Michael Offutt's Blog, page 91

Suicide Squad is not a terrible movie.

There are spoilers in this post :).

I saw Suicide Squad last night in the local IMAX, and I'm here to tell you that it isn't really deserving of all its bad reviews. Rotten Tomatoes (an aggregate site that gathers data from tons of reviewers) has it pegged at below 30%. But if I were to rate it, I'd probably give it 60% (meaning it'd be "fresh" instead of rotten). To clarify, I didn't think it was spectacular but neither was it a complete trainwreck. Those people that insist that it is are probably just people that hate comic book movies and love to tear things down when they disappoint. Either that, or they love Marvel and think that DC should just stop making movies altogether.

The first thing I loved about the movie was that it's gorgeous. That has to count for something right? Every scene is loaded with color and detail that make it seem like an alternate version of reality. It's hard to describe, but I think the director really pulled the use of color and "gritty" off. The characters were also pretty representative of their comic book selves, and that kind of thing always makes me happy.

Second, it subtly built itself upon Batman versus Superman thereby adding to the universe. There were appearances by "The Flash" and by "the Batman" who were both responsible for putting certain villains behind bars. I like the sense of having that bigger universe skirting around the edges of all the events that you see unfold on the screen.

Third, it had a riveting soundtrack.

So if I had a criticism it would be this: Suicide Squad should have boldly embraced an "R" rating. I think that DC (if anything) missed an opportunity here to go incredibly dark and beat Marvel at its own game (with Deadpool). And it also needed a better villain. The one they chose was interesting, because I've always liked Enchantress. However, I don't think they pulled Enchantress off very well. I've always thought of Enchantress as more of a Green Lantern villain, but seeing as DC screwed up Green Lantern, seeing her here at least gave her a shot at doing some cool stuff. But I feel her magic was wasted just having her stay in one spot for the majority of the film.

Anyway, that's my review of Suicide Squad. I felt compelled to write something because every other review out there is saying its terrible, and I just felt that there was something more to it that people were missing.

In today's Insecure Writer's Support Group post I answer a question about my very first piece of writing.

Today is the first Wednesday of a new month. That means it's time to do my Insecure Writer's Support Group post. This month I'm answering the question on the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog located HERE.
AUGUST 3RD QUESTION: What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?

My very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer was a novella I wrote in high school. It was a fantasy, and featured a hand-drawn map of some island that I no longer remember the name to. It starred my D&D adventuring group's characters (three people). I have long since lost every copy I ever had (electronic or paper). But it was a lot of fun writing if not ridiculous in many ways. I basically wrote it by making up things on the fly for the characters to do to fill up space. Once a short plot point was resolved then another popped up. I'm sure if I were to reread it today, it would be utterly juvenile and boring.
Fun fact: I wrote it with an electric typewriter. The year was 1987, and my parents said that computers were a luxury we just couldn't afford. But if we were going to buy one, my mother wanted a Wang. She was in love with that brand for some reason.
Editing was so much harder with a typewriter. I think I wore out the "White-Out" ribbon thing on that old machine.

Maybe Mr. Robot's real message is to show how incredibly damaging mental illness can actually be on a society if not to outright question why society even exists in the first place

I'm a few episodes into season two of USA's hit, Mr. Robot. Although I'd classify it as "good" by placing it within the same vein as "A Beautiful Mind" or "Memento," these are both films that I don't revisit. Once was enough, because they're basically depressing shows. But on top of that, Mr. Robot adds another layer of "annoying" for me: the whole "unreliable narrator" schtick. Basically, we see the world of Mr. Robot through crazy person "Elliot" or through Tyrell Wellick's sociopathic wife (who knows what motivation she is up to). It makes me wonder if I (as a writer) would ever toy with the unreliable narrator trope, and I think it frustrates me so much that I compare it to "it's all a dream" sequences that are in books (but are only revealed as dreams after whole chapters). It's like pulling the "just kidding!" button and leaves the reader feeling like they've wasted time. Furthermore, it makes the reader question what is real, what isn't real, and why should I even care? So no, I don't think I'd ever use that.

I do think that Mr. Robot definitely has an audience out there. Disaffected people who are angry at the world and just narcissistic enough to lay no blame at their own feet for the choices they have made in life will love the show. People who express frustration, or who feel neutered and disrespected by life will flock to its themes of using computers to disrupt systems and bring pain to the rich elite whom they see as undeserving of the blessings within their life. In the latest episode, Elliot was praised for "hearing voices" and compared to the likes of Moses and Jesus. That's sure to stroke the ego of any narcissistic computer nerd out there whose life has been made a living hell through low self-esteem but likens himself as a social justice warrior (read "moral narcissist" into this phrase). The "no one appreciates that I'm a genius" mantra is a HUGE underlying current in Mr. Robot. Sigh.

