Bryce Moore's Blog, page 128

Planning My Next Book

[image error]The time has come. I’m up to date with all my other projects, and so I’ve begun to turn my attention to the age old question of “What should I write next?” This will be my eighteenth book, if I finish it. (I’ve started five others that I never finished, though it’s been around four years since I did that. I’ve gotten better at finishing books the more practice I’ve gotten with it. I think it has to do with being able to identify a subject that I can make a good run at. The books that fell apart on me before just didn’t have enough substance to maintain an entire novel.)

In this case, I’ve got a good feeling about it. I’m excited to write the book, and really interested to see what will come of it. The topic? A middle grade steampunk western. I’m thinking something in the vein of Silverado, but with gearwork demons, Mormon kung fu missionaries, and an apprentice gearsmith on a quest to find her grandfather.

I’d actually initially planned this as an adult book, but after conferring with my illustrious agent, I discovered steampunk and adults just aren’t doing that well, from a market perspective. On the middle grade side however, it’s smoother sailing. Rather than turning me off from the idea, it intrigued me even more. What could I do with that same concept, but with a tighter, middle grade audience?

People always ask authors where they get their ideas. They come to me every now and then as cool what-ifs. I write them down. This book is actually going to be a sequel of sorts to the short story I wrote at the beginning of the year. (AN INCIDENT AT OAK CREEK, which will actually be coming to a short story anthology near you sometime in the future.) The short story is much more serious, and definitely aimed at an adult audience, just by subject matter and how I dealt with the material.

Once I have a kernel of a story idea, I start to flesh it out, thinking about what sort of conflicts would be interesting with that as the central conceit. Steampunk western, middle grade audience. Who might the characters be? I think through the various things I’ve read and watched to get a taste for what’s been done before. Westerns come in a few different flavors. Lone gunman comes to save a family or redeem himself. Scrappy group of ruffians save a town. Band of outlaws running from the law. That kind of thing.

I tumble through each of those ideas, one at a time, comparing it with the sort of book that’s itching the back of my mind, seeing which ones feel the most promising. Some concepts just appeal to me more, the same way I like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla. Next, I turn to setting details. Where might this happen? Desert? Mountains? Remote? City? I do a bit of research into the time period to get a sense of what’s possible and what’s not. Even in a book with gearwork demons, it’s important to have some concrete sense of reality. (More important, actually.)

I watch movies in the genre I’m approaching. It helps give me more ideas and get excited for the project. I start to write down plot points and highlights. Cool scenes I’d like to write. Then I begin to piece together those scenes in a rough outline that could make sense. That in turn calls for more details and more research as questions arise.

Once I’ve got all that done, I’ll write up a short summary of the book. Maybe two or three pages, keeping in mind overall length. (For this book, I’m going to shoot for 40,000-50,000 words, for example.) I’ll send that summary to my agent and have him pick it apart. Often there are ideas that seemed good in theory that he can identify as glaring problems long before I start actually writing. Better to avoid those early on. Once we’ve kicked the general concept back and forth and have it at a place we’re both happy with, I begin to write.

At that point, it’s all about word speed. I do 1,000 words a day, and so if the book ends up at 50,000 words, it’ll take me around two months to finish. During that process, I inevitably find things in the plot I didn’t like. Things that need to change. (Though I hope I’m doing better at avoiding throwing in random new things just because they seem cool. That usually takes me in places that just get too convoluted and unworkable.) Honestly, that first draft is one of my favorite parts of writing. It’s what I look forward to the most. I feel most fulfilled each day as I find out what happens next. As I get to the know the characters better. Revising is important and great, but my biggest love is original composition.

So I’m really excited to be approaching that point again. Wish me luck!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

What Modern Day Revelation Looks Like

[image error]When some hear about revelation, I imagine they picture God speaking down from above. Maybe there’s a cloud involved. There might be a burning bush or two. The LDS (Mormon) church recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the removal of the racial ban on the priesthood. Add to this the many other laundry list of issues church members would like clarity or even change on. Bring up women’s roles in the church and same-sex marriage, and you can quickly become embroiled in any number of debates. For that matter, you can get into even worse trouble if you start talking about whether watching the Super Bowl is okay or if Mountain Dew is on the approved list of beverages.

