Michael Offutt's Blog, page 57

Mysterio's magic act in Spider-Man Far From Home is totally believable to me.

There are some spoilers in this post for Spider-Man: Far From Home.

I've been surfing some of the discussion zones for Spider-Man: Far From Home, and some people are doubting that Mysterio could do all the things that he does, even with Stark technology. Here's one such comment:

"Need to re-watch again to see all the scenes of Mysterio pre-reveal, and see if it all lines up to the illusion tech. One scene that comes to mind is when he has his heart-to-heart with Parker on the roof--he goes from flying to sitting next to him; was that all illusion or was Beck actually there? Hidden by the drones and then seamlessly integrated, or all hologram? What if Peter had wanted a hug?"

Here's how I responded to the guy's question:

"I know that this comparison isn't quite the same thing, but I've seen David Copperfield's magic act live at the MGM Grand. Copperfield made me believe that he could teleport things, levitate cars, make things disappear, and the list goes on and on. Honestly, it looked like he'd sold his soul to the proverbial devil for real magic powers (if you believe in that kind of thing). With Mysterio using Iron Man's technology...I won't even try to figure it out. With that kind of support behind him, Beck should be able to do anything...craft any illusion. Because of my experience with Copperfield, I had no trouble believing that all of those illusions and their effects could be staged exactly as they appeared in the movie, with the end result being that everyone (including Spider-Man) is fooled."

And I'm speaking honestly and truthfully here. If you've never attended a real magic show by someone with a hell of a reputation, you should fix that in the near future. These people can craft illusions from the stage that are mind-blowing. I've seen David Copperfield and Criss Angel both in Vegas (Criss isn't quite as talented as Copperfield, but he has a different kind of show). I'm also a big fan of Penn & Teller, who seem to also be on that same level, if not at least in the same ballpark as Copperfield.

Also if none of those names are ringing a bell, then maybe check out last year's America's Got Talent winner, Shin Lim. This is one of the acts he did on America's Got Talent.

Anyway, I guess my point is that illusionists are pretty incredible people, with talent and skill that goes beyond what us mere mortals can understand. Take that a notch up with Iron Man tech? Well let's just say that all the craziness on display in Far From Home looks perfectly believable to me.

Spider-Man Far From Home was an excellent movie that managed to keep its audience on its toes.

The latest Spiderman movie called Far From Home was an excellent film. I've seen it twice now, and I may be just a bit biased because I think Tom Holland is "the bees knees"--at least that's what my good friends are telling me. However, and even ignoring Tom's deliberate talent and enthusiasm to play this role, the show and the story does a lot to keep you on your toes.

Spoilers ahead....

Mysterio seems like the perfect bad guy to introduce at this juncture, post Thanos and post Iron Man. Most of us who went into this movie assumed that Mysterio was a bad guy, right? And we assumed that he was lying about something big, but it was "never" for sure until the M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist that pretty much nailed it halfway into the story. Why do you suppose that is?

It's because Marvel as a whole has done a great job in subverting the usual story-telling tropes and defying the comic material. For example, in Endgame (a movie I didn't really like, but I grant that it was still a solid film) they kill Thanos pretty much right off the bat, and it leaves you wondering what the hell the Avengers are going to do with the rest of the time in a three-hour slog of a movie.

Things that happened in Far From Home are just more echoes of this. Is M.J. "really" only interested in Spider-Man and Peter himself? Is Mysterio actually a visitor to Earth-616 (which is the official Marvel designation for the MCU for which Earth all these stories take place on)...like how would Mysterio know this? And even though Mysterio ends up being a pure con-job the entire time, it remains that a multi-verse probably does exist for the MCU. At least let me put it this way: I don't know why it wouldn't.

Ultimately, though, the movie does a great job of moving the story forward while acknowledging that half the people on Earth went away and came back, and that there are now dead Avengers. And it manages to do all that by telling Peter Parker's next story, which is probably the best person in the MCU through which to do this. Peter is young. He represents a hope and promise for a new generation of heroes. Whether or not he becomes a kind of Iron Man on his own...whatever happens in the next stage (and whatever villain Disney decides to go with) is going to have to keep us on our toes in order to ensure that Avengers: Endgame was not (in fact) peak Marvel. And that is the key, right? How do you top Avengers: Endgame? Well, you top it by not letting go of the ball and you keep playing. You keep going, and you give the audience things that are unpredictable. You keep the audience on their toes.