So I'm what? Four episodes into this season. The big reveal last season was that Mr. Robot was in fact Elliot's dead father, and he wasn't real at all. I'm beginning to suspect that this season has even more big reveals. I think Elliot (for one) is in a mental institution. He keeps a journal, gets regular meds, there's only one phone he uses, and his only way to access a computer looks like it happens in an office in a prison or asylum (with a guard). He watches hoops from bleachers, and the show makes you think that it's probably a neighborhood park that he walks down to. But I suspect it's just in the yard where he's being kept prisoner. And I think he landed in there because he killed Tyrell Wellick in the season opener. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Tyrell might still be alive because we get hints through his sociopathic wife, but she doesn't give us much as far as that goes. The only thing that we really know about her is that she's into bondage, doesn't have enough hush money, and that she's dating a bartender because dating a loser (in her own words) is really appealing since she had all of the material things she could ever want and was never happy. But does the woman even know what happiness is?

The characters in this show are incredibly frustrating, evil, manipulative, and crazy. It's a good show, but it's not a "feel good" drama. Maybe it's only real purpose is to show how incredibly damaging some kinds of mental illness can actually be on society, if not questioning why society even exists in the first place. That, and maybe to compare hackers to gods. I'm sure Julian Assange would approve to being deified. Why not? The narcissism runs strong in the almost all male dominated tech community. But at least these narcissists seem to have good intentions: they want the world to be a better place. I guess we couldn't expect hackers to have read Virgil's Aeneid wherein the quote "The descent to hell is easy" appears and probably morphed into the phrase "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Has America changed or do Americans still believe in humility and gentleness and civility at the end of the day?

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks in politics. The DNC just finished wrapping up an astounding convention by nominating the first woman for President of the United States. I listened to incredible speeches made by Michelle Obama, President Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary herself. I listened to republicans like Michael Bloomberg take Donald Trump to task. It was all fascinating.

I talked about this in brief with my friend, James, who sent me the picture below.
My response was to say, "Funny cartoon, but I (of course you know this) am very excited by my democratic nominee. So it's not vomit or poop to me. I sent her money.

Star Lord's dad in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies is played by Kurt Russell and I'm getting all the Big Trouble in Little China feels right now

Spoiler Alert: This post reveals who Star Lord's dad is...

San Diego Comic Con released a TON of science fiction, fantasy, and superhero news this weekend. We got to see some Justice League footage, we saw the first trailer for Wonder Woman, audiences caught a glimpse of Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the list goes on and on. What caught my eye though was that Star Lord's dad in the Guardian of the Galaxy movies is Ego, and he's being played by Kurt Russell.

I'm seriously getting all the Big Trouble in Little China Feels right now.

Here's Ego....
It will be interesting to see how this character makes its mark on the Marvel universe. And yes, if you're wondering, I guess Ego does have a penis and that's cleared up in the movie because other people are wondering the same thing: how can a planet be Star Lord's dad? Well if the anatomy is right I suppose anything is possible.

Why do we have such a strong emotional reaction to plagiarism?

Earlier this week, Melania Trump's speech writer (and her by proxy) plagiarized parts of Michelle Obama's speech that she gave to democrats eight years ago at the Democratic National convention. When news of this broke, basically the internet lost its collective mind. I'm no republican and no fan of Trump, but it did get me wondering why (as a society) we despise plagiarism.

Here's what I worked out in my head. Plagiarism is stealing, just like someone helping themselves to something in your house. It's walking right in, grabbing a television, or grabbing your favorite console gaming device, and walking out the door with it. It makes sense to feel victimized (if you are the victim of plagiarism). It makes sense that other people would support you feeling victimized, because they don't want it to happen to them.

But why do we feel this way? Do they feel the same way in communist China? I would think that in a communist country like China that there'd be no sense of ownership when it comes to words (or any other kind of intellectual property). If you go far enough to the left in American politics, you eventually arrive at socialism which then turns to communism in the extreme (if you go far enough to the right you also arrive at fascism). So I started to think...who would be more upset over plagiarism? Those on the left or those on the right? From what I've observed, it seems to be those on the political Left. Those on the political Right seem to be (for the most part) completely okay with plagiarism.

I find this fascinating because the whole journey from the exact middle (between both Republican and Democrat) is a sliding scale to both sides. Technically, as you journey left you should encounter "in degrees" attitudes and biases that signal that a person is "less and less" attached to personal property as it all becomes a kind of shared commune where everyone helps everyone equally and no one person is any more important than another. As you slide to the right, you would encounter people who "more and more" believe that personal property is as important as identity, and this would lead to fear and paranoia that everyone was out there eyeing what was yours (and plotting to rip it from your hands). All of this is just theory by the way.