This post isn’t about any of that.

Instead, it’s a reaction to a piece I came across yesterday about the way the Word of Wisdom has developed over the years in the Mormon religion. The new book I’m working on is a western(!), and I’m having Mormon missionaries play a role in it. I wanted to see what their attitudes toward liquor would have been. I knew the Word of Wisdom was initially viewed more as a bit of helpful advice than an actual commandment, and I didn’t know when it finally solidified into the code we have today.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered just how full of twists that path was.

For those of you who don’t click through to the links I give you (and I know that you are many, judging by my statistics), let me highlight a few points:

One of the items in the Word of Wisdom to get the most focus at first was that members should abstain from eating meat. In 1898, when the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve discussed the Word of Wisdom, both the Prophet (Wilford Woodruff) and President of the Quorum of the Twelve (Lorenzo Snow) said it should be followed as a commandment, and that members should “refrain from eating meat except in dire necessity.”
Numerous high ranking church members drank coffee, tea, and alcohol into the 1900s.
Wine was still used for the Sacrament by members of the Twelve up until 1906.
The Prohibition push had an enormous effect on the teachings surrounding alcohol. Teachings that last to this day.
In 1930, the Apostle John Widstoe published a tract saying the Word of Wisdom included a ban on refined flours.

I don’t bring this up to say we should all start going out and becoming gluten-free vegetarians (though I’m sure there are some who might look at that advice and interpret it that way), but rather to observe that a church that believes it grows “line upon line, precept upon precept” will have this twisting evolution of its doctrine as an inevitable side effect.

Growing up in the church, it’s easy to assume the Way Things Are has always been the Way Things Are. And the church does, indeed, encourage that line of thinking. We’re taught to believe in revelation, and we’re taught that commandments come by way of revelation. We’re taught we can receive revelation ourselves, but we often don’t make the connection that the way we receive personal revelation (through thought, prayer, inspiration, and debate with other people until we arrive at a decision) often will mirror the way church leaders receive revelation.

Again, I’m not saying God never takes a direct hand in the course of events. I believe He does, but I believe that when that happens, it’s the exception, not the rule.

Look at the path to the present day Word of Wisdom interpretation. At no time in the course of that law was it fine to get drunk or get so hooked on caffeine that you can’t quit it. It was always there to add temperance and mindfulness to what members were putting in their bodies. The exact interpretation evolved as understanding evolved.

Mirror that with the way the church finally ended up removing the priesthood ban, a much more sensitive area. Compare that with the way the church has handled other issues in the past, and how it will inevitably handle issues in the future. The takeaway for me is that it’s a process. That things that seem iron clad in the way they’re taught might not actually be that iron clad in the long run. That doesn’t mean it’s up to me to interpret all of them the way I’d like. There’s enough written by church leaders over the years to justify just about anything you want to justify.

In the end, I believe in following the teachings of the church today, but I keep in mind that those teachings have changed in the past and they will change in the future. I don’t know how they will change, but that flexibility gives me enough space to have a testimony that can take some punches, and I’m really grateful for that.

A New Franklin Fiddler

[image error]Since we moved to the area, we’ve seen the Franklin County Fiddlers perform multiple times. They’re a high school group of mainly string players, and it’s one of the highlights of the school music program. Yes, I’ve always been more partial to wind instruments, being a bassoon and saxophone player back in the day, but I also have come to believe you  play to your school’s strengths. The Fiddlers have a great amount of support in the community and the school, they have a wonderful director, and they just do a lot of good.

(It reminds me of my days back in Dixie Band at Council Rock High School. We would go around and play at local festivals and senior citizen centers, and we had a lot of fun doing it. A great group. Relaxed and a lot of fun. Sadly, I have no video of it on hand. Maybe I have some on DVD at home? I should check sometime.)

In any case, we’ve gone to a lot of their concerts over the years, and Tomas has always wanted to join the group once he made it to high school. The tryouts were Monday afternoon, and after some suspense, we found out he made the group.

