Bryan Caron's Blog, page 23

Chaos Movie Awards 2016

It’s that time of year again — Oscar time! So here now are my predictions for who and should win the major categories, along with a few of my usual secondary (and sometimes unorthodox) awards that won’t ever be part of the telecast. I only got 5 out of the 7 right last year, so I’m hoping to go 7 for 7 this year. But we’ll see tomorrow night when the stars come out and collect their trophies for the 88th time. 

Best Picture (Nominees – The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight)

Who Will Win: The Revenant

The Revenant was certainly a well-done piece of art, with one of the most stunning and sickening sequences ever put to film — the bear attack alone, and the way Alejandro G. Iñárritu was able to accomplish it, should net the film an Oscar. The problem is, the film would have been much better had it been made just a little bit tighter; as is, it was probably twenty minutes too long.

Who Should Win: Spotlight

Combining the superb acting with a tight pace that builds and builds as the team at the Boston Globe uncover more of the truth behind the Catholic Church sex scandal makes Spotlight the best, most effective movie of the year from the list of nominees.

Best Actor (Nominees – Bryan Cranston, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender, Eddie Redmayne)

Who Will and Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio

This is Leo’s award to lose, and everyone knows it. Although all of these fine actors gave terrific performances this year, it’s been a long time coming for Leo, and with a nearly silent performance that resonates so deeply, it will be the shock of the night if he’s robbed once again (cough*The Aviator*cough).

Best Actress (Nominees – Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Brie Larson, Saoirse Ronan, Jennifer Lawrence)

Who Will and Should Win: Brie Larson

Just like last year, this category is full of actresses from movies I haven’t seen. The only two movies I’ve seen are Joy and Room, and let’s be honest, I didn’t think Jennifer Lawrence did all that great in what was ultimately a really flawed movie. So I’m giving this to Brie Larson, who gave a very delicate, emotionally riveting performance in a very small, quiet movie.

Best Supporting Actor (Nominees – Christian Bale, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Ruffalo)

Who Will Win: Sylvester Stallone

Much like Leo, this one is Stallone’s to lose. After over three decades, Hollywood is finally giving Stallone recognition for the role that turned him into a movie star. Was it one of Stallone’s finer performances? Yes. Was it Oscar worthy? Not in my opinion.

Who Should Win: Mark Ruffalo

If I had my say, Ruffalo would take this trophy without even blinking. In a film that built its tension with every new piece of evidence, Ruffalo stood out as the emotional core of the film, digging his nails deep into the conspiracy and leaving behind a nuanced shadow of something we, the audience, will never know the truth of.

Best Supporting Actress (Nominees – Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alicia Vikander, Rooney Mara, Kate Winslet, Rachel McAdams)

Who Will Win: Rooney Mara

From the scuttlebutt, it seems Alicia Vikander is the front runner to take this prize, however, based on the history of this category, I’m going to step out on a limb on this one and give it to Mara, who I’ve heard (since I never got the chance to see Carol) gave an extremely subtle, reflective performance that pulled on everyone’s heartstrings.

Who Should Win: Alicia Vikander

I also never got around to seeing The Danish Girl, but from what I’ve read of her performance in the film, and based on what she was able to accomplish in the other roles she took on this year (most memorably as the A.I. in Ex Machina), she’s more than ready for her closeup as the best actress of the year (and she could very well pull it off).

Best Director (Nominees – Adam McKay, Lenny Abrahamson, George Miller, Tom McCarthy, Alejandro G. Iñárritu)

Who Will Win: George Miller

Mad Max: Fury Road doesn’t deserve Oscar gold as an overall film. But what George Miller was able to accomplish, from everything to set pieces to action sequences and cinematography, should net him a piece of the action come Oscar night.

Who Should Win: Tom McCarthy

As I said, Spotlight starts out in mundane normalcy, but with every new piece of evidence, the tension mounts and McCarthy slowly building a pace that draws you in deeper and deeper until you’re so mesmerized by what’s happening, you feel as if you’re right there with them.

Best Animated Feature (Nominees – Anomalisa, Boy and the World, Inside Out, Shawn the Sheep Movie, When Marnie Was There)

Who Will Win: Anomalisa

I only saw one of these films, so I’m not sure I can really say who should win, but what I can say is, no matter how I hate to see the magic that is Pixar lose, I have a feeling that Anomalisa is going to take the trophy, simply because of its unique style.

Who Should Win: Inside Out

But if I had it my way, Inside Out, a deeply emotional film that deals directly with the emotions within us would walk away the winner. Funny and heartbreaking, Inside Out shows us why sometimes allowing yourself to be sad is just as important as being happy.

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Best Drama Ensemble: The Gift

The plot of the The Gift isn’t that extraordinary. What makes the film extraordinary are the three actors that breathe haunting life into the scary situation, shining a light on the effects (and aftereffects) of bullying. If it wasn’t for Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall and Joel Edgerton at their finest, I’m not sure the end would have been quite as effective.

Best Comedy Ensemble: The Duff

It may seem a little odd that a film that many probably have never heard of has made a best of list, however, I have to give credit to the cast for making what could have been an incredibly forgettable, raunchy, throw-away She’s All That ripoff into a genuinely funny, respectable heartwarming surprise.

Best Child Performance: Jacob Tremblay

There’s a reason the kid’s name was bandied about for a possible Oscar nomination (and why he wass nominated and won so many awards on the film festival circuit). Jacob Tremblay nearly outperforms his adult counterpart in a quiet role that feels more realistic and harrowing than most adult actors who’ve been in the business their whole lives could pull off.

