Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 131
October 2, 2017
Kings River Life Magazine Feature: Dennis Palumbo’s Dr. Daniel Rinaldi: A Good Man to Have on Your Side
Be content with what you have: rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. —Lao Tzu
Employing a psychologist or a psychiatrist as a part of an investigative team makes perfect sense. It has worked well for Val McDermid and her Dr. Tony Hill. Even Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter, though insane, had professional insights that helped Clarice Starling find “Buffalo Bill” after all. Enter Daniel Rinaldi, Dennis Palumbo’s clinical psychologist based in Pittsburgh. Rinaldi, no stranger to trauma and personal loss himself, is the therapist we dream of: worthy of trust, adept at his job, and flawed just enough to make him interesting but not enough to damage any of us or his patients. He is pulled into Pittsburgh’s Police Department for more than one reason and shoulders his way through resentment and obstructions to help both patients and friends involved in or with law enforcement.
Mirror Image (2010) introduces police consultant, trauma specialist, and therapist Daniel Rinaldi who finds himself a murder suspect when one of his patients turns up murdered. His personal and professional jeopardy increases when a contentious colleague wants Rinaldi brought up on charges but turns up murdered. Rinaldi tries to treat the survivor of a brutal bank robbery in Fever Dream (2011), but she keeps vanishing. The investigation is further compromised by one (or more) of the police detectives who is busy going off the rails. And since profilers spend their professional lives studying the worst criminals among us, when one of them needs a therapist, in the spirit of law enforcement inter-department co-operation, Rinaldi is shanghaied to assist in Night Terrors (2013).
Although patient treatment usually falls into recognizable categories, therapists may have conflicting views on what is benign enough to be ignored in their patients’ behavior and what should be directly addressed. In Mirror Image the murder of one of Rinaldi’s patients outrages one of Rinaldi’s colleagues to the extent that violence ensues between the two doctors. Events progress even more dangerously so that Rinaldi becomes a murder suspect twice over. The hits just keep on coming for the good doctor when he crosses a magnate wealthy beyond our ken who is determined to ruin the doctor’s reputation in a national media campaign.
Rinaldi’s personal experience with trauma has made him a better therapist, but he isn’t immune to conflict surrounding survivors as they cope with the aftermath of violence. Fever Dream blurs the line between his own desires and the reality of the crime itself as well as his unwilling entanglement in a public official’s political ambitions. As if the doctor weren’t tasked enough, he seems helpless as one colleague shuts him out for personal reasons while another is busy blazing a self-destructive path through Pittsburgh. The death threats meant to muddy the waters even more have the opposite effect on Rinaldi as he begins to see the pattern of how it all fits together.
Imagine what it must be like to have violent, aberrant behavior as the focus of your profession. Such is the case for Lyle Barnes in Night Terrors. Years of exposure to the worst individuals civilization has to offer has taken its toll on the veteran profiler in the form of the sleep disorder, night terrors. That he is also the focus of an assassin ups the stakes. Barnes disappears from protective custody before Rinaldi can begin to help him, complicating all of the above. As always, Rinaldi becomes more involved that he would like doing his best to help the mother of a killer she affirms is innocent—all evidence to the contrary.
These first three Rinaldi novels are so full of plots and characters that readers are kept busy indeed. Not only does Dr. Rinaldi have his hands full with patients in various stages of psychological health, he is finding his way back to a love life after years of mourning and is the go-to therapist for local and national law enforcement. What keeps me reading despite sometimes wanting a flow chart is that Rinaldi is a man we would all like to know. Despite conflict he is centered and innately positive. As a colleague, a friend, or a lover Rinaldi is a man to have on your side. Despite his often clouded vision or because of it, the doctor is immediately likable and one cares for him and for what happens to him. I look forward to the next Rinaldi novel, Phantom Limb (2014). I’m late to the party in reading these novels, but the party is still going on!