It’ll be a definite time commitment. Rehearsals are every Monday for two hours, and there are around 30 concerts over the course of the school year. They’ll be taking a trip in April, most likely. But Tomas is excited, and we’re excited for him. He’s even decided to start taking private lessons. (Something DC has been doing since the beginning of the year, give or take. It’s really helped her, and I think he can see that.)

In any case, hearty congratulations to him. It should be a fun start to freshman year.

Here’s a video of the Fiddlers from a few years ago, to give you an idea what he’ll be playing.

Book of Mormon Challenge

[image error]We had the Sister Missionaries over for dinner last night, and as part of their message to us, they had prepared an activity. They’d taken random pages from the Book of Mormon and printed them out. They then asked us to each take a page and highlight anywhere it mentioned God or Jesus Christ. This reminded me of an exercise I’d read about last year, where a BYU professor and some of his students set up displays in London, Sydney, Chicago, Cape Town and Las Vegas. At the displays, they handed strangers who came by a random page from the Book of Mormon (though all 531 pages were used over the course of the activity) and asked them to read it and say what they thought about it.

It’s an interesting experiment (though from my experience as a missionary, I have to wonder just how many of those readings went poorly. It would be fun to see a “blooper” real of the people who didn’t like the study at all . . .)

The Sisters told us they had heard only 5 or so pages of the Book of Mormon don’t have a reference to Christ or God on them. They’re thinking of approaching it systematically to see if that’s true. I think it’s a neat idea, and it wouldn’t take long to get it done, assuming 531 people each feel like reading a page. So part of me felt like linking to a pdf scan of the whole book and crowdsourcing the question, but I thought that was kind of restricting. Why not play to my strengths. We’ve got the internet available, and I’m a librarian . . . I was pretty sure I’d be able to answer the question by citing someone else.

A bit of digging later, and I found BYU Professor Charles Tate’s analysis of the Book of Mormon:

“Only 30 of the 531 pages contain no specific name reference to Deity. Furthermore, many of those 30 pages make references to God without using names.”

So there you go. I’m not sure which pages don’t reference God or Christ, but there are 30 of them. (Still a fun activity, Sisters!) (On a side note, my searching also led me to this resource, which seems to be a pretty comprehensive study guide for the book, though it’s not an official church resource.)

I would have to say that the most impactful experience I’ve ever had with the Book of Mormon was on my mission. It was probably around . . . May of 1997. My mission president challenged all the missionaries to read the entire Book of Mormon in one day. Not collectively (as in, each of you read three different pages on the same day or something like that), but individually. I woke up at 6:30am and immediately began reading. I picked a fresh copy, and I circled the verses that stood out to me for any reason, though I didn’t take time to make detailed notes or anything like that. (Reading 531 pages of anything in a single day takes time, you know.) As I recall, I finished around 8:00pm. It took something like 14 hours for me to finish.

It’s an experience that has stayed with me ever since. I can’t say I’ve ever approached the Book of Mormon from a fresh perspective. I’ve been raised to view it as scripture, and it’s inevitable that will have colored my perception of it. At the same time, I’ve also done a fair bit of study of literature, both in my English Masters program and as an author. One way or the other, the Book of Mormon came from somewhere. Somebody wrote it. Speaking as an author, the thought of trying to write it in around 65 days of actual writing (85 calendar days total from start to finish) makes me want to run some place and hide. When I read the whole thing at once and thought about all the information that’s packed in there, and the need for internal consistency, calendar systems, money systems, political systems, religious teachings, etc . . . it boggles the mind.

The Book has brought a lot of comfort and guidance to my life, and it’s one of the cornerstones of my testimony in Christ and God.

So thanks, Sisters, for a fun activity, and I’ll just say for anyone local, if you’re at all interested in talking to missionaries about any of this, the two we have at the moment (Sister Strohl and Sister Shields) are top notch. (Speaking as someone who’s been around my fair share of missionaries.)

When Trees Attack

[image error]Friday night, Denisa and I woke up to some kind of noise. None of us were really with it (it was 1 in the morning, give or take). The power was out. Denisa headed downstairs and ran into Tomas, who had also woken up, though he couldn’t remember why either. Nothing appeared to be on fire or causing trouble, so we all went back to bed. Because sleep.