Best (and Craziest) Action Sequence: Kingsman: The Secret Service

Of all the movies this year with over-the-top action sequences and set pieces, there was one sequence in particular that stood out to me to be the most daring, best choreographed and best executed than any other, and that was the church massacre in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Director Matthew Vaughn films the sequence with such eloquence and mastery of the art form, it’s like bloody poetry in motion.

What do you think? Who will win and should win the Oscars this year? Do you have any movies or actors you’d like to give a shout out to for their excellence in 2015?

Movie Mayhem – Deadpool

I’m not sure where I fit on the spectrum of Deadpool knowledge, but it’s probably somewhere between “Who?” and “That’s the guy that fights Wolverine at the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” As you can probably guess, I’m not a comic book reader, so it was kind of fun to listen to all of the fan boys rip apart the portrayal of Deadpool to shreds with their adamantium claws. From what I could tell at the time, the character had become entirely unrecognizable from the comics because he been so watered down due to the PG-13 rating and his backstory had been completely changed. To do the character justice, it required the producers to allow for no less than an ‘R’ rating, and they needed writers who could amp up the sarcasm and pop-culture references to 11. Well, it took them over six years to make it happen, but 20th Century Fox and Marvel heard the fans loud and clear, producing a Deadpool film that was as filthy, foul-mouthed, violent, and referential as everyone was hoping him to be.

Deadpool — 2016; Directed by Tim Miller; Starring Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, and T.J. Miller

But it wasn’t just the studios that needed (or wanted) to redeem themselves for the apparent train wreck that nearly ruined the character for non-comic fans like me. Ryan Reynolds has been very vocal about his love for the character, and though it wasn’t necessarily his fault that Deadpool didn’t live up to what fans were expecting the first time, I’m sure he felt obligated to make up for participating in that version of the character. Which is why it’s a little bit of meta-fictional fun to see Reynolds reprise the role of Wade Wilson in this official reboot of the character, which basically forgets all about Wolverine (aside from some very funny references to the actor who gave birth to him) in order to explore his true origins. Unlike his first go-around, Reynolds is allowed to let loose without a care in the world — and it’s clear he’s having a grand ‘ole time showcasing his swagger in all its glory! Reynolds’s acting style has always been a little on the narcissistic and tempered side, with a hint of prince charming masking the sarcastic flavor of his personality, so to play Wade Wilson the way he’s meant to be played is to be living a dream come true, even as the story itself is so simple, it borders on non-existent.

The basic premise goes something like this: Wade Wilson (Reynolds), a street thug who gets paid to do very bad things to very bad people, learns he’s got some type of terminal cancer that’s spread to most of his vital organs. One day, he’s approached by some weasel in a suit (Jed Rees) who claims to have the technology to cure him by activating the dormant mutant genes that live within us all. Wade reluctantly agrees to the treatments, which pretty much amounts to torture by a pair of mutants: Ajax (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano). The mutant genes, which give him super regenerative powers — which sort of amounts to immortality — are eventually activated, but leave behind a nasty side effect, making his whole body look as if he was a victim of a raging fire. Disgusted and angry, Wade destroys the facility and is left for dead. But with the idea that Ajax (aka, Francis) knows how to reverse the side-effects, it becomes Wade’s mission to find him.

From what I’d seen of the trailers and what I’d read over the last year, coupled with the odd, but interesting marketing campaign, I had some idea of what to expect going into this movie. But it wasn’t until the opening credit sequence that I was sold on the humor that would infest the entire production. I knew Deadpool would occasionally break the fourth wall to speak to the audience, but what I didn’t know was that the other characters could hear him talking to us, confusing them to high heaven. I also knew there’d be a lot of references and jabs at the usual, easy pop culture targets, but at no time did I know they would go so deep into the meta-fictional side of things. From the jump, it was clear this wasn’t going to be your typical teeny-bopper attempt at cracking wise. This was going to be a smartly played incarnation that wouldn’t just force all of its jokes on us to look cool (at least, the majority of them — some unfortunately do land a little too hard). It was part of its DNA, a natural extension of a character that just doesn’t care.

The references range from self-referential to corny, but the best ones come when that fourth wall is broken, as when Colossus (voice of Stefan Kapicic) tells Deadpool he’s going to take him to see Professor X. Deadpool’s response? “McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines are so confusing.” It’s a subtle, quick-witted wink at the X-Men franchise, as well as a statement to the audience that the world Deadpool lives in doesn’t just sit within the parameters of the movie. Wade Wilson borders on the edge of being a fanboy himself, an audience member who understands that this is, in fact, just a film, and it shouldn’t be taken seriously at all. There are also a couple of great moments that hearken back to other movies, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, that work because you sort of expect them, but at the same time, enjoy the nostalgia. When a film spends five minutes preparing for a scene that then doesn’t happen for the most inane of reasons — but makes all the sense in the world within the context of the movie itself — you know you’ve got something special.

But lest we forget the supporting cast, especially T.J. Miller as Wade’s best friend and bartender, Weasel, who’s basically put all of his money on Wade’s death in the Dead Pool he conducts with all of the other lowlife’s that frequent his establishment. He’s so low key, he almost acts as a ground to the overall insanity that surrounds him. But the highlight that turns everything on its head and, as Deadpool might say, makes this film a romance (or a romantic comedy), is Morena Baccarin as Wade’s girlfriend, Vanessa. Their chemistry works because, like the movie, they never take their relationship all that seriously. Both Vanessa and Wade are retches who fight over who’s had the worst life growing up, and are in it mostly for the sex. It’s that odd attraction that makes their relationship believable. There’s a true love hidden underneath the painful walls, which is actually what Deadpool tries to subtly hit you over the head with. We all wear masks because it’s hard to be vulnerable, or at least be seen as something less than perfect. But no matter how disgusting one may appear, when true love is involved, not even a Hugh Jackman mask is needed to keep that love from straying.