Read more
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. —Lao Tzu
Employing a psychologist or a psychiatrist as a part of an investigative team makes perfect sense. It has worked well for Val McDermid and her Dr. Tony Hill. Even Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter, though insane, had professional insights that helped Clarice Starling find “Buffalo Bill” after all. Enter Daniel Rinaldi, Dennis Palumbo’s clinical psychologist based in Pittsburgh. Rinaldi, no stranger to trauma and personal loss himself, is the therapist we dream of: worthy of trust, adept at his job, and flawed just enough to make him interesting but not enough to damage any of us or his patients. He is pulled into Pittsburgh’s Police Department for more than one reason and shoulders his way through resentment and obstructions to help both patients and friends involved in or with law enforcement.
Mirror Image (2010) introduces police consultant, trauma specialist, and therapist Daniel Rinaldi who finds himself a murder suspect when one of his patients turns up murdered. His personal and professional jeopardy increases when a contentious colleague wants Rinaldi brought up on charges but turns up murdered. Rinaldi tries to treat the survivor of a brutal bank robbery in Fever Dream (2011), but she keeps vanishing. The investigation is further compromised by one (or more) of the police detectives who is busy going off the rails. And since profilers spend their professional lives studying the worst criminals among us, when one of them needs a therapist, in the spirit of law enforcement inter-department co-operation, Rinaldi is shanghaied to assist in Night Terrors (2013).Although patient treatment usually falls into recognizable categories, therapists may have conflicting views on what is benign enough to be ignored in their patients’ behavior and what should be directly addressed. In Mirror Image the murder of one of Rinaldi’s patients outrages one of Rinaldi’s colleagues to the extent that violence ensues between the two doctors. Events progress even more dangerously so that Rinaldi becomes a murder suspect twice over. The hits just keep on coming for the good doctor when he crosses a magnate wealthy beyond our ken who is determined to ruin the doctor’s reputation in a national media campaign.
Rinaldi’s personal experience with trauma has made him a better therapist, but he isn’t immune to conflict surrounding survivors as they cope with the aftermath of violence. Fever Dream blurs the line between his own desires and the reality of the crime itself as well as his unwilling entanglement in a public official’s political ambitions. As if the doctor weren’t tasked enough, he seems helpless as one colleague shuts him out for personal reasons while another is busy blazing a self-destructive path through Pittsburgh. The death threats meant to muddy the waters even more have the opposite effect on Rinaldi as he begins to see the pattern of how it all fits together.
Imagine what it must be like to have violent, aberrant behavior as the focus of your profession. Such is the case for Lyle Barnes in Night Terrors. Years of exposure to the worst individuals civilization has to offer has taken its toll on the veteran profiler in the form of the sleep disorder, night terrors. That he is also the focus of an assassin ups the stakes. Barnes disappears from protective custody before Rinaldi can begin to help him, complicating all of the above. As always, Rinaldi becomes more involved that he would like doing his best to help the mother of a killer she affirms is innocent—all evidence to the contrary.These first three Rinaldi novels are so full of plots and characters that readers are kept busy indeed. Not only does Dr. Rinaldi have his hands full with patients in various stages of psychological health, he is finding his way back to a love life after years of mourning and is the go-to therapist for local and national law enforcement. What keeps me reading despite sometimes wanting a flow chart is that Rinaldi is a man we would all like to know. Despite conflict he is centered and innately positive. As a colleague, a friend, or a lover Rinaldi is a man to have on your side. Despite his often clouded vision or because of it, the doctor is immediately likable and one cares for him and for what happens to him. I look forward to the next Rinaldi novel, Phantom Limb (2014). I’m late to the party in reading these novels, but the party is still going on!
Read more
September 30, 2017
Story Merchant Books October Amazon eBook Deals!
FREE September 30 - October 4Kenneth Atchity's Cajun Household
Wisdom
Laissez les bon temps roulez! Let the good times roll!
Cajun culture is funny and fun-loving. It's rooted in the earth. It's rooted in the kitchen. It's needlessly, hopelessly, complicated, and yet is utterly simple and suspicious of all things modern, especially food and drink.