In the morning, the power was still out. I went down to investigate what the cause might be. One glance out the back window was enough. Our large silver maple in the backyard had dropped a huge branch right across the power line and brought it down. There had been no wind that night. No lightning or storms. The tree had just decided enough was enough, apparently. (We heard from a neighbor down the road that they’d actually heard the limb fall all the way over where they were. It was loud.)

I phoned in the outage and downed wire, and the electric company had someone out fixing it in about an hour, which was fantastic.

But now we have a tree limb that needs to disappear, and a tree that we no longer really want near our house. We had a guy come give us an estimate yesterday for what it would cost to make that tree just go away. Just wave a magic wand and make all the wood and leaves disappear. (Essentially.) The verdict? Thousands of dollars. Like, around four of them.

That’s . . . a whole lot more than I wish I’d have to pay. We have calls out with other arborists to have them come by and give estimates, but it’s kind of a downer of a way to begin the process. There are plenty of other ways I’d rather spend thousands of dollars.

But the tree needs to go away, and with how little effort it took the tree to drop the one branch, I have no idea what might happen when a real storm comes by. Especially with the tree leaning toward the bulk of our house.

The joys of home ownership, right?

I’ll just keep telling myself that . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Living Under a Rock

[image error]I came across this list of the top 100 one hit wonders the other day, and so of course I had to go through it to see how many of them I recognized. (Seriously. I’ve got a problem with lists. I see one, and it’s like I have to stop and see how I rate. If I were ever in an action movie, that would be my secret weakness. “This bomb needs to be defused right this second!” “I know, but there’s this list here of the top 50 most intense bomb-defusing scenes, and I need to know how many of them I’ve watched . . .”)

One hit wonders are sort of supposed to be ubiquitous, in my understanding. They’re just omni-present. You can’t avoid being exposed to them, almost. So I was surprised that there were seven songs on that list that I just kind of stared at blankly, wondering if they were on there as some kind of joke. So that you can laugh at my pop culture music blind spots, here they are:

Kiss the Rain
Return of the Mack
Mexican Radio
In a Big Country
I’d Love to Change the World
Joey
Under the Milky Way

I mean, does *anyone* recognize those songs? I’m half-convinced they were put on there just to check if people actually read through the whole list. I’m also kind of happy I haven’t heard some of them. They seemed annoying, which in turn makes me wonder how many of the songs on there I know and like would actually seem annoying if I’d never heard them before.

And the list made me think of another question: Which would you prefer, if you could choose? To have one work of art that became fairly ubiquitous and famous, but to have nothing else that ever really became known at all, or to have years of middle-of-the-road success, with works that are well received but never make any best seller lists or bring you the sort of fame where people line up for your autograph? For the purposes of the hypothetical, let’s assume both avenues end up making you the same amount of money, so it’s not like cash can enter into it.

My first instinct is that the fame would win out, because you’d have to think in today’s world you’d be able to leverage that for further success. But we know from the premise that isn’t the case. The one hit wonder remained just that. So in that case, I think I’d prefer just steady, solid success as opposed to one brief burst of glory. I would think having had the taste once, it would make everything else feel kind of hollow.

What would you go for? And how many of those songs have you never heard before?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Book Review: On the Shoulders of Titans

On the Shoulders of Titans by Andrew Rowe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not all books are meant to be a work of art. When I pick up a novel, I’m not always expecting it to change my life. In fact, there are a number of times when I actively avoid reading a novel, since I’m looking for a different experience. Something that I can just read and have a good time turning the pages.

Andrew Rowe’s Arcane Ascension series is perfect for this.

It’s part of a genre called LitRPG. Basically it’s an RPG roleplaying game in book format. (Not choose your own adventure, but rather is if you were watching someone play through the game.) Magic is dealt with in terms of levels and mana power. Interestingly, this gives the book a very “hard magic” sort of feel, with precise limitations and abilities, though since often the book ends up revealing new abilities out of nowhere, this is a very surface level “hardness.” On the surface, it sounds like it wouldn’t work, but man have I enjoyed reading these two books. It’s rare these days when I look at the progress on my Kindle and I’m disappointed to see how little left I have in the book, since I’d rather just keep reading.