My Grade: A

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Next week, I will be unable to see any films. Movie Mayhem will return the week of February 26, when I will review one of the following films: Eddie the Eagle, Triple 9 or God’s of Egypt.

Movie Mayhem – Hail, Caesar!

Joel and Ethan Coen are an odd breed to be sure, and if you don’t like or understand their comedic style, you probably never will. It’s a very subtle, very twisted sense of humor, and I have to admit, I’m one of those people who just doesn’t get it. That’s not to say I don’t think the Coen brothers aren’t good filmmakers. Not only do they stay true to who they are in everything they do, but their work in the heavier drama arena, with films like No Country For Old Men or True Grit, showcase their extraordinary talents. But films like those follow a much different set of standards than their comedies do, one that’s so entirely different and off-the-wall that it’s really hard to explain. Hail, Caesar!, the Coen brothers’s new all-out portrait of insanity, tries to mimic the sensibility of their more psychedelic turns, like The Big Lebowski or Raising Arizona, and because of that seems to get a little too lost in its own self-indulgence.

Hail, Caesar! — 2016; Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen; Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johannson and Channing Tatum

The movie takes place in 1950s Hollywood, a time when movie studios controlled more than just what movies their contracted actors would star in. Here’s a studio system that churned out popularity for popularity’s sake and held an iron fist when it came to controlling the tabloids and what their stars did outside of the industry. It’s a good place to set-up a quirky dramedy, one that brilliantly makes fun of old Hollywood tropes while imprinting the Coen’s loosely sadistic style. However, the Coens can’t seem to find a center to any of the madness, which leads to having a lot of very talented actors (who all give very good, quirky performances) stumble through a jumbled mess of unrelated vignettes that never fully come together as a proper whole.

What does tie them all together (or at least, attempts to tie them all together) is Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), the head honcho of Capital Pictures. Essentially, the movie plays as a day in the life of Mannix, following him as he tries to put out the various fires that erupt on several current productions the studio is financing, all the while contemplating another job offer that really isn’t explained beyond giving him more pay with better hours. What it ultimately comes down to is a chance for him to spend more time with his family. Brolin does a terrific job representing this character as flawed, yet determined. He knows what he wants, knows how to handle problems under pressure, but at the same time is confused about where he sits on the world stage.

Diffusing every little squabble, every story that could potentially hurt one of his stars is what Mannix does best, so when a group of fanatical communist writers known as ‘The Future’ kidnaps Baird Whitlock (played with just enough fusion of silly and stoic by George Clooney), one of the major stars of the studio’s next prestige picture, Hail, Caesar!, Mannix remains as cool as a cucumber… at least when he feels he has everything under control. The trailers made us believe that the movie centered around this very plot line, but in reality, this story is one of several subplots sprinkled throughout the film. ‘The Future’ seeks a hundred thousand dollars to get back what they deserve from the capitalist system, but the Coens spend so little time on this idea, it ends up going nowhere fast. Even Baird’s absorption of their ideas and his brief turn to their way of thinking is all but squandered, leaving very little purpose to any of it. The trailers made us believe that the movie centered around this very plot line, but in reality, this story is one of several subplots sprinkled throughout the film.

In fact, the story that actually seems to take up most of the film’s attention revolves around Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), an actor/singer whose great on horseback but can’t act to save his life. When a costume drama needs a new leading man, the head of the studio pulls the kid from the set of his current western to return to the back lot for this other film. Hobie immediately clashes with the director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), who seeks to have him shipped out faster than you can say, “Would that it twer so simple.”  And then… nothing. The entire plot basically peters out in favor of trying to connect to the Baird Whitlock thread, but again, the connection is so thin and minor, you have to wonder what the point of the whole thing is. In fact, the issues Mannix has to deal with are so mundane and easy, there wasn’t enough conflict to hold my interest — especially when most of the fires are put out off screen or by coincidence.

One major faux pas the Coens make is in their need to introduce minor characters late in the game that have no bearing on anything that happens in the movie as a whole. For example, Jonah Hill pops up in the last twenty minutes as a notary who signs off on papers releasing Scarlett Johansson’s baby to her husband in order for her to be able to adopt the child in the near future so it doesn’t look so bad that she’s a single mother. Don’t worry, folks. None of that’s a spoiler. It’s the whole subplot, which plays out in maybe ten minutes of the film and has absolutely nothing to do with the main subplots or in Mannix’s non-existent character arc. The Coens are heavily sidetracked by little things like this, which also includes hooking up Hobie with a young actress for publicity purposes, and then trying to stay a story some gossip columnists (twin sisters played by Tilda Swinton) are trying to drudge up about Baird, both of which offer nothing tantalizing or important to the overall story.

But as I said, the scenes that involve the actual movie making process are done beautifully. The humorous eye the brothers have for making fun of that particular era are spot on and work extraordinarily well, from how people act on set, to directors frustrations over actors who can’t act, or the whims of a playboy actor who has a sordid past being covered up by the studio. One scene in particular, where Channing Tatum and his sailor buddies break out in song and dance at a bar, perfectly represents the silliness of the 50s musical craze. But simply throwing a bunch of popcorn at the screen and tying it together with Mannix doesn’t work the way I think they were hoping, and in the end, nothing seems to fit together quite right. None of the story arcs do anything to really change any of the characters and every story falls flat with climax’s that are so mundane and unimportant that the only thought on my mind when I left the theater was… huh?