Far From Home did this, and I think it's a good sign that the next stage is gonna have some surprises that keep the whole thing fresh and exciting.

I really love this alternate Alien movie poster by the artist Gabz.

The website io9 recently talked about an art show that's happening at the Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn, New York for the artist Gabz (real name Grzegorz Domaradzki), who created this piece below (and others for Star Wars) that have gathered fame for their ability to fool the eye into thinking it's a photograph. I think the term for this kind of art is "photo realism," and it's super hard to do.
What do I love about it? The details are great. Not only is the centerpiece instantly recognizable as belonging to Sigourney Weaver, but the font looks like an actual print job. The details of the xenomorphs on both sides of her face are clearly an homage to Giger in that they are rendered perfectly, just as he would have done with his famous airbrush. And there are swirls within swirls. Good Alien art has always been heavy on the details. That was a thing that Giger prided himself on: detailing even the smallest corner of a massive painting so that there were objects that caught the eye that were interesting and macabre. The only thing really missing from this piece is Jones the cat.

I also think there is some foreshadowing going on with this poster. There are four xenomorph heads that are directly in contact with Ripley's space suit, possibly hinting at Alien movies 1 through 4. Additionally, I love that she seems to be transforming into a xenomorph (or has xenomorph traits) as her long association with this franchise changes her physiology permanently by the movie Alien 4. You can see what I'm talking about with the appearance of the vein-like structures that touch both cheeks.

I wonder why Alien couldn't keep the train driving firmly on the rails after Aliens. It's so frustrating, as I've seen Bond movie after Bond movie come out, and most of them are entertaining. The same goes for the Fast & Furious movies. Why did those franchises work out so well, and Alien just bombed? Maybe it was the lack of anything new to do with the story, which forced writers to revisit horror after horror to try and provide more shock value with each telling. I mean, there's only so much a person can be shocked about, especially when the first movie pretty much gives the world a glimpse of a monster and a physical gestation cycle that was never seen before in books or in film.

So maybe the search for shock value is what ultimately made the Alien franchise movies fail beyond the first two. If that is true, at least there are artists who are continually inspired by the universe established by H.R. Giger to keep moving forward with works (such as the one above) inspired by one of the greatest fictional monsters ever imagined.

In July the Insecure Writer's Support Group wants to know what personal traits I've written into my own characters.

Because I'm a day late and a dollar short this month, I am also late for the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog post. This happens on the first Wednesday of every month. I think I got distracted by all the fireworks and the July 4th holiday (yeah that's it!) so I completely forgot about it. I apologize to those readers out there who visited my blog last Wednesday looking for today's belated post.

July 3 question: What personal traits have you written into your character(s)? 

Hmmm. I think a number of things wiggle their way into my characters. The music I love tends to be the music that my characters also love. The books I read inevitably get mentioned in fictional conversations. I suppose I'd even say that my curiosity makes its way into characters in unexpected ways. I tend to be very curious about things that most people overlook. Just the other day while at the grocery store, I saw a plastic pipe lying by the road that had an interesting valve on it, and it intrigued me enough to walk over and look at it. I can't imagine that this kind of behavior happens a lot. Most people who go and shop for groceries are in and out as quickly as possible, and only a rare few would notice or take time to investigate a valve on a sprinkler pipe that didn't belong to them. It's that kind of weirdness that (I think) emerges in my characters.

Anyway, that's all I got for this month's post. Next month is my birthday month, so I think I'll be more on point. There's lots of things I'm balancing this month, trying to suss out how the rest of my summer (and year) is supposed to play out is interesting. I hope that all of you had an outstanding Fourth of July weekend.

In looking for a new vehicle to drive I've questioned whether or not owning a vehicle even makes economic sense anymore.

