Marie Sexton's Blog, page 30

Guest Blogger: JM Cartwright

What to blog about? Well, I could certainly bore you with current events, or the presidential campaign. Yuck. We get enough of that watching the news every night, yes? How about something more interesting and fun?

Do you know that February is National Heart Month? It isn't because of Valentine's Day, though that is a happy coincidence. It's to promote good heart health – and I have a way to do that. Read romance books! (Especially mine, but we'll get into that in a minute.)

You heard me right. Read a good love story. Doesn't that always make your heart better? It's my holistic method for helping your heart to feel happy, which has to make it stronger. At least, that's my unscientific opinion. The brain is a strange and wonderful machine, and when it's engaged and the endorphins are running, the heart has to go along for the ride. Doesn't it? *shrugs good-naturedly*

I've got a few books out that might make you smile, make you laugh, get your heart racing – ooh, watch that one! My funniest book, in my humble opinion, is a FREE read at Goodreads. You can also find it at my website. It's called Appearing Knightly, and it's an homage to The Dark Knight. It was written as part of the Goodreads Hot Summer Days Anthology. Authors were challenged by members of the M/M Romance Group to match stories to pictures. I fell in love with the shot of Batman holding a beautiful, naked guy, and the rest is history.

Another one that will make you laugh — and keep your heart happy — is The Trouble With Angel. Angel Vargas is a piece of work, he's high maintenance, he's very much an urban animal, and he's been secretly lusting after one of his boss' clients for the last three years. The problem is, Brandon Halvorsen is straight. Or is he? Angel's boss has him roped into helping Brandon, who has a special problem. Brandon's life has just turned upside down. He's a major league baseball pitcher, whose new problem has nothing to do with baseball. Two little kids have invaded his life. Uh-oh.

Reading my books you'll see that I like to laugh, I like to enjoy life, and my characters do too. Sometimes, all we need to do is sit in a quiet corner for a couple of hours and read a great love story/comedy/heartwarmer. I'd like to think that if you give my books a try, you'd experience that very thing. And I wasn't kidding about National Heart Month. I was kidding about how to keep your heart healthy – at least a little. More women die of heart disease than any other killer. Be sure to watch fat intake, limit your cholesterol and sodium/sugar intake, and keep moving! Here's a link to get all the info you need on symptoms of a heart attack — and what you should do if you experience them. Don't take your heart's health for granted – keep it healthy, and happy.

Today, instead of worrying about whether your sweetie or somebody special is going to get you candy, or a gift, or take you to dinner, think about yourself… and what makes you happy. What gives you fulfillment as a person? As a mother, sister, wife, co-worker, human being? That's what each of us should celebrate this Valentine's Day. When we're happy, fulfilled and doing what we love, we make a huge difference in this world. When we walk around with a smiling face, it impacts people who might be grumpy, scared, or indifferent. And maybe, just maybe, reach out to someone you don't know today — with a smile, a word of kindness, a friendly gesture. You might not know what a difference you make, but I guarantee the other person will remember. And he might just pass it on.

You can find me at www.jmcartwright.com, and also my Goodreads blog. Join me, and make your heart smile.

BYWBBT Winner

The winner is Judi! Judi, I'll contact you via email. Everybody else, thanks so much for entering, and I hope you'll continue to follow the Beat Your Winter Blues Blog Tour!

Cinder

Available now!

 

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a shoe…

 

Free Short Story

Chapter Five and the Axe-Wielding Maniac, my contribution to the Coffee and Porn in the Morning birthday bash, can be found here.

B-Movie Breakdown: Piranha 3D

This is a tough movie to review. I suppose whether or not it's a good B-movie depends greatly on what exactly you want out of your cheesetastic entertainment. If the answer is, "BOOBS!" then this movie is for you.

Feasibility Factor: An underwater earthquake opens up a rift which allows a massive swarm of bloodthirsty piranha to take over a lake. Granted, prehistoric piranha rising from the depths is pretty far-fetched. However, beyond that, there's not really enough of a plot to be infeasible. In this category, the lower the score, the better. I give Piranha 3D a three.

Hilarity Quotient: I give it a four. While there are a couple of funny scenes, a lot of the hilarity is ruined by other things (usually boobs and/or the extreme overuse of 3D technology).

Re-Watchability: Honestly, if there were a made for TV version, I'd probably give it a high re-watchability rating, but this version? Probably not.