My Grade: C+

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Next week, new movies include Deadpool, How To Be Single and Zoolander 2. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Editing Nightmares: How To Stay Error Free Without An Editor

The first draft of almost any type of writing, whether it’s a poem, an essay or a novel, is going to be awful. That’s just a given. In my experience, it takes at the very minimum three drafts to find a voice, to craft just the right sentences and make sure the story flows without leaving plot holes it its wake. One major issue with writing draft after draft after draft is the inevitable blindness we all face. Mistakes, whether in plot, character, grammar or spelling, are inevitable while completing each new draft, which is why it’s highly recommended (and why even the most successful authors) have an editor by their side to review and correct their masterpieces. They’re able to look upon your work with fresh eyes and catch things you’ve become blind to because of your familiarity to the work and what your brain thinks it actually says. But in a self-publishing world, there are a lot of us who can’t afford an editor… or at least a good one, which means we have to rely on ourselves to find the problem areas before the reader does. How do you do that? Well, aside from reading your manuscript upside down (to slow your brain down), reading it aloud and being extremely hard on yourself with every line and word you read, there are a couple of things you can do to help keep your manuscript consistent and free of minor and obvious errors.

Set the manuscript aside for at least two to four weeks

This idea isn’t new, and many writers, editors and moms of the world have recommended it. But that’s because it’s true. When you’ve put all of your soul into a piece of writing, you want to believe every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter is magic gold, especially after having read through it a half a dozen times. It’s at that point when you’ve lost perspective, and the only way to truly know if what you think is working actually works is to set the book aside and forget about it for a few weeks. More than likely, when you return to it, you’ll see the problem areas more clearly and wonder why you even wrote it that way in the first place.

The first draft of my upcoming novel, The Spirit Of…, was written ten years ago. I went through several edits, had a couple of friends and fellow writers go through it for feedback and rewrote it a few more times. For me, I was at the top of my game. I sent it to publishers, I sent it to agents. Nothing but silence and rejection returned. So I set the manuscript aside and started working on other projects. Over time, as we all do, I grew as a writer. After finding self-publishing to be a valid opportunity, I decided it was time to return to one of my favorite manuscripts and clean it up, do some final revisions and get it published. When I first started reading it over, though, you can imagine how disappointed I was. I understood why the manuscript had been rejected. The story, the characters, the ideas, the twists — everything I originally loved about the book was still great. The prose, on the other hand, were heavily rudimentary, and it took me that amount of time to comprehend that. But now, after having cut out all of the extraneous material and made some very hard (and some rather easy) cuts, the book is so much cleaner and so much better than it was when I was still a fresh young writer with a desire to be the next Stephen King.

Create a master details list

This one may be obvious on the surface, but until you’ve actually done it, it’s one of those things that can be forgotten or underutilized.  A lot of writers start by writing out a slew of notes before they even attempt to write a word of prose. That’s all well and good, but writing is fluid, and will always change, no matter what plan you may have for it. Outlines and notes are just that — sources of reference for when you get stuck, or find the story has started to go off track. If you’re doing it right, and the characters started to take you on their own journey, your completed first draft will bear only a minor resemblance to the original notes. The end may be so far away from where you started that you need to rewrite the entire first act just to line things up correctly. That’s where a master details list comes in handy. After rewriting the manuscript a few times, go through it once with an eye for details. Don’t look at or consider any aspect except for those things like a characters hair or eye color, descriptions of buildings or landscapes, and even terminology (especially in science-fiction or fantasy writing) in technology or language.

Did you mention your character’s height on page 5? Jot it down. Did a character use a certain turn of phrase that might be important later? Make note of it. The type of home, someone’s license plate number, what hand the six-fingered man has six fingers on… write down every important detail so that if something comes up on page 248, you know exactly where to look to find that information without having to comb through and reread the entire manuscript to find it. (It will also tell you if you have used that particular detail before, without having to recall where you may or may not have used it before). When I was building my master details list for my novel, Jaxxa Rakala, one of the characters nicknamed her little sister Squint. But I noticed that at times she called her Squints instead. So I had to make sure which one was used first, and then double-check to make sure every time she called her that, it was consistent. But I probably wouldn’t have caught it unless I had written it down and cross-referenced it with the details list.

Create a list of problem words

This last rule of thumb goes along with the master details list, only this one’s for grammatical and spelling mistakes. Once again, it seems simple enough, but it’s one thing a lot of writers either ignore or forget to do prior to hitting publish on their manuscript. But had they done it, it would make their documents look that much more professional.

This list contains words that are often misused, such as their, there and they’re. It’s easy to accidentally use the wrong spelling of a word when writing a first draft, since you’re not worried about that at the time; all you’re worried about is getting all of your thoughts on the page. But here’s the rub — spell checks and grammar checks won’t catch when you use their instead of there. So you have to be extra cautious when going through your final drafts in order to make sure your brain hasn’t blinded you from seeing the misuse. My list also includes: its/it’s, your/you’re, whose/who’s, hear/here, past/passed, and effect/affect, among others. When I’m nearing the time to format and prep the document for publication, I will do a search for every single one of these words and double check that I am using them in the correct way. Because their is nothing more embarrassing then to read a sentence wear they’re are so many blatant issues. This is also a good way to check for consistency in some words, such as gray or grey. It doesn’t really matter which way you use it, both are acceptable. The point is to be consistent, so by having something like this on your list, you can do a quick check to make sure it’s spelled the same way every time.

So, next time you’re on your twelfth draft of your masterpiece, and you’re ready to hit publish, go through these things first, just to make sure you haven’t missed something that your readers will catch with their very first read.

Do you have any other suggestions for writers who can’t afford to hire an editor? Any other tips and tricks to stay consistent or error free?