I've started looking at car options to replace a vehicle I lost when I totaled my 20 year old Toyota Rav 4 earlier this year in a medical emergency that I suffered behind the wheel. It was a weird and surreal experience, losing consciousness briefly due to an extreme coughing fit. When I came to, there was air bag dust, a shattered windshield, and the car was on its side. No one else was hurt, and again, this was many months ago. There's this kind of strange path that all of us (I think) go on when a car is completely ruined once all medical things are taken care of. Here's a little bit of how my path has played out thus far:

1) What do you do with a car that is basically a pile of junk? The tow truck driver needed to take it somewhere, and everywhere you take it to is going to charge a daily fee to store it. There is no free land in America folks, so towing it to your house and having this pile of junk sit in your driveway to avoid storage fees is about the cheapest option you have until you can find a buyer for said pile of junk. And yes...there are buyers of said piles of junk, but you have to find them and woo them to your cause.

2) After deciding to tow the car to said free parking lot, that's where it sat for a while, attracting curious onlookers and comments on all the destruction porn that it offered to the world with its bent frame, its blown tires, and its shattered windshield and deflated airbags. It was an old-fashioned eyesore, that by virtue of its ugliness, invited all kinds of whispers and speculations.

3) I eventually got a place called Tear-A-Part here in Salt Lake City to buy the car from me for $150.00 in cash sight unseen. The hitch? It needed to have four wheels (not tires), an engine, and a transmission. That was all they cared about. Oh and I needed to have the title that I could sign over to them immediately. I told them it indeed had all of those things, and they came by with a tow truck and hauled it away and handed me the cash in an envelope. Needless to say, it cost $200 to have it towed in the first place so I was still $50 in the hole. What was interesting in talking to this place is they could care less about any story or conversation about the car. Does it have four wheels? Yes. Does it have a transmission? Me: "Do you care if it works?" Them (ignoring my question and restating their question): Sir, does it have a transmission? Yes. Does it have an engine? Yes. Them: "We'll buy it for $150. Bye." So I guess those things are all that counts. Good thing to know in the future if I ever need to scrap a car.

4) Now down to one car (I owned two), and my second car is not one I can drive in winter snow storms and it itself is 20 years old...I embarked on seeing about getting a second car for Utah winters. I of course needed to change my automobile policy to reflect only one car. That was easy and pretty much a simple phone call. Then I started examining car models and decided I wanted an SUV of some type. That's when I learned that cars are expensive. No really...they are really expensive. I haven't been paying that much attention, but it got me to wonder...how does anyone afford these things? There is a robust used market, which is a lot more affordable. But cars that are in the used market were once new. Are people really making that kind of cash that they can afford to drop $40,000 on new cars only to toss them a couple years later so they are used for people like me to pick over for half that price (only I think $20,000 is still expensive). Or is this just the newest form of income inequality that I'm becoming aware of. In other words, there are people all over the place making six figures, and then there is everyone else. In just 1999 to 2000 (yes 20 years ago), spending $40,000 on a car would be unheard of, folks. That was like the best car...like what you'd expect to pay for a Jaguar or something fancy. Nowadays, the very bottom rung of Toyota's smallest SUV (the Rav4) sets you back $40,000 once taxes and other fees are paid. In other words, I'm saying that "everyday cars" are running darn close to the halfway mark of a hundred grand when they are new. Holy crap. Wages have not increased to coincide with this in that same time period. At least not any wages I know of.

5) And then there's the question of whether a car is really useful to someone living in a city anyway. How many Uber rides could I take for say $25000? If I spent $20 a day on Uber being shuttled to and from work, it would take 1250 days for me to spend up to $25000. So that's roughly 3.5 years, and that's only if I worked every day. It'd (in all actuality) take me 7 years to recoup that cost in just taking Uber rides. And I'm not even factoring in the cost of gas, maintenance, and interest that might be accrued for a loan, not to mention the storage space it takes up. So is buying a car really something that I want anymore? Is it something that actually improves my life? I have no idea.

Owning cars is ubiquitous in our society, and I don't know if I could ever convince my brain otherwise. I'm from that generation who always "owned" a vehicle. So I most likely will just take more time and find a replacement vehicle that I can drive on snowy roads. I've got my eye on my dad's old 1997 Ford F-150 that he no longer drives, and it's likely that I'll be getting that and tooling around town in it just fine with its old gas guzzling, carbon emitting engine. However, I think that the gig economy and the sky high prices of cars has created a strange scenario wherein every transportation solution is going to be different for every single person.

I will be taking Friday off from blogging. I'll see you Monday.