Other Randomness:

Star factor: If this movie has a saving grace, it's the actors: Elizabeth Shue is damn good in it! There's also Christopher Lloyd (playing the same mumbling, befuddled guy he plays in every movie), Richard Dreyfuss (in a cameo), Ving Rhames, and Jerry O'Connell.
Eye Candy: If you like boys, there's almost none at all. Steven R. McQueen is cute if you like baby-faced kids, but other than him, a disembodied penis being regurgitated by killer fish is all we get. I thought this was the era of equal-opportunity gratuitousness, so it's rather disappointing. If you like girls, however, there's boobs. Boobs, boobs, and more boobs. All of them silicone. Most of them nude. Some of them being shaken 3D-style right in your face. Lots and lots and lots of boobs. The made for TV version will be at least twenty minutes shorter, just due to lack of boob.
Gore: Some of the fun of a good B-movie is the gore, and this movie definitely delivers in that category. The "Everybody panic!" scene at the end is B-movie gold. It was fun and perfectly over-the-top. The problem is, so many of the shots were obviously contrived just to allow for some 3D silliness, which I find annoying. Also, BOOBS. God forbid an actress die without showing us her boobs first.

Extra Credit: Not too much for the title, but I do give it extra credit for the last two seconds of the film. Best laugh I had all movie.

Bottom Line: Top grade a B-movie can get is a B+. I give this movie a D-. Personally, I'd rather see a lot more humor and a lot less boob.

New Blog Tour Stop and Old Blog Tour Winners!

First of all, today is Day 2 of the Beat Your Winter Blues Blog Tour! BIG prizes! You can find it here.

Now, speaking of BIG prizes, here are the winners from the Cock & Bull Blog Tour:

Grand Prize of $150 Amazon gift card: Maya, from her comment on Megan Slayer's blog

$100 Amazon gift card: Diana A, from her comment on JP Barnaby's blog

$50 Amazon gift card: Tiffany, from her comment on Kit Sands' blog

Congrats to you all, and thanks to EVERYBODY who followed along on our tour. We had so much fun with you all! You can still see the list of our releases here.

Thanks again!

B-Movie Breakdown: Shark Night 3D

Shark Night 3D

A weekend at a lake house in the Louisiana Gulf turns into a nightmare for seven vacationers as they are subjected to shark attacks.

Warning: SPOILERS follow.

Feasibility Factor: A nice solid ZERO. Remember, in this category, the lower the score the better, and Shark Night 3D definitely is as over-the-top as they come. The entirety of the foolishness would take ages to cover, but let me give you the bottom line: three barely-educated hicks manage to capture a massive number of sharks (some of which are Jaws-size) and move them (without anybody noticing) to their local salt-water resort lake. Why, you may ask? So they can film people being killed by the sharks and make a mint selling their aquatic snuff films, of course. (Never mind that most of the deaths occur when the men aren't even present.) Enough said.

Hilarity Quotient: I give it a six. I honestly laughed out loud several times. The giant shark snatching the guy off his jet-ski by his head was one of the better B-movie moments I've seen in a while.

Re-Watchability: This is where the film truly suffers. On the second viewing, the only thing entertaining was the sharks.

Random Other-Ness:

Eye Candy: Not bad if you like men. Not great if you like women. No superfluous nudity. Only a glimpse of side-boob.
Opening scene is basically the opening scene of Jaws, revisited. It's practically identical. Not sure if that's a plus or a minus.
Characters TSTL? Not as bad as in a lot of other movies, honestly. I give it points for this. While I like the movie plot to be ludicrous, I kind of like the characters to be believable.
The end goes on and on and on. There are multiple scenes of the bad guys monologuing. There's also some backstory about how the main character had been diving several years earlier with her boyfriend (now the #1 Baddy) and maybe her tank ran out of oxygen, or maybe it didn't, and somehow it resulted in her running over her boyfriend with the boat. Huh? And of course at the end, they rehash it, and I swear it goes on for fucking ever. The fun of a good B-Movie is that we don't get mired down in boring bullshit like this. I don't turn movies like Shark Night 3D on for deep plots. I turn them on to keep me entertained while I'm doing mundane household chores like sorting socks. Quit blathering and let the shark bite somebody's arm off already!

Extra Credit: Nah.

Bottom line: Assuming that the best grade a B-movie can get is a B+, I give Shark Night 3D a C-. Fun enough the first time through. Good enough to distract me on laundry day, but it won't ever be on my frequently-watched list.

 

Crime-Drama Commentary: Unforgettable

Unforgettable is a new drama on CBS about a detective, Carrie Wells, who has hyperthymesia. This means she can remember anything, which of course comes in handy when you're trying to solve crimes. Carrie has recently moved to New York and joined the homicide squad where she's partnered with her ex. She has a mother with Alzheimer's and some mysterious event in her past — the only day of her life she can't remember — which ended with her sister's death.

My husband and I started recording this show as soon as it debuted last fall. We watched the first couple of episodes, but it quickly fell into the "meh" category on our DVR. Recently, having exhausted our backlog of every other show we watch, we decided it was time to watch a few more episodes and decide if we gave a damn or not.