Movie Mayhem – The Finest Hours

The bravery men and women exhibit in their finest moments has always been a benchmark in the creation of stories and movies. There’s a lot of inspiration and emotion that comes along with showcasing someone’s defining moment of courage, as they rise above impossible challenges to do what’s right when no one else is willing to accept what faces them. Within the meat of these narratives, several factors must be adhered to in order to keep the events and those who went through the harrowing acts from derailing into sappy melodrama. One of those factors is knowing who the main character is, and why their story — their journey — is important and inspirational. How did they find the courage to rise up and take the reigns despite friction from others who may have differing ideas? And more importantly, why should we care? If the subject isn’t well-drawn, or doesn’t seem real enough, then the story itself, and the grit of the events will falter. That’s what happens in The Finest Hours, a film that splits our attention among two separate paths of heroism, but can’t decide which is more important.

The Finest Hours — 2016; Directed by Craig Gillespie; Starring Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Holliday Grainger, Eric Bana and Ben Foster.

One one side, we have Bernie Webber (Chris Pine), a painfully by-the-books (or by-the-regulations) member of the coast guard whose somewhat shy, reserved personality doesn’t match his rugged good looks. Never ask this good-ole-boy to go against regulation, or do anything without first having a structured, well-meaning plan. It may only be formality, but when his girlfriend, Miriam (Holliday Granger), asks him to marry him, his first thought is the painful task of having to ask his commanding officer for permission. Basically, he’s as straight-arrow as they come. So when he’s the only one left to rescue the crew of an oil tanker that’s been split in half due to the rough sea waters, Bernie must ignore his instincts (as well as a past incident he isn’t quite ready to forgive himself for) and do what he knows is right. That’s all well and good, as it fits the mold of this type of film perfectly. However, there’s one other man aside from Bernie who rises to the challenge of keeping his men safe — a man I felt much more connected to throughout the movie.

That man is Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck), a high-ranking member of the engine crew of the oil tanker, Pendleton. He’s smart, capable and cool under pressure. During one of the worst storms to hit the New England area in the 50s, it falls on his shoulders to find a way to keep his men alive until they can be rescued. No, let me rephrase that. He appoints himself captain when everyone else can’t see the bigger picture past their own fears, having to resort to things like cutting loose the escape boats to keep the men from perishing when the waters tear said boat to pieces. It’s an act that could have ostracized him beyond repair, but one that does the exact opposite, proving he’s able to keep his wits about him while doing what he knows will keep everyone alive.

The Finest Hours is based on a true story, and though it was meant to be about Bernie, I found myself caring more for the crew of the Pendleton then I did the coast guard who risked their lives to save them. Being on the the rig, watching those men work together to find a way to steer the boat, to relay information and to keep the lights on, it all worked as a harrowing example of what can be accomplished when men work together for a single goal despite their differences. The more I spent with this group, which also includes fine performances by Michael Raymond James, Graham McTavish and Josh Stewart, among others, the more I hated having to leave them. In contrast, the story of Bernie and his men is as bland as rice cakes.

From the first frame, the film begins by building the innocuous relationship between Bernie and Miriam, while at the same time setting up the aforementioned backstory of Bernie’s failed attempt to rescue some fisherman during a storm, a story I believe would have been more effective had we actually seen the failure. Not only would it have visualized what they keep talking about, it would have demonstrated the dangers of what Bernie and his team were about to get themselves into when tasked with rescuing the oil tanker crew. It would also have given us a reason to care for why Bernie must go against what he knows is a bad idea and fight his way through to the end, regardless of whether it gets him killed. In addition, the three men who volunteer to go with Bernie seem wholly unimportant to the overall narrative. Their stories have no bite, nor do the actors’s performances. If it wasn’t for the special effects team, and for the interesting intensity of that first hurdle to get past the shore and out to sea (where we get to see Bernie maneuver the small rescue boat along the waves as if he were surfing them), their whole story would have put me to sleep.

I’m sure the essence of the film was meant to invoke the theory that love conquers all, that when you have a deep desire to return to someone you love, you’re more likely to fight harder to stay alive, a theory that plays a little into Ray’s story as well, but takes an opposite turn by having Ray fight for something other than love — something that isn’t explored as much as it could have, but holds far more weight than Bernie’s routine love story. But that whole idea doesn’t work as well as the filmmakers might have hoped simply because the characters that try to embody that notion are so generally dull and simple. There’s nothing to sink our teeth into, making for an incredibly uneven story that more than likely would have been so much grittier and intense had they stayed focused on the crew of the Pendleton and really gave us something to care about.

My Grade: B+

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Next week, new movies include Hail Caesar! and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

IndieBook Reviews – Cemetery Tours

Cemetery Tours – A Novel by Jacqueline E. Smith

Are ghosts real?

Whether you believe in them or not, we’ve all thought about that question at some point or another. You may have wondered if a dearly departed loved one still watches over you, or perhaps you think that weird noise in the kitchen at night is a poltergeist who became attached to the home after he was murdered by a burglar before you purchased the home. And of course, there’s one heavy existential question behind that very question — is there life after death? I’m sure most of us want to believe there is, and if ghosts are real, then the chances of there being life after death multiply. If they don’t, there’s no way to be sure if existence ends when your lights go out. Author Jacqueline E. Smith explores this concept in her debut novel, Cemetery Tours, a fun, creepy look at what could be there waiting for us on the other side.