Riding a wave of eighties nostalgia New Coke returns along with Stranger Things.

New Coke is back! My memories of the summer of 1985 were all about Back to the Future and how Coke felt so threatened by Pepsi that they changed their formula to one that tasted exactly like Pepsi. It bombed big time, and to compensate, they released Coca-Cola Classic, which if memory serves, basically became Coca-Cola again while New Coke slowly retreated into invisibility.

What brought it back? Supposedly it is the release of the new (third season) of Stranger Things. I've enjoyed both seasons of this weird and nostalgic throwback to the eighties. One reason: each season is a self-contained story that begins and ends like one long book that's doled out chapter by chapter as you watch each episode. If it were on cable television instead of Netflix, there'd be a chance that it wouldn't play out this way. Rather, each episode might tell a story in and of itself. Sound familiar? Think of Supernatural where each episode is a monster of the week with a few "key" episodes peppered within kinda like the "Smoking Man" episodes in the X-Files (that hinted at a much larger story line). Either that or season 1 would tease a story that (by season 3) grows into a monstrosity with half-assed explanations because writers forgot important details and don't care anymore.

From the season 3 trailer, is it fair to call this season Jaws meets An American Werewolf in London meets The Thing and The Fly? Lots of John Carpenter influences are in Stranger Things. I'm going with yes. :)

I wonder if the Dark Crystal series on Netflix will give us more soul-searching and depth on behalf of its protagonists.

With the Dark Crystal series coming to Netflix in August, I wanted to revisit my feelings regarding this particular film. There's no doubt that nostalgia for a simpler time and for the eighties plays well into my wanting to watch this series. I was barely a teenager when the original movie was released, and the summer of 1982 had a lot of hits with 48 Hours, Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Poltergeist, Star Trek II, and Tootsie. The feelings I had as a kid were that life would always be something like parents taking care of all the difficult stuff of life, and me sitting in a chair in a cold movie theater, drinking soda and eating popcorn while watching fantastical movies.

When I recently rewatched it, I felt that the movie still had some of that magic, but it was definitely colored through the lens of having grown up and not seen a thing in many decades. By today's standards, I think it might even be boring, because there are no human characters (just puppets), and there's no CGI. It's pacing is at times slow and unapologetic while it doles out what it needs the audience to know through its imagery.

And that, I think, is where I'm looking forward to seeing the series on Netlix the most...the imagery. There's something about using all of those puppets and creating everything in actual reality that makes the world come fully alive...it's a thing I don't take note of (as much) from the modern movies of today. I wonder if they'll be able to capture some of that magic in the Netflix series, which is a prequel from what I understand.

The fact that it's a prequel doesn't bother me at all. For one, the story of the Dark Crystal would be generic by today's standards, and there really wasn't too much depth of character going on in the movie. It never leaves you not know what's going on and why, and each character's personality derives completely from what its doing. There is no exploration of who the person actually is...no soul searching or anything like that. However, I think there's plenty of that to do in a prequel series with all new characters and adventures that take place in a world that has seen the crystal sundered (and been changed significantly because of that fact).

Anyone else looking forward to watching the series?

People in prison should be allowed to vote because the invisible garbage of our society is voting right now.

In Utah, I've debated with some people who are appalled that Bernie Sanders wants people in prison to be able to vote. I think that Bernie is absolutely correct, but not for the reason that most people think. I have what I call a realistic view of the people I interact with everyday, and it's this: a lot of them should be in jail but they haven't been caught. The only difference between them and people who are in prison is exactly that. The people in prison were unlucky enough to be apprehended and serve as a lesson to the rest of us to try and toe the line.

If you point at a church full of people, a school full of people, or a business full of people, I will assume that there's a big percentage of those in that actual building who are thieves, serial abusers, pedophiles, rapists, grifters, tax-evaders, and drug-dealers. Whatever thought processes that lead them to make the decisions that they do are the same thought processes that led people before them to do those things who are in prison. However, the people in jail--the unfortunate few who got caught and punished--don't get to vote.

