although the third installment (which was still good), kind of sidelined his character or definitely reduced the impact that character would have on the story. All of that was probably done as he entered the news for various troubling behavior patterns, and then of course, J.K. Rowling was doing the same thing.

I think that a lot of humans always want bad people to always be bad artists. That way we don't have to deal with the conflict of where to draw lines. No one really likes to feel conflicted, am I right? Anyway, The Flash as a movie had a lot going for it. I loved seeing the different universes. I saw bunches of cameos including Helen Slater as Supergirl, which last happened in the 80's (done via C.G.I.), and Christopher Reeve returning briefly as Superman. There was even a Nicolas Cage version of Superman, which I'd only briefly paid attention to over the years, and was a concept for a movie that was directed by Tim Burton. And we saw George Clooney briefly as the Batman. Of course, if you've seen the trailers, then you know Michael Keaton is back as the Batman for one more outing (which includes a send-off). The big bad of the movie is General Zod from Man of Steel. This time, no matter how many Barry Allen's there are, Zod is unstoppable (he was almost unstoppable in Man of Steel). Kryptonian forces and their technology is just too much to handle, and honestly it should have been in Man of Steel. And to my surprise, we got to see Gal Gadot one more time as Wonder Woman. I really wish they weren't scrapping that character, but the next outing of Wonder Woman will more than likely be a different casting. Gal Gadot was just so good as the character.

A lot of people online did not like the C.G.I. that had some uncanny valley moments to it. I didn't mind it so much, however, I knew going into it that the C.G.I. was going to look wonky every time that Barry used the Speed Force. They explained this as, "Things look different from Barry's perspective when he's moving so fast." Others who read those same words from the director say that this is just a way to cover their ass over bad C.G.I. I don't know what the truth is, but I accepted what the director said, I believe they made it intentionally look bad in order to distinguish what it was like being in the Speed Force. I would have liked it much better if they had just copied the Quicksilver sequences from the X-Men movies (with the young cast).

Anyone else see The Flash? If so, what did you think?