Michael is a run-down, somewhat lonely man who’s best friend and roommate is a ghost. But you wouldn’t know it to meet him. Michael hates having the gift of seeing and speaking to spirits who have yet to fully crossover, and hates when people know it even more. Although he enjoys the occasional chat with his grandmother on the patio of his family’s lake house, he hides his gift from the world, not only because he doesn’t want the attention or the ridicule that may come from having such an ability, but because if the ghosts knew, every one of them would seek him out for help. The concept reminded me a lot of the film, Ghost Town, in which Ricky Gervais suddenly acquires the ability to see ghosts, at which point they start following him around to make things right so they can officially move on into the afterlife. And though the concept isn’t explored to great detail in this book, there’s an open possibility that it might in the sequels, which is intriguing to say the least.

But Michael’s world gets turned upside down when Kate and her brother, Gavin, move in across the hall. Kate is a sweet, lovable girl-next-door who can’t remember the last couple of years due to a car accident, which would be intriguing enough on its own, but Jacqueline adds in a secondary affliction, one that renders her ability to recognize the name of colors obsolete. It’s an interesting character trait that I’m not sure does much for the character but add another, quirky feature. It’s more than possible that this idea may be fleshed out in future installments of the series, but in Cemetery Tours, Kate was never in a predicament where not knowing a color’s name was life or death, or even in a position where knowing would help in some small way.

The meet-cute between Michael and Kate is setup nicely, bonding them in a natural way that doesn’t feel forced outside of the heavy exposition that plagues the first few chapters, which tends to read more like an expo-dump than a fluid narrative. Unable to refrain from throwing everything out at us all at once and keeping us from having any sense of wonder as we subtly learn more throughout the book, Jacqueline seems to have transferred all of her original notes to the manuscript, force-feeding us every small detail through on-the-nose dialogue and prose. The thing is, once you’ve gotten past the first five or six chapters, Jacqueline really settles into an organic pocket, and the rest of the narrative flows natural as can be. The pace and rhythm become quick and smooth with some very intriguing set-ups for not only later in this book in particular, but for the series as a whole.

It especially works well when Jacqueline focuses on the heart of the novel, which is the ghosts and their purpose in this world — more importantly, Trevor, the spirit haunting Kate and Gavin’s apartment, who may or may not be causing Gavin’s sickly nature. The way Jacqueline slowly builds the relationship Kate and Gavin have with Trevor is done with quiet precision, giving us just enough at any one time to keep us intrigued while the other pieces of the plot are being put into their rightful places. In fact, whenever Jacqueline spends time with the ghosts, her narrative style rises to match the intensity and power of the spirits themselves. One of the best scenes in the book comes when Michael and Kate are talked into going with television ghost hunter, Luke Rainer (one of my favorite characters; with his arrogant charm and smarmy personality, Luke brings a fresh electricity to everything in the book), to track ghosts in a nearby cemetery, where they are quickly redirected to a local church where a murder-suicide took place at a wedding. The encounter with the ghost of Grace at the church is exquisitely written with just enough intense spookiness.

It’s from this point on that Jacqueline truly finds her voice and doesn’t look back. It’s also that moment when everything starts to click together, drafting out the picture of a fun ghost story with a little romance and heartache thrown in… though I can’t say I was head-over-heels in love by the final reveal of who Trevor really is and the reasons behind why he’s haunting them in the first place. It’s not that I had a problem with it (within the context of the story, it works quite well), I just felt the build-up was more than the payoff, making it all feel just a little too lackluster a reveal.

That aside, there’s much to like about Cemetery Tours, and now that the exposition and backstory are out of the way, the next two books in the series, Between Worlds and After Death, should be excellent editions to a supernatural library that’s just waiting to find out what happens to Michael, Kate and Luke after their first harrowing adventure together.

My Grade: A-

Jacqueline E. Smith

Jacqueline E. Smith lives in Dallas, Texas, has a Bachelor’s Degree in Art and Performance, and a Master’s in Humanities. She’s published 5 books (with the third book in her Boy Band series coming soon) under her own publishing label, Wind Trail Publishing.

Check out all of her social media platforms:

• Website/Blog

• Amazon Author Page

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Goodreads

If you are an independent author and would like your book reviewed, let me know in the comments section with a link to where I can purchase the book. If I find it intriguing, and it’s something I think I’d like, I will purchase a copy and add it to my reading list. I will be doing one independent book review per month, so not all requests will be accepted.

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Movie Mayhem – 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

“A Lybian transport. Still no Americans.”

This line, uttered by one of the six soldiers who fought to protect dozens of American civilians in Benghazi, Lybia on September 11, 2012, sums up those disastrous events with quiet reserve. Ever since that day, there have been questions, accusations and theories that have tried to make sense of what happened, but to this day, a fog of secrecy still lingers among the various excuses. But no matter how strong a film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is, if you’re expecting any sort of clarity to come from it, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi — 2016; Directed by Michael Bay; Starring John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa and Max Martini

Based on the book, “13 Hours” by Mitchell Zuckoff, the film follows the six soldiers who were on the ground at the time of the attack, the only support the Americans had fending off several attacks on their secret CIA compounds. Because of this, and because a lot of the information in regards to the CIA, the White House and other government entities about that night is still heavily classified or redacted, director Michael Bay makes the excellent decision to excise that part of the story and rely only on the information the soldiers knew at the time of the attack — which essentially adds up to squat. From the accounts of the soldiers, no amount of begging could get around the massive amount of bureaucratic red tape that led to the death of Ambassador Chris Stephens (Matt Letscher) and kept the only real help they were provided stranded at the Benghazi airport for over six hours. The only answers the soldiers ever received in that grueling thirteen hours was the same false information government officials were peddling shortly after the attacks about protests and videos.