All those criminals who haven't been caught who are sitting next to you in church DO get to vote and they are changing society to reflect perfect conditions in which they can thrive and exploit others for their personal gain. For example, take the pedophile. I would not be surprised if the closeted pedo that no one sees goes and votes to make the burden on single moms even more extreme than it is now. Having low wages and no support means an adult guardian is going to be overwhelmed. This means they'll be less vigilant in protecting their children, making the "kids" available for kind entreaties of "I can watch the kids while you do this and that...." It's all so subtle and insidious, but yeah, that's how that works.

To think that people who are somehow "not incarcerated" are ideologically pure and have a strong moral compass and are smart and good is asinine. It's delusional in the same way that believing magnets in your shoes will cure cancer. I know that this viewpoint is going to clash with some out there who want to believe in a narcissistic way that those who do wrong always get punished. I say "narcissistic" because a lot of the time, the people who believe this actual thing are criminals, but they would never label themselves as such. It's the same cognitive dissonance that makes a "job creator" not think of himself as a "wage slave owner," and for them to consequently declare that they are morally good and should be voting.

I'm under no such delusions. I'm not Anne Frank. I don't believe people are good at heart. I believe people get away with murder, kidnapping, rape, and other horrific crimes ALL of the time. I also believe that you don't have to be smart to get away with things. Our society is so bad at ferreting out wrong-doers that you can be stupid as a sack of cement and get away with something. It happens all the time. But in our country, these people get the privilege of voting. It's time to even the odds.

In a perfect world, where only people with strong moral compasses and compassion were somehow selected to vote and all others were denied, then maybe (just maybe) not allowing prisoners to vote would actually make sense to me. But we don't live in this world. We live in a world awash with the invisible garbage of humanity--invisible because we haven't flagged it for law enforcement. It's floating everywhere. So, it makes sense to me that if we let "invisible garbage" vote, we should let the "visible garbage" vote too.

Anyway, it's a good idea. Bernie Sanders has a lot of good ideas. I'm just surprised I never thought of the whole, "Let those in prison vote." It makes so much sense. I hope it comes true someday. We could learn a lot from our brothers and sisters who have had their lives ruined for doing things that people get away with every day. 

I think being a clever writer has been clever-clevered to the point of it being cliche.

I'm not sure why, but I'm getting tired of writers being "clever clever." The condition of "clever clever" is one in which a person has taken an existing story that blazed its own path with its own characters, and they've now taken the challenge to go through and thread this character with new made up ridiculous things...but somehow it all makes sense because you've never thought of it in that way. This trope is a huge deal in practically all urban fantasy that I've ever read or watched. The "clever clever" writer takes characters common in mythologies of the world, and somehow makes these magical creatures seem to fit into the modern world. As if somehow, with all the scientific observations humans are capable of, that somehow we just missed noticing a secret vampire society, werewolves who serve as scout leaders, and magicians attending our P.T.A. meetings.

Right now, I'm reading a religious allegory, because a good friend recommended it. I felt a little obligated to read it, and to be honest, it's a clever book. I'm not going to name it or the writer here in this blog, because I don't want to write a negative review because this is something (as far as I can tell) that is happening to me uniquely. This book, threading characters of Jesus and calling him Joseph and giving him a best friend named Biff is very clever. It's sooo clever. But I know its clever...it's annoyingly clever...and yes...the things make sense. I think "how did I never think of that?" "Oh boy is this writer clever..." and things like that. But I'm not enjoying the book. It's annoying me. I'm going to finish it because I feel a sense of obligation about it. However, I'd really like it if I never read another "clever" novel again for a really long time.

Here's the thing. Jesus HAS a story, and it's written about already in the New Testament. That story is done, and it's there for all to read and interpret and think about. Cinderella has one too. So does Snow White, and Jack and the Beanstalk. Lord of the Rings has a story. I don't need to read Bored of the Rings so that someone can show me how clever they are at taking a story and altering it with clever nuances and observations to make it funny. I just don't need that in my life at this time. It serves no purpose. Yes, the writer is clever. So please take the door that exits out onto "Clever Avenue" and stop bothering me. There are throngs of people who want to shower adulation upon you that say, "You are so clever!" Why do you need it from me?

I also want to be clear that I do still appreciate more subtle versions of clever. I appreciate when there are clever characters doing clever things. I appreciate smart stories that aren't so blatantly trying to give new spins to historical characters. You want to reinvent King Arthur? That sounds great. You want to Monty Python King Arthur again? I'll take a hard pass, although I'm sure others will think its great.