Is it high art? By no means. It’s probably the literary equivalent of Fruity Pebbles. But you know what? I really love Fruity Pebbles. I could eat that cereal all day long, as long as I had enough milk.

If you’re looking to read about a ragtag group of students trying to save a world from falling into chaos and destruction, and you love reading about how someone figures out all the angles so he can game the system, then this book is for you. (Though read the first one in the series first, obviously.)

If not . . . then probably better head elsewhere. More Fruity Pebbles for me . . .

View all my reviews

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Looking for an Excuse to Ignore

[image error]It feels to me these days like more and more people are looking for excuses. For reasons they can simply ignore people who disagree with them instead of actually engage them in a real dialogue. Some of this comes down to labels. “Trump supporter.” “Social Justice Warrior.” Slap a label on a person who you don’t see eye to eye with, and suddenly you’re not dismissing an individual, you’re simply ignoring a person who’s obviously wrong.

This thought started when I got a political ad in the mail yesterday. A candidate was bragging about how he was the “Only Trump Supporter” among other Republican candidates running for Senate. I looked at the ad and couldn’t help but give it a mental eye roll. “How to guarantee I’ll not vote for you,” I thought to myself as I threw it away. “Trump supporter” was enough for me to dismiss the person without a second thought. On the other hand, clearly there is a non-insignificant portion of the state for which being an avid supporter of the President is an asset, not a liability.

Then you’ve got the case of Roseanne. She Tweeted a racist joke and had her hit TV show subsequently canceled hours later. In response, some people are very pleased. Finally! A consequence for saying awful things. Some people are quite upset. Comedians make fun of Trump all the time, they say, and yet there are no repercussions to them. They see this as liberals being hypocritical, wanting to silence speech that offends them but not caring when their speech offends others.

In still other situations, you have some people looking at society today and seeing continued discrimination toward minorities, women, and LGBT issues. Meanwhile, you have white men clamoring that *they* are actually the ones being discriminated against.

Honestly, the list continues from there, but that’s enough for now. In each case, both sides are polarized to the point that they can’t even see the other side’s point of view to engage with it. In each instance, both sides feel the matter is cut and dried. That there’s no room for any view other than the one they hold.

What’s caused us to get to this point?

Some of it is due to the 24 hour news cycle. News stations are on all day, and they need to fill that time with something, and so having it be a constant argument between differing sides is one way to do that. At the same time, they’ve also discovered they get better ratings by pandering solely to one side or the other, presenting a view of the world that at best downplays the other side and at worst ignores it or demonizes it completely.

Some of it is due to anonymity online. It’s much easier to label and ignore people you don’t have to talk to and interact with on a daily basis. It’s even easier when you have no idea who those people are to begin with. Just look at the way I judge people when I’m driving my car compared to the way I judge them in person. (Spoiler: I’m not a very charitable driver . . . )

But it’s one thing to identify a problem. What can we do to solve it?

I tend to think the solution isn’t to be found online. The anonymity and toxic comments from both sides make real discussion almost impossible. Facebook tends to enable real debate to an extent, but I’ve found too often it turns into me playing referee between friends of mine who don’t know each other and so feel a sense of that entitled anonymity kick in.

So for me, I believe the real solution is to be found in the real world. Once you get outside and meet actual people, it becomes harder to dismiss their ideas. I’m not saying we have to get out there and agree with one another. But understanding where the opposite side of the argument is coming from is important. Listening is the first step: being willing to let the other side say what they’re thinking, without attacking them and pointing out all the reasons they’re wrong. The next step is to look for common ground. Find the areas of the the debate where you’re on the same side, and then build outward from there.

I have friends who are Trump supporters. I have friends who are “Social Justice Warriors.” (Sorry. That’s still one of the lamest labels I’ve heard people come up with, and I cringe when it’s used. A topic for another time.) Neither side has a monopoly on being right or on being good. Charges of hypocrisy could easily stick on both sides. But the longer each side tries to just ignore the other, the worse this problem will get. I include myself in that call for toning things down. Playing to an audience might win us views and clicks in the short term, but at a very real cost to civil discourse.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: Solo

[image error]The movie news pages are all abuzz with headlines of how poorly Solo performed at the box office this weekend, earning much less than predicted both in the US and internationally. I’ve read some reviews that are mixed to negative, and some that really liked the movie. Having seen the movie myself, I’m happy to weigh in on the matter.