CAJUN HOUSEHOLD WISDOM takes you back to the days when family gatherings stretched far into summer nights with endless food and fun, when uncles and aunts, sisters and brothers, and countless cousins teased and taunted and chased fireflies, while grandpere spouted yet another story about "that ol' white mule," and strains of fiddle music lured lovers off into the dark.
FREE October 3 - October 7
Attack on Khoda Bridge by Frank Mitchell
Ankara, Nov 5th 1979 (TPI). Two days ago, terrorists attacked an engineering survey party preparing topographical maps for the future hydroelectric dam on the Aras River between the Republic of Iran and the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. A senior Russian engineer, an Iranian engineering officer, and a junior officer were killed by the terrorists. Surviving were an American and a Turkish engineer. After dark, there was a gun battle at the nearby construction camp. The construction workers drove off a larger unit of radical Islamists revolutionaries causing heavy casualties among the pasdaran.
Free October 6 - October 10
Budget Bucks in Your Lap: Become a More Successful Whitetail
This book was written for every hunter who wants close encounters with the nicest White-tailed bucks his/her hunting area has to offer. No sanctuary or game preserve deer are illustrated within.
FREE October 9 - October 13 Take Heart by Lauren Michelle Smith
Sweet, funny and sexy romance! Mia, strong, independent, and quick-witted is a bit guarded from dealing with life's hardships at the hands of an alcoholic mother when she meets the charming Chase Williams.
FREE October 11 - October 15!! Fossil River by Jock Miller
Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died. Now, in this riveting action thriller, the tables are turning!This pedal-to-the-metal speculative thriller revolves around the discovery of a highly territorial colony of predatory dinosaurs in Alaska that has survived undetected for millions of years.
~ Kirkus Review
September 29, 2017
September 28, 2017
September 26, 2017
Non-Fiction Book on the Slenderman Controversy From Nick Redfern February, 2018
It’s the dead of night; you are fast asleep. Suddenly, you are wide awake but unable to move. Hunched over you in the shadows is an eight- or nine-foot-tall gaunt entity with spider-thin limbs, dressed in an old-style black suit, its pale face missing eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. You finally manage to cry out. The monstrous thing disappears as suddenly as it appeared.You just had a terrifying encounter with the Slenderman.
Who―or what―is the Slenderman? His existence began on the Internet, but he didn’t stay online. The Slenderman may be a tulpa, a thought-form that can stride out of our darkest imaginations and into reality if enough people believe in it. In May 2014, two young Milwaukee girls almost killed a friend in the name of the Slenderman. Perhaps, like the vast Skynet system in the Terminator movies, the Internet is turning against us―and attacking us with digital equivalents of our own online nightmares.
The Slenderman has come to life. For the first time, this book reveals the full and fear-filled saga.
September 25, 2017
September 22, 2017
What Types of $20M – $50M Films Break Out?
An investigative report from Film Industry Analyst Stephen Follows and Founder of The Numbers Bruce Nash
When we took a look at what it takes for a low-budget film to become a breakout hit, and discovered that the most successful movies came from a small number of specific genres. Twelve months on, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at films at the top end of the “independent” budget range, and see if the hits in this budget range also share some of the same DNA.
To do this, we compiled an analysis of the sixty most profitable movies budgeted between $20 million and $50 million, released between 2000 and 2016: roughly three films a year from the period under consideration. For more details of our methods and criteria, see the Notes section at the end of this piece.
Last time around, we found all the successful films fell into one of four categories. At this higher budget level, things are a little more diverse, but there are still a relatively small number of models that seem to produce the huge hits.
Let’s look a closer look at each of these categories.
Model One: Oscar-Worthy Dramas
Dramas which have been nominated for either Best Picture or a Best Screenplay award at the Academy Awards.Including: The Help, Silver Linings Playbook, The Blind Side, Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, About a Boy, True Grit, Ray, American Hustle, Straight Outta Compton and Bridge of Spies.50% were PG-13, 43% were R-rated and one film was rated PG.