But this isn't what happened. I suppose all humans are illogical, and it makes no sense to try and put them into boxes (even though that's what my mind sometimes tries to do).

And the fact is that we live in a society that hates thieves. I know I'm no exception. As someone who does place themselves on the political left, I'm just wondering why I have an emotional reaction to plagiarism, and whether or not I feel that way because I was born and raised in America.

Netflix had a disastrous quarter and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that "Netflix and Binge" is an unsustainable business model.

Yesterday on CNBC there was all kinds of speculation as to why Netflix stock is tanking. Most of it has to do with how they are hemorrhaging subscribers. I don't personally have any stake in Netflix, so I feel like weighing in on this topic by observing what I see in my friends.

As a caveat, I don't have any friends with similar tastes at all. I just haven't found any. Everyone I know is as different to me as black is to white. So it's no surprise that I also differ in how I watch my television. I like watching shows that put their episodes out a week at a time, one at a time. Yep...I'm not a "Netflix and binge" kinda guy. I don't mind waiting in lines. I was raised that patience is a virtue and that the best things come to those who wait.

I have a friend that's completely different of course. He prefers consuming everything like gorging at a table and stuffing food down his mouth with a shovel. The faster one can get "through" something, the more time that is left for binging on video games...literally staying up for 48 hours in a row until eyes are raw and body odor is thick. He said (and I think he thought himself "wise" at the moment) that, "Netflix sees how it should be done. They put up the whole season, they put lots of money into it to make it excellent, and then the consumer is rewarded by being able to watch it all at once, free of commercials, and without having to wait." Nevermind that he actually pirates the programming. I suppose it's us (the subscribers out here in "real life" land) that actually pay for things like "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones." The point that I'm making here is that someone who is completely devoted to consuming content, can do so and basically run out of things to watch before a single month is out (plowing through basically every original series). Then a "pat" on the back ensues because (at most) they paid like $10 bucks if they weren't using a friend's password to begin with, and they proclaim loudly as to what a deal they got.

And yeah...they got a really good deal. But it was a shitty one for the company that will have little incentive to keep producing good content if all they get is ten measly bucks.

Anyway, it's this kind of consumer that is in fact, threatening to destroy Netflix. It may seem brilliant at the moment (for them to load entire seasons up at once), but the fact that Netflix has gone down in subscribers (despite increasing the amount of countries that have Netflix available into the hundreds) is a tell-tale sign that people are binging, and then canceling their subscription (if they even bother to pay at all). So it's an unsustainable business model. They think they can blow billions of dollars on original series and by doing so inspire loyalty in their subscribers. However, human nature is way different. Most humans want to maximize their gains. No one wants to be "taken advantage of" and when a good deal comes along, many will rape the deal to make sure to maximize what they get out of it. So with Netflix, what happens is that people consume and then bail until such time as there is more to consume. Netflix is in fact pouring so much money into their original content, that it has affected their ability to secure series and movies from other sources. As an example, if you maintained your subscription you probably have noticed that Starz bailed on Netflix taking lots of movies with it.

I am not one of those people (and I suppose am in the minority). I realize that if I want to continue to have good content, I need to pay for it. But there are fewer people like me out there all the time, and more people like the friend I just described who "gluttonizes" content and doesn't pay a thing. It'll be interesting to see what changes Netflix makes in the future. Perhaps they're going to have to start releasing shows with only one episode a week. I imagine that will cause yells and screams from people across the world. However, as I see it the other way they've been doing things isn't going to work. It's like that old saying, "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he depopulates the ocean by making a business that employs low-wage slaves and pollutes the water to maximize his total gain."

Yep, I'm sure that's how that saying goes. If not...the way I wrote it is definitely more accurate.

Grand Admiral Thrawn is in the Star Wars Rebels season three trailer and that's a pretty big deal

This weekend Star Wars: Rebels released its trailer for the third season, and among the surprises was the appearance of a fan favorite: Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Timothy Zahn trilogy that I read when I was going to college in the early nineties. Heir to the Empire was a fantastic book, and it hit at just the right time as I was getting heavily involved in the Star Wars RPG that was published by West End Games (I should have held onto my books). Aside from being very well written, Grand Admiral Thrawn was this evil, calculating, military genius that studied alien civilizations through their art and culture, and then figured out how to defeat them. Additionally, Zahn also introduced an alien called an ysalamiri that could create a bubble that pushed away the force, effectively neutralizing it. This is very useful stuff when you have to deal with Jedi and Sith on a regular basis.