I guess what I'm complaining about really is that I'm kind of fed up with writers who quite obviously are wanting you to look up from the page and exclaim, "Boy, isn't this writer smart to have thought of that?" I've been doing it quite a bit lately, and I don't like it. I want a story to take hold of me and carry me away and leave me breathless, saying, "Wow, what a good story!" The story should be what I'm talking about...not how clever the writer is.

I think being a clever writer has been clever-clevered to the point of it being cliche.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

I don't understand why a lot of people think that minorities achieving equality is a zero sum game.

My Facebook is probably just like yours, only smaller scale. It fills up with all kinds of posts, and some of them are upsetting, while others miss the mark, and some are actually helpful. Go figure, right? One that I saw recently was of the "upsetting" variety. It had to do with an acquaintance of mine, and his younger brother who lives in Idaho.

My acquaintance put up a feminist post showing a woman being called to by some rednecks in a roofless Jeep. These three men had a unanimous piece of advice for this young woman: "You'd be more attractive if you smiled more." And the woman actually reacted to it in a way that is very antagonistic. Something akin to, "I'm not interested in being attractive to you. How would you like it if strange men whistled at you and made suggestions to help you be more attractive to them?"

Anyway, the point of the thing was this: if you are a man, stop behaving like this toward women. They don't enjoy it, and it makes them feel harassed. Well the younger brother who lives in Idaho (I want to add that he is a U.S. Army veteran, so he may have some issues regarding toxic masculinity and PTSD) had strong things to say about "snowflakes" and "pc culture." The brothers got into a full-blown argument, neither one meeting on any common ground. In the end, they just stopped talking and moved onto "Agree to disagree," and that kind of thing.

I actually hate "agree to disagree." It isn't helpful, and it means that both parties dismiss the other in favor of keeping the peace. No viewpoints are changed, no minds are settled. It's the ultimate stubborn "dig in your heels" move, and it makes compromise and communication completely impossible with regard to this one thing. The more of those things you "agree to disagree" with that happen within the context of a relationship, the more the relationship deteriorates as a whole.

However, what's troubling about the whole exchange I witnessed second-hand, is that the younger brother clearly thought that feminism had gone too far. It was infringing on a man's right to compliment someone...infringing on a man's right to make suggestions on what would make a person more amiable and approachable. For him, it meant that it was no longer safe for men to be men. The very idea of being a man in the United States was under attack, and he was going to have none of it. "If someone is offended, that's on them," he said. "Being offended is a choice. Make the choice not to be offended, but don't cut off anyone's right to say anything. We have Freedom of Speech fought for by brave men and women." And on and on and on he would go.

I don't understand why he though that this woman being treated as an equal, instead of being a punching bag for a man's words, was somehow taking rights away from a man. And this is just one example. In Kearns, Utah here recently (it's just a few miles from where I live) some high school students burned a Gay Pride flag on a Snapchat video and declared that all gays should just die. As a gay man, seeing this is disturbing. Seeing that no one really cares (other than to take the high school students who were behind the event and kicking them off the football team) is also disturbing. But it's a comfortable cloth that gets draped on our gay shoulders...this idea that someone needs to be the punching bag for someone else. "How dare you stand up for yourself! If we can't pick on you, then who's it gonna be!" Those are the words that I hear when I see acts like the video I've described.

Why is America so uniquely cruel? Why is our society based on punching down on someone? Why do people think that minorities achieving equality is somehow going to rob a person with privilege of some of that privilege? We live in a country that others see as rich, yet we have millions of citizens that have to crowd fund to take care of medical bills. Our students medicate themselves for depression and anxiety. Public shootings are so commonplace now, that the news barely reports them anymore unless the death count is really high. Why are people so angry that gays are finally getting rights? Why are men so angry that women want equal pay for equal work? Why do people think having healthcare for all somehow means that your healthcare will now suck? Getting rights, respect, and living a good life should be available for everyone. But it's clearly not, and I think it's because not enough people actually desire equality.

I guess what I'm saying is that a majority of people actually desire inequality, and I don't get that. If this is true, why are we this way?

Do any of you have thoughts on this topic you'd be willing to share? I look forward to your comments.