This is the biggest category of films we found, with 14 movies, and the rule here is simple: get a great script, great cast and crew, visionary director, and let them do their thing. Notably, this is the only category that’s a holdover from last year’s study of low-budget films: at all budget levels, quality pays off.
Model Two: Lowbrow Comedies With Broad Appeal
Comedies with a gross-out component and broad appeal.Including: The Hangover, Ted, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Bridesmaids, Old School, We’re the Millers, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Ride Along, Zombieland, Mr. Bean’s Holiday and 21 Jump Street.75% were R-rated.
The general rule among comedies seems to be not to assume too much intellectual capacity from your audience. That’s not to say that these films aren’t well-written (far from it), but there are precious few jokes about Camus or deep themes in these films. All of these films did well at the box office, but they also played well on video—some of them would have made the top 60 anyway, but cranking out big sales and/or rentals on the home market really helped all of them.
Model Three: High Concept Thrillers
Thrillers with a clear, one-line hook.Including: Taken, Lucy, Limitless, District 9, Looper and V for Vendetta.Mostly sci-fi with Taken being the only exception.
The secret for thrillers seems to be to produce something that has a strong “hook,” and then stick to it. Watching the trailer tells you most of what you need to know about these films, perhaps with a bit of a mystery about how they will end (although the Taken films don’t really have much mystery about even that). This is another group of films that benefit from high demand on video.
Model Four: Adaptations of Books With An Established Audience
Based on a highly successful novel, and often produced by a Hollywood major.Including: Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Notebook, The Maze Runner, Shrek, Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle), Bridge to Terabithia and Dear John.
Although our focus is mostly on independent films, and studio productions tend to exceed $50 million these days, there are a few cases (eight, to be precise) where a studio has bought the rights to a very popular book, managed to keep their budget below $50 million, and made a tidy profit. The common theme here is that the films mostly pleased the existing fans of the books.
Model Five: High Concept romances
Movies targeted almost exclusively at women.Including: The Devil Wears Prada, The Proposal, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sweet Home Alabama, P.S. I Love You and Serendipity.All but one are PG-13.
This category is something of a counterpart to the thrillers. If that list was the top films that a group of guys might rent on a Friday night, this (along with a few of the book adaptations above) might be the top films for a girls’ night in. Again, a clear hook, interesting female leads and a strong delivery are key.
Model Six: Age-Reversal Family Films
Family films with either adults acting like children or children acting like adults.Including: Elf, Freaky Friday, The Karate Kid, Spy Kids and The Game Plan.All were PG-rated.
We expected to see some family films on this list, but what’s striking about it is that the hook in all but one of them is adults acting like kids or vice versa. Kids seem to love that stuff, and these films not only played well in theaters, but are perennial top-sellers on video. It’s worth noting that Mamma Mia, another movie in a similar vein, misses this list simply because its reported budget was $52 million. Worldwide, it was the top-selling video released in 2008.
AnalysisThe main takeaway from this research is that these types of breakout hits are very clear, high concept movies. They promise the audience one particular thing… and then fully deliver on that pitch. It’s almost like the filmmakers are saying to the audience “We’re not being clever – it’s a film about x”.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we can see the effect of such simple narratives in the types of people who pay to see these movies. Using UK cinema audience data, we are able to show how the audience differs for four of these major groups.
High Concept Thrillers played to a majority male audience (four-fifths of the audience for Looper were male) and the High Concept Chick Flick played to majority-female audiences (The Devil Wears Prada audience was four-fifths female).
When we focus on Oscar-worthy Dramas and Lowbrow Comedies we can see a clear split, not by gender but by age. All but one of the dramas played to audiences who were, on average, over 25 years old (the one holdout being Silver Linings Playbook). Conversely, all but one of the Lowbrow Comedies played to audiences who were on average under 25 years old, with Bridesmaids being the one exception.