I’ll be upfront about it: I gave the film a 7/10, which means I liked it a fair amount. I was leery about seeing someone else in the Solo role other than Harrison Ford, but I felt like Alden Ehrenreich really nailed it, enough that I stopped thinking of him as someone filling in someone else’s shoes, and just started thinking of him as a young Solo. (His smile seemed particularly on point to me.)

Beyond that, it was a fun movie, with a whole ton of action. The effects were spot on, the fighting was intense. It’s a movie that’s a lot of fun to see in a theater with a group of people.

Was it a Star Wars movie? Well, it had Chewbacca in it. It had cool droids. It didn’t have the Force at all, and it had no one named Skywalker in it. Overall, it still managed to feel Star Warsy, even without the Force (though the Force has always been my personal favorite aspect of Star Wars.)

At its heart, this is a heist movie, which feels natural for a Solo origin story. It tried a bit too hard to explain every tiny bit of back story about Han, right down to his name. Those were the parts that felt weakest to me, as if they were contorting to fit it all in there. That isn’t necessary. It’s also a movie that’s an amalgamation of different directors. Started by two, finished by Ron Howard, though it’s up for debate how much of the original conceit hung around. I would be really interested to know what Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the original directors, who also did The Lego Movie) had up their sleeves. From what I’ve heard, it was a much more humorous take. Part of me is curious to see what a truly funny Star Wars movie would be like, but at the same time, I can’t fault Disney for ultimately balking. I think they took a risk and then decided the end result wouldn’t be good for the brand they’re trying to build.

Though at the same time, I think it’s inevitable that they will ultimately end up with some pretty crazy Star Wars movies. It’s one of the only things you can do to keep a brand fresh. See Guardians of the Galaxy.

One of the biggest criticisms the movie is getting is about how expensive it ended up, and how hard it will be to make a profit. I’m not sure Disney will view it that way, since a large part of the expense is on their shoulders. They started, stopped, changed directions, and restarted. That costs money. And hoping to have a wonderful end product after all of that is a big ask. I was happy to see it was a solid, enjoyable movie.

I think it was also marketed fairly poorly. All the dollars went to Infinity War, and then it was like Disney figured it would be able to build up steam in about two weeks, just because Star Wars. This proves them wrong, and hopefully they avoid this in the future.

But if you’re looking for a fun popcorn movie, there are much worse movies to see. My kids both loved it. DC especially. I think it did a good job earning its spot in the canon, and I will happily rewatch it again in the future. For what it was intended to be (Star Wars heist movie that fills in Solo’s backstory), it does a solid job.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review Roundup: Dunkirk, Get Out, Logan, and Split

[image error]I’ve been sick the last few days. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I’ve had plenty of time to catch up on movies. I’m on the mend, but still in bed today. Maybe I’ll get in one or two more. Who knows? In the meantime, here are short reviews to 4 films I’ve had on my To Be Watched list for quite a while.

Dunkirk. Nominated for 8 Oscars, including Best Picture and Director. Won three, all in the editing categories. I’d heard mixed reviews. The biggest criticism I’d heard repeated is that it was hard to care about any of the characters, since no back story was given to any of them. It was all centered right in the middle of the action around Dunkirk.

I actually didn’t mind the no back story bit. If Nolan had gone the traditional route, this movie would have been at least an hour longer. Adding back stories for each of the characters means you need to add denouements for each of them as well. And a whole lot of that just writes itself. Do we really need to see the scene where we find out the pilot is engaged and supposed to be married in two days? Or where we find out the stowaway soldier is a rogue who loves to gamble? Perhaps, for some movies. I’m thinking of Saving Private Ryan, where a lot of the meat of the movie comes from the quieter moments, where we get to know the characters and understand their motivations.

Then again, I don’t think that’s what this movie was about. It was about Dunkirk. Says so right in the title. And so Nolan focused on the actions of that event, dramatizing them through three different storylines that intersect. It’s telling the movie was nominated for all sorts of Oscars, but no acting ones. The acting could have been done by anyone, really. They were pieces to show the game being played.