Screenwriter Chuck Hogan uses the story of Jack Silva (John Krasinski), who arrives in Benghazi several weeks prior to the attack, as the narrative’s emotional core. One of his first experiences helps introduce us to the current state of affairs in Benghazi after the reign of Muammar Gaddafi ended, leaving Lybia to be overrun by gang violence and terrorist cells. We also able to learn about the compound through Silva’s eyes, getting to know the layout and the personnel, led by Bob (David Costabile, who plays this type of smarmy character so well, you have to wonder if that’s just who he is), a red-blooded bureaucrat through-and-through. The exact reason why this team of analysts and spies are there is a little unclear — it has to do with getting in with some oil executive, I think — but it doesn’t necessarily matter. The point is, these soldiers were assigned as their security detail and were going to fight to the death to protect every last American, even if they had to rely on nothing but themselves.

James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa, and Max Martini fill out their respective roles perfectly, building a camaraderie that is so natural, you’d think they were actually a band of brothers. They work so well as soldiers, in fact, that Krasinski sticks out like a sore thumb among them. There’s no doubt he fits in with the group and gives a fine performance, but compared to the rest of the team, he’s sorely miscast. He just doesn’t have that hardcore grit I expected, and saw, from the other actors, who all deliver high-caliber, and at times, devastating performances. We all pretty much know what’s about to happen, so when Bay manipulates our emotions by having every soldier call home the day before everything goes down, whether that happened or not, it pulls you in even deeper and does what it’s meant to do — help you empathize with these human, flawed, brave men.

But no matter how you may want to get around it, this is above all else, an action film, and Bay does what he does best — blow stuff up in terrifically orchestrated sequences. From the initial attack on the Ambassador’s compound, where the terrorists storm the building and set fire to it to it in order to smoke the Ambassador out, to the waves of attacks on the secret base, leaving everyone tired, hungry and emotionally drained, Bay gives us his unique vision with the same heart-pounding touch he’s had since the beginning of his career. A lot of people may believe Bay lost his mind recently with overindulgent films (the Transformers franchise being the most egregious), but regardless of that, he takes a time out here to present a much more subtle, personal, and in some ways grounded, style that shows he’s still a tremendously effective visual storyteller.

Now I know any film based on true events is going to be altered or tweaked in some way for dramatic purposes, and whether you believe any bit of the film or not is beside the point. From an entertainment standpoint, the movie works on every level, providing intrigue, action, emotion and anger all rolled into a perfectly paced couple of hours. From a political standpoint, it remains pretty neutral, giving us just enough to sink our teeth into, but staying away from diving too deep into the reasoning behind the real decisions made by our government, or by those decisions made by the terrorists, the Lybian fighters who joined with the American forces to help them in their time of need, and the authorities who kept disappearing just before a new wave would arrive. Yes, it may end up raising more questions than it answers, but if it opens the eyes of more people into wanting the truth and not some political merry-go round of vagueness, that’s a good thing.

If there’s one question everyone should want to know after watching this movie, it’s where was America when their people were under attack? The soldiers who defended and saved lives that night deserve at least that much.

My Grade: A

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Next week, new movies include The 5th Wave, Dirty Grandpa and The Boy. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Movie Mayhem – The Forest

There are a couple of different ways a horror film relates to its audience. The first is to go straight for the jugular. Films like A Nightmare On Elm Street and Poltergeist throw everything at you but the kitchen sink in order to terrify the piss out of you for an hour and a half. The second (which includes films like Psycho and The Sixth Sense) is a much slower burn, subtlety easing you in with minor scares and psychological torture until they hit you over the head with a twisted revelation in the last few minutes that make you go… WTF! The Forest, a movie that borders on being as generic as its title, wades uneasily into the latter, unable to find a suitable way to punch you in the gut at the very end.

The Forest — 2016; Directed by Jason Zada; Starring Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa and Eoin Macken

Which isn’t to say The Forest doesn’t have an interesting final few minutes. However, the events leading up to the climactic revelation doesn’t support it enough to have the surprising impact it was going for. Because of this, what should have been mind-bending awesomeness is swallowed up by the depressing feeling that it wasn’t earned, that it was only devised because the filmmakers needed to tack on some type of shocking surprise to boost an otherwise mediocre film. This is never a good sign for any type of movie, but especially one that takes its sweet time to get to the meat of the horror itself, lamenting a little too often in its own attempt at cleverness.

The film has a strong setup for supporting the slow burn effect. Sara Price’s (Natalie Dormer) identical twin sister goes missing in the Aokigahara Forest in Japan —also known as the suicide forest for its high rate of suicides — and heads there to look for her. I’m a fan of supernatural horror, and love when that element is mixed with the psychological effects it might have on someone, so right from the start the idea intrigued me. It didn’t hurt basing the setting on a real-life location, either, as that only adds to the gripping and frightening nature. So it’s a little disappointing when it takes nearly half the film to finally get us into the forest of question, teasing us with a few building scares in the hotels where the tourists stay that don’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s the forest that’s supposedly haunted, so why are we subjected to five minutes of Sara walking down the hall of the hotel to be jump-scared by the sudden appearance of an old, haggard woman? We’re here to get into the forest, so get us there… quickly.

When Sara does finally get out to the forest, with the help of Aiden (Taylor Kinney), a untrustworthy reporter Sara met in a bar the night before, and Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa), a guide who goes into the forest on his own time for a sort of suicide watch, things start to generate some heat. Although there may be one too many times when Sara stares at some aspect of the forest for no other reason than to pretend like it means something, the psychological games the forest plays are interesting, and it isn’t long before I started wondering how the filmmakers were playing games with my own mind in the process. From the girl who tries to pull Sara away from Aiden to the changing flow of the river, each new puzzle piece is part of some twisted joke — that everything we know is going to pulled out from under us at some point for some major turn that we never saw coming but makes complete sense in the long run.