Read more
When we took a look at what it takes for a low-budget film to become a breakout hit, and discovered that the most successful movies came from a small number of specific genres. Twelve months on, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at films at the top end of the “independent” budget range, and see if the hits in this budget range also share some of the same DNA.
To do this, we compiled an analysis of the sixty most profitable movies budgeted between $20 million and $50 million, released between 2000 and 2016: roughly three films a year from the period under consideration. For more details of our methods and criteria, see the Notes section at the end of this piece.
Last time around, we found all the successful films fell into one of four categories. At this higher budget level, things are a little more diverse, but there are still a relatively small number of models that seem to produce the huge hits.
Let’s look a closer look at each of these categories.
Model One: Oscar-Worthy Dramas
Dramas which have been nominated for either Best Picture or a Best Screenplay award at the Academy Awards.Including: The Help, Silver Linings Playbook, The Blind Side, Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, About a Boy, True Grit, Ray, American Hustle, Straight Outta Compton and Bridge of Spies.50% were PG-13, 43% were R-rated and one film was rated PG.
This is the biggest category of films we found, with 14 movies, and the rule here is simple: get a great script, great cast and crew, visionary director, and let them do their thing. Notably, this is the only category that’s a holdover from last year’s study of low-budget films: at all budget levels, quality pays off.
Model Two: Lowbrow Comedies With Broad Appeal
Comedies with a gross-out component and broad appeal.Including: The Hangover, Ted, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Bridesmaids, Old School, We’re the Millers, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Ride Along, Zombieland, Mr. Bean’s Holiday and 21 Jump Street.75% were R-rated.
The general rule among comedies seems to be not to assume too much intellectual capacity from your audience. That’s not to say that these films aren’t well-written (far from it), but there are precious few jokes about Camus or deep themes in these films. All of these films did well at the box office, but they also played well on video—some of them would have made the top 60 anyway, but cranking out big sales and/or rentals on the home market really helped all of them.
Model Three: High Concept Thrillers
Thrillers with a clear, one-line hook.Including: Taken, Lucy, Limitless, District 9, Looper and V for Vendetta.Mostly sci-fi with Taken being the only exception.
The secret for thrillers seems to be to produce something that has a strong “hook,” and then stick to it. Watching the trailer tells you most of what you need to know about these films, perhaps with a bit of a mystery about how they will end (although the Taken films don’t really have much mystery about even that). This is another group of films that benefit from high demand on video.
Model Four: Adaptations of Books With An Established Audience
Based on a highly successful novel, and often produced by a Hollywood major.Including: Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Notebook, The Maze Runner, Shrek, Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle), Bridge to Terabithia and Dear John.
Although our focus is mostly on independent films, and studio productions tend to exceed $50 million these days, there are a few cases (eight, to be precise) where a studio has bought the rights to a very popular book, managed to keep their budget below $50 million, and made a tidy profit. The common theme here is that the films mostly pleased the existing fans of the books.
Model Five: High Concept romances
Movies targeted almost exclusively at women.Including: The Devil Wears Prada, The Proposal, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sweet Home Alabama, P.S. I Love You and Serendipity.All but one are PG-13.
This category is something of a counterpart to the thrillers. If that list was the top films that a group of guys might rent on a Friday night, this (along with a few of the book adaptations above) might be the top films for a girls’ night in. Again, a clear hook, interesting female leads and a strong delivery are key.
Model Six: Age-Reversal Family Films
Family films with either adults acting like children or children acting like adults.Including: Elf, Freaky Friday, The Karate Kid, Spy Kids and The Game Plan.All were PG-rated.
We expected to see some family films on this list, but what’s striking about it is that the hook in all but one of them is adults acting like kids or vice versa. Kids seem to love that stuff, and these films not only played well in theaters, but are perennial top-sellers on video. It’s worth noting that Mamma Mia, another movie in a similar vein, misses this list simply because its reported budget was $52 million. Worldwide, it was the top-selling video released in 2008.