Ever since reading that trilogy, I'd wondered if Grand Admiral Thrawn would ever make it to some kind of movie or television series. And now (it appears) that he's canon, although whether or not he will follow the plotline outlined by Zahn's narrative remains to be seen (as Grand Admiral Thrawn survived the destruction of the Death Star and would be more in the timeline of "The Force Awakens"). So seeing him in Star Wars: Rebels makes me think that Disney liked the ideas behind the character, but has something else in store for him that has nothing to do with the extended universe stuff.

Anyway, if you haven't seen the trailer yet (and you're a Star Wars fan) hit play below.

I wish I had a life as interesting and carefree as my Pokemon Go avatar promises his would be.

I think my Pokemon Go avatar wears drawstring jeans. I don't even know where you can buy drawstring jeans. Tokyo maybe? He's also much more fashionably dressed for a street punk than I could ever be. He's got spiked hair, wears a cool backpack, and has fingerless gloves. You know, the kind that weight lifters and bikers have that are black and made of leather. But he's still a punk because he looks like he's fifteen years old. It's a good thing he's got sneakers too, because he walks a lot.

Needless to say, my Pokemon Go avatar doesn't look anything like me. But maybe that's the point. Japanese anime always features cute guys and girls who have kind of a gender fluid look, small noses, and long necks. In the worlds of Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Attack on Titan, and Miyazaki, men have always looked more like Tom Holland (who played Spiderman in Captain America: Civil War) than they've ever looked like John Wayne. Usually, the ones that do look like John Wayne (if they're present at all) are there to be villainous.

In the far east I think chest hair is the equivalent of wearing all black in the west. Or in the least, having chest hair is the equivalent of owning a wand, all black, heavy, and with a core of asbestos. Nothing good could ever come from that.

Did you know that in Japan they have a special soap that gets rid of "old person smell?" It's true, and you can check it out here at this website. If you don't know what old person smell is, it is a "troublesome type of body odor caused by a substance called Nonenal that cannot be eliminated by conventional soaps." I'm sure you've smelled it in nursing homes or visiting your grandparents. I guess my point is not that this "persimmon green tea" soap exists, rather it's that I'm not surprised that the Japanese invented it. Any society that finds body hair undesirable is going to have persimmon green tea soaps. It's an acknowledgement that, "Yeah we all age, but it doesn't mean you have to let it all go. Keep it in check, would you? There are young people about that think you're gross. Stop scaring them."

I wish I had a life as interesting and carefree as my Pokemon Go avatar promises his would be. Aside from being forever young, he looks like he's comfortably sexual and attractive even though I have no idea to whom he'd be attracted to. He's just a bunch of pixels on a screen with perfectly toned skin. And because he's computer generated, I think it's safe to say that he doesn't experience sexual attraction at all as far as I know. So he just walks around, never making a misstep or catching his shoe on uneven ground and tripping. He's privy to the strange world of invisible monsters that supposedly live all around us and by capturing them he gets powerful. He gets stronger as time goes on. By contrast, I get weaker and need to sit down. But at least I'm off the couch.

I think I know why my Pokemon Go avatar doesn't have any wrinkles. I think it's because he doesn't have a soul-sucking job or have to figure out how to afford a house in areas where affordable housing is as mythical as a Pokemon. He also doesn't face the consequences of looking "different." His monsters dance a jig and look cute. Real world monsters are beliefs and attitudes and you can't just zap them with a pokeball.

If only it were that easy.

This week is the time when we all time warp back to the eighties and indulge in Ghostbusters and Stranger Things.

I once berated nostalgia. You can find that post HERE if you want to read about it. But my mood has changed since the days when I penned that blog post. This week we're getting a Ghostbusters reboot that I'm looking forward to seeing, and a huge game called Pokemon Go is allowing me to visit the Pokemon craze that I first noticed as a young adult. Though I'm certainly not a big Pokemon Go player, walking around to collect them will probably get me some much needed exercise.

But the thing I'm looking forward to the most this weekend is when Stranger Things lands on Netflix. Early reviews say that it's pretty brilliant. I know one reviewer said it has a retro credits sequence and a John Carpenter-esque score so I'm kind of sold on those two things alone. It also has a brooding atmosphere that is a combination of Stephen King and Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg was a film god in the seventies and eighties and King is hit and miss, but I have a feeling that only the best parts of King will be on display here.

Stranger Things also promises to explore some J.J. Abrams-esque "science fiction" parallel worlds stuff like we saw in Fringe. For the record, I loved Fringe.

So I guess this week is the time when we all time warp back to the eighties and indulge in Ghostbusters and Stranger Things. That is, if you can manage to pull yourself away from Pokemon Go.