All that said, I enjoyed the film, but didn’t adore it. It was riveting stuff, and it made me want to find out more about the historical event, but I also discovered that not really caring about the characters does peel away a layer necessary for me to invest myself in the outcome. Still a great war movie, and an interesting approach. 8/10

 

Get Out. Keeping in the Oscar Nominated movies vein, I had a chance to see Get Out in its entirety. Nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay (for which it won its only Oscar), I knew a fair bit less about this movie going into it. I knew it was in a strange mix of genres: horror, comedy, social commentary. I knew it was about race.

What a crazy, awesome mix of a movie. I’m glad I didn’t know more, since so much of it revolves around reveals. It was thought provoking and unpredictable. The sort of movie you really want to discuss with people after the fact. Here’s the storyline from IMDB:

Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

Gary Oldman better have been insanely good in The Darkest Hour, because the performance by Daniel Kaluuya in this movie was incredible. Very worthy of an Oscar nomination, and I’m surprised he didn’t win. (Have to think the horror genre somehow counted against him.)

As far as horror movies goes, it’s more for suspense than gore (though there is a fair bit of blood in the movie). Lots of language earned the R rating, which I kind of wish they had scaled back from. I feel like there are a lot of people who would benefit from watching the movie who won’t watch it because it’s R, and I feel like the movie would have easily had the same impact without a bit of the blood and all of the language.  9/10

 

Logan. I’d heard many people say it was the best X-Men movie. It’s currently the 208th best movie on IMDB. Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. (And directed by James Mangold, who was just announced as the director for the Boba Fett movie . . .)

I’ll say one thing: “Best X-Men movie” is a bar that isn’t too hard to get over. I’ve liked some of the entries in the series well enough, but none of them have stood out to be as Completely Awesome. Logan, frankly, was also not Complete Awesome for me, but that was more from the fact that it’s quite dark, and I prefer my superhero movies to be more super. Matter of taste.

That said, I really enjoyed the movie. Ultra violent, which I know a lot of fans have been clamoring for. And when your main character is a guy with foot long adamantium claws on both hands . . . you’re kind of obligated to find out how many creative ways you can have him use those claws to kill people. I get it.

The premise is simple: years in the future, Wolverine is living a broken life. He’s borderline suicidal. Mutants are pretty much hunted out of existence. No new ones are appearing. Life is terrible. And then a new mutant girl is discovered, and it’s up to him to protect her, despite the fact that he’s the least fatherly figure you could imagine.

It’s not a movie you’re going to come out chipper from. It’s quite the downer, but it’s a good downer, so there’s that. Honestly, this is a pretty easy film to decide whether you’ll want to watch it or not. If “R-Rated dark Wolverine movie” is something you’re in the market for, here’s your huckleberry. 8/10

 

Split. I do not, as a rule, enjoy horror movies. (And yet here I am reviewing two of them at once sitting.) That said, I really liked The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and (to an extent) The Village and Signs. M. Night Shyamalan has directed some stinkers, sure, but he’s got a number of movies I enjoy. Split wasn’t one I was planning on seeing, however. The main reason I watched it was because I heard it might intersect with Unbreakable somehow, and my fond memories of that movie made me want to check this one out.

I generally really dislike movies where the villain is a “crazy person.” I feel like it does a real disservice to people with mental health issues. James McAvoy plays a man with something like 23 different personalities. And of course some of them want to abduct three girls and keep them hostage for unknown reasons.

McAvoy did a fine job acting the different personalities, but I still found the whole concept kind of scummy, and I could never really invest myself in his character because of that. Additionally, my general distaste of horror made me gun shy of lots of the movie. In the end, it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience, and the intersection with Unbreakable wasn’t enough to make me happy I’d invested 2 hours of sick-in-bed time with the movie.

Though I would really love an Unbreakable sequel. Just sayin’. 5/10. I didn’t hate it, but was generally neutral on it, which is what a 5 is for me. All movies start out as a 5. They move up and down based on my response to them.

 

Seen any of these yourself? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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