AnalysisThe main takeaway from this research is that these types of breakout hits are very clear, high concept movies. They promise the audience one particular thing… and then fully deliver on that pitch. It’s almost like the filmmakers are saying to the audience “We’re not being clever – it’s a film about x”.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we can see the effect of such simple narratives in the types of people who pay to see these movies. Using UK cinema audience data, we are able to show how the audience differs for four of these major groups.
High Concept Thrillers played to a majority male audience (four-fifths of the audience for Looper were male) and the High Concept Chick Flick played to majority-female audiences (The Devil Wears Prada audience was four-fifths female).
When we focus on Oscar-worthy Dramas and Lowbrow Comedies we can see a clear split, not by gender but by age. All but one of the dramas played to audiences who were, on average, over 25 years old (the one holdout being Silver Linings Playbook). Conversely, all but one of the Lowbrow Comedies played to audiences who were on average under 25 years old, with Bridesmaids being the one exception.
Read more
TROPHY Q&A Opening Night at the Monicas with Filmmakers, Subject, and Moderator Alec Baldwin
TROPHY deeply troubling and controversial. Screening hosted by Alec Baldwin and welcoming filmmakers Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau along with John and Albina Hume.
September 20, 2017
Faith, Fiction, Friends Reviews Michael A. Simpson's "Sons of My Fathers"
This is a story of one family and two wars separated by 100 years. The two wars happen to be the most divisive in American history – the Civil War of 1861-1865 and the Vietnam War which ended in 1975, but began either in the 1950s or the 1960s. It is a novel, but it is a novel so based on historical and real family events that it could almost be non-fiction. One of the main characters is actually the author.Welcome to Sons of My Father by Michael Simpson.Simpson tells two stories in this book. One is set largely in 1864, when Simpson’s small farmer ancestors (they were not slave owners) find the entire family caught up in the Civil War as both soldiers and non-combatants. After capturing Chattanooga, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union army is advancing on Atlanta.
The countryside is in chaos – advance Union patrols, retreating Confederate soldiers, roaming bands of deserters and even criminals. Baylis Simpson has four sons fighting for the South and a daughter, son, and granddaughter at home. A band of deserters or criminals happens upon the two girls; the daughter is raped and the granddaughter is murdered. Baylis, on leave from the Georgia Home Guard for planting, tracks them down, and exacts revenge, the rapist meeting a particularly gruesome death. Baylis and one of his sons will then find their army units and discover themselves at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, the last hurdle before Sherman can take Atlanta.This is the South in the Civil War. Lawlessness everywhere, law and order breaking down, farms often stripped of anything edible and women and children left to starve.The second story starts in the early 1960s. Three boys – Alex Granger, Ron Simpson, and Ron’s younger brother Michael – are the closest of friends. Alex grows up with the Simpsons almost as a member of the family. His own father is dead and Ron and Michael’s father Harold, a veteran World War II Marine, helps to raise him. The boys get into the kinds of pranks and escapades that boys often did in the 1960s. But as Alex and Ron graduate from high school, they decide to enlist in the Army. And what’s hanging over both of them is the Vietnam War.
Michael SimpsonMoving back and forth between the two narratives, Simpson paints a picture of the effects of war, the divisiveness of war, and the tremendous stresses that families experience in wartime. He also paints a picture of what happens when a highly trained helicopter pilot, understanding what happened with the My Lai Massacre, decides he can’t participate in the killing of the enemy. (This is based on a historical situation involving Ron Simpson, one that went to trial in federal court in Atlanta.)Michael Simpson is a screenwriter, director, and producer of documentaries and feature films. His credits include the movies “Crazy Heart” and “Kidnaping Mr. Heineken” among many others. This is his first novel. Sons of My Fathers is gripping, moving, and eye-opening. It tells the story of how the idea of duty and honor infuses families down through the generations. And it tells what happens when duty and honor collide with conscience. Photograph: A Monument to Illinois soldiers who fought at Cheatham Hill, also known as the Dead Angle, the location where Simpson’s Confederate ancestors helped to hold off the Union Army advance for five days.
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