The answer, quite simply, is no. Unforgettable has nothing about it that's catchy or interesting or even fun. The entire show hangs upon Carrie's ability to remember anything and everything, but it's not enough to set it apart from multiple other shows (The Mentalist and Psych come to mind) which rely on the protagonist's superior memory or keen powers of observation. And unlike the main characters in those shows, Carrie Wells isn't cool or quirky. Not even a little bit.

Also working against Unforgettable is its distinct lack of characters. There's Carrie, of course, and her ex-boyfriend/partner, Al. The show plays a bit with the predictable "will they or won't they?" dynamics between them, but it isn't even remotely fun. It's heavy and dark and angsty. Al has a new girlfriend, but she's barely more than a placeholder. There are no other characters who appear often enough or are memorable enough to matter. No quirky sidekicks. No fun analysts. No strangely humorous medical examiners. Nothing but somber, depressing Carrie and her pathetic, boring ex. The show is drama layered with seriousness covered with angst and frosted with a healthy dose of regret. There isn't even a god damn cherry on top.

Needless to say, DH and I have deleted this show from our queue. Unforgettable is, in a word (or two), utterly forgettable.

New Feature: Reviews!

In an effort to add some random fun to my blog, I've decided to add a new feature: reviews! Not book reviews, because you can find those all over the place. Mine will mostly be reviews of bad horror flicks (B-Movie Breakdown) or reviews of TV shows I watch (generally, Crime Drama Commentary). I'm terrible at commitment, so I won't promise to do these on any kind of regular schedule. Just whenever the urge strikes (which might mean a bunch over the next couple of weeks, and then never again). Also, please know that I claim to be an expert on absolutely nothing. I'm a Colorado soccer mom turned romance writer, and these reviews will be nothing more than my (possibly stinky) opinion.

Now, the criteria.

B-Movie Breakdown:

Feasibility Factor – How possible is it really? Rated 0 to 10. For a B movie, the lower the Feasibility Factor, the better.
Hilarity Quotient – Rated 0 to 10. Campy humor is good. Laugh-out-loud moments a definite plus.
Re-Watchability – Rated 0 to 10. For me, whether a "good" movie or a B-movie, I like the ones that can be watched more than once. The movies I truly love have fabulous moments of real humanity or simple humor that shine through even the most ludicrous story. These moments are what will make or break a movie in this category. They're the gold nuggets. The chocolate chips in the cookie dough, or the pieces of extra sharp cheddar cheese I mix into my macaroni salad. Want an example? Look at Signs. I know, I know! Lots of people don't like this movie, but I adore it, and it has nothing to do with the aliens. What I love about it is that it has so much subtle humor — the girl at the pharmacy confessing how many times she's called her boyfriend a bastard, the old man who thinks it's all a scam to sell Shasta, and Joaquin Phoenix watching TV in the closet, yelling, "Vamonos, children, vamonos!" Or think about Jaws, which is arguably better than a B-Movie, but what makes it great isn't the shark. It's Sheriff Brody saying, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Whether or not the movies I review are actually good is another argument entirely, but these little moments are what will give them a good Re-Watchability score.
Random Other-Ness – I'm just adding this on to allow for factors I haven't yet considered.
Extra Credit – I'll also add points for truly silly names. I mean really, Sharktopus definitely deserves some extra credit just for that title, don't you think?

Just as a side note, I did a post once on Top 2 Bottom Reviews about B-Movies and what makes them so great. If you're interested, I invited you to read it here.

Crime Drama Commentary:

Actually, I don't have anything so cut and dry for this one. The simple fact of the matter is, I watch a stupid number of crime shows on TV, everything from silly (Psych) to serious (Criminal Minds), and I check out just about every new one that airs. I won't review the ones that have been around a while, but there are several newer ones that I plan to cover. Much like the Re-Watchability Factor above, what I really look for in these isn't the crime. It has a lot more to do with fun and quirky characters. Criminal Minds is a good example. It doesn't matter how hot Morgan is, or how brilliant Hotch may be. It's Reid and Garcia who make the show.

I realize these things have nothing to do with gay romance. Mostly, it's just my way of adding something kind of fun (for me, at least).

First review coming up soon.

Four Things

First, you can pre-order Cinder here. It will be released by Silver Publishing on February 4th.

Second, I'm over at Lisabet Sarai's blog today talking about the reasons I envy a few of my fellow authors. And it's not what you think. Go here.

Third, today's stop on the Cock & Bull tour is Simone Anderson on Sue Holston's blog. Go here.

Finally, today is the first day of the Beat Your Winter Blues Blog Tour!! (Yes, another one. LOL.) Go here.