The question then becomes — is it worth it, and is it meaningful enough? The answer here, sadly, is no, mostly because the characters themselves just aren’t interesting enough. When you set-up a film where you must rely on just a handful of characters to support the narrative, those characters had better be worth hanging out with, or else the entire conceit falls apart. Sara and Aiden are both inexplicably ordinary. There’s nothing all that special about either one and they’re basically given the same personality, so there’s no real conflict until the effects of the forest come into play.

However, because it takes so long to get out into the forest, the filmmakers aren’t able to take enough time to build up the tension and capitalize on the supernatural nature of the forest before Sara begins to go off the rails. I understand that even the smallest crack can be exploited to create a giant fissure, but the way everything is conducted, it doesn’t make much sense for why questions come up in regards to their validity. And when the characters, which includes the forest itself, fail to be compelling enough to draw you in even deeper, when things go crazy, you just have to sit back and say — so what?

My Grade: B-

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Next week, new movies include Ride Along 2, Norm of the North and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. If you would like to see a review of one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Sci-Fi Toybox – Time Travel

The arsenal for science fiction is incredibly expansive. From spaceships and futuristic weapons to scientific breakthroughs and genetic engineering, sci-fi writers have plenty to play with when it comes to tapping away at a story that will blow readers minds.

One of my favorite sci-fi tropes is time travel. It’s a fun way to look at the what-ifs of life (and tapping into the universal ideas of second chances and changing for the better), and I love how it challenges you to think, not only about the consequences of how altering even the smallest thing can have far-reaching effects, but in the complexity of what’s needed to make traveling through time make sense. I’ve used time travel in both novel and screenplay formats, and have been in the development stages of a young adult series that will utilize time travel as its core narrative device.

Why has it taken so long? Because time travel isn’t one of those devices you can just use and at any time you like. Misuse of time travel can lead to disastrous results, including plot holes, paradoxes, confusion, headaches and disbelief.

A lot of consideration must be taken in all aspects of time travel before even one word of your story can be written. If just one thing is out of place, inconsistent or inaccurate, a story can go from being a wicked adventure to a series of contrivances, forced narrative and the reworking of plots in order to make them fit into a wormhole of chaos.

To help you get started, here are a few basic pieces that should help you build a convincing, coherent time travel story.

Develop A Set Of Rules

Much like magic, one of the most important aspects of time travel is its rules. If you don’t even know what the rules are, how do you expect others to understand, or better yet, believe them? The rules you set don’t have to be anything that has come before, or are even scientifically accurate, so long as they are consistent.

How a character travels through time, the effects time travel will have on your protagonist and his or her world, how any changes alter the reality of your protagonist and the people around him, and whether or not anything can change need to be developed before you start writing. For example, if your protagonist changes his or her present by altering the past, does the protagonist feel these changes? Is he or she the only one that remembers what the “old” reality was, or does the change alter the protagonists memories as well?

If you haven’t answered these questions before you start writing, things can get real messy real fast; plot holes will be the least of your worries. By setting up your rules early and having a good sense for them gives you a starting point in crafting a story so that your reader doesn’t get confused by what’s happening.

Conduct Plenty Of Research

As much as we’d like it to be, time travel isn’t all fun and games. Just as you would if you were about to write a historical novel set in a unfamiliar era, writing a story with time travel involves a lot of research. If you’re sending your protagonist back to, say, the 1960s, you’re going to want to know all you can about that era, and more specifically, the year in which you’re going to be spending most of your time.

The same goes for the future. Though most of what you’ll be creating will be from the depths of the imagination, you still must do quite a bit of world building. Whether it’s technology advances, political influences, alien takeovers or artificial intelligence, whatever the future holds should be planned in advance so that you can have complete knowledge of your world and confidently relay that world to your reader. Doing research on the newest technological advances, political trends and philosophical beliefs can help in develop scientifically accurate and coherent futures.

Understand Your Characters

Time travel is essentially a fish-out-of-water concept, so, unlike writing a historical novel set in a particular time period, when traveling through time, there will be at least one character who doesn’t belong there and must adjust to his or her surroundings. How well that character acclimates depends on a lot of factors, including the character’s personality traits and whether or not they were expecting to go or were accidentally sent.

There’s no quicker way to disengage the reader than by having the characters you set up behave and react in the wrong way. If a character is very set in their ways, don’t have them feel right at home in a new time period. If your protagonist developed time travel and is excited to land in a certain time period, they should be excited to try every new experience. If a nervous-Nelly is accidentally sent to the future, have them hyperventilate and cry a little before venturing out to ignite the plot. Little things like that will go along way in making the book feel authentic.

Bottom line, know who your characters are and don’t be afraid to take some time to develop their sense of place within the new world.

Answer the Paradox

Last but not least is dealing with the idea of time paradoxes. A paradox, as it happens in time travel, is when you run into a situation where if something didn’t happen a certain way, then there’s no reason to have sought to change that situation. The easiest example is if you went back in time and murdered your parents before you were born, you would never have been born, thus, you would never travel back in time to murder your parents.

The thing is, paradoxes are a necessary evil when playing around with time (that is unless the past can’t change because everything that has happened in the past, including your presence (or multiple presences) after having traveled through time, has already happened). But if you’ve done your research, have taken the time to set up the rules of time travel, and are comfortable with your characters, you have all the knowledge and the wherewithal to explain why a paradox may or may not affect your protagonist in a certain way, giving your readers a reason why the paradox hasn’t completely destroyed the space-time continuum of your world.

What do you guys think? Have you ever dealt with time travel in your writing? Do you have any other suggestions to help make writing time travel adventures easier?

If you’ve written a time travel novel, please feel free to list it in the comments section.