Bryce Moore's Blog, page 18

Movie Review: Wonka

Look at this! I’m reviewing a movie that’s not years and years old! I know, you’re shocked. In truth, I’m really feeling like I’d like to switch back to some movie watching again instead of series, though the trick is that I’m in the middle of a number of series, so I’m not sure when I’ll actually be able to switch. But anyway, on to the review.

When I first heard about Wonka, I was skeptical. It seemed like it was mostly likely just another money grab based on nostalgia. I love the Gene Wilder original, so monkeying around with it wasn’t something I was too keen to see. But I’d generally heard good things, and so when it came on Max for streaming, we gave it a shot last week as a family.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. It didn’t try to be the original, or even be too connected to it at all. You’ve got the costume, a couple of the melodies, a bit of the design, and then the name “Willy Wonka.” So enough that it was more of a sly wink to the original than something you wanted to spend a lot of time figuring out just how it is that Oompa Loompas ended up being three times as large by the time Gene Wilder takes on the role.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see all the musical numbers, as I wasn’t sure just how much of a musical they’d make it. The music was solid, though of course it’s hard to compare it to the original, when I know all the original music numbers by heart. (Except for Cheer Up Charlie, of course. I hate that song, and I still fast forward through it.) Chalamet has a surprisingly good voice, to the point that I had to double check it was him singing. (Why didn’t they make Dune a musical? Talk about missed opportunities! I can just see the singing and dancing sandworm now . . . )

In the end, it’s a fun story with a good cast, and a very solid recommendation for any family movie night. I gave it an 8.5/10. It didn’t really have anything that vaulted it up to the “I want to watch this again sometime soon” level, but I definitely wouldn’t turn down a rewatch in a few years.

Oscars 2024 Review

Another year, another Oscars broadcast. Once again, we had a small movie-themed costume party, because what’s the point in having an event if you celebrate it a bit? MC went as Darla from Finding Nemo, Daniela was Katniss, Denisa was Julia Child, and I was Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) from Being John Malkovich (yes, it was a costume absolutely no one recognized. But I knew who I was, and that’s all that really matters.)

The broadcast was actually surprisingly good, with only a few things to quibble about. For one thing, it started an entire hour early, which was just fantastic. It meant that when I was usually looking at the clock and thinking about an early start the next morning, and wondering just how long this was going to run over, I just enjoyed the whole thing and didn’t worry about time at all. I really hope they do that again. Jimmy Kimmel kept things moving along at a good clip, and he had plenty of jokes that were actually funny and family friendly.

I really enjoyed the actor tributes for all the acting categories, where past winners talked about current nominees and what they liked about their performances. It felt sincere, and made things a bit more real. The musical numbers were mostly good (though the Flamin’ Hot one was forgettable). Billy Eilish sang wonderfully, and the Ken number was just fantastic.

As for my Oscar picks, I went 13/23, which actually says to me that the show wasn’t a complete snoozefest, since I almost always go with the front runners. True, the big categories almost all went as planned, but I care about more than those, anyway. Seeing Emma Stone win and be so flabbergasted was heartwarming, and none of the acceptance speeches went on too long, though I did lose interest in a few of them. And for the record, I won the Oscar pool again, so I retained the Oscar the Grouch hat for another year. (Though this time there were three people in striking distance right up to the end, which made things more exciting.)

So what was bad? The biggest thing was the In Memoriam number, which featured Andrea Bocelli singing Time to Say Goodbye. If they’d stopped there, that would have been fine, but someone had the bright idea to have . . . interpretive dance in the middle of it? And then to make sure to be able to show the dancers the whole time?? So instead of actually just being able to see the people being honored and focusing on that, we couldn’t see them all that well, and dancers kept moving around and distracting me. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. It was not.

The “banter” between the presenters was generally meh, occasionally awful (Melissa McCarthy), and rarely good (Schwarzenegger and Devito and John Cena). And they just completely ignored the earlier technical awards.

But really, those are just small things that didn’t impact my enjoyment much at all. It was a fun show, and I hope they build on some of this success again next year. (Also relieved to see my agent kept live blogging, as I always enjoy reading his commentary on all of it, especially since he’s almost always seen all of the films, some of them more than once.)

My Favorite European Hotel Site

As I’ve been moving forward with my Scotland planning, it occurred to me today that it might be useful to let any of you who might be planning European vacations to know about my go-to site for finding hotels in Europe. Booking.com

First off, I’m not getting any money from Booking for this post. I just find the site extremely useful and reliable, and I’ve gone to it for trips to Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, and now Scotland. Each time I go to a new country, it takes a bit of time to do some research to see which sites that country uses for lodging. I’ve tried AirBnB, VRBO, Hotels.com, and individual hotel sites. Occasionally one of those pans out more than Booking, but almost always, Booking ends up having the best prices.

Beyond simply getting the best prices, they’ve got other perks to the site that I very much appreciate. They have extensive user reviews, and you can quickly and easily filter through results by rating, location, and price. They bring together results for chain hotels, hostels, smaller hotels, and individual apartment listings. Most of the time you can find places that offer free cancellations, so that you can book something right away, and then go back later to see if you can find something better.

(True story: as I’m planning this Scotland trip, going to the Isle of Skye was high on my list of things I wanted to do. Last week, I used Booking to find a spot there when all the other sites I had tried had come up empty. As usual, I just wanted to grab something that seemed like a decent price, planning on coming back later to do a deeper search to see if I could beat that. Well, when I came back a week later, prices had skyrocketed. Almost nothing was left at all, and the cheapest I could find a place was for twice as much as I’d found the week before. Scotland is seriously busy in August.)

In any case, I know sometimes we get used to using our go-to search sites when we’re looking for things here in the states. It’s important to keep in mind that while those sites might find things in other countries, it’s no guarantee they’ll be particularly good at it. Just in case that tidbit of information comes in handy for you in the future at some point. Safe travels!

Having Fun the Right Way

For a long time, I’ve had this feeling that I’m not always having fun the right way. I know that sounds strange, but hear me out, because I think a lot of people fall into the same category. Let’s start with the easiest one to talk about: reading. I’ve talked with plenty of people who are apologetic about what they read. This might be because they like to read mysteries or Young Adult books or that they mainly read short stories or magazines or graphic novels.

For whatever the reason, it seems there’s this cultural sense out there that there’s a right sort of way to read, and if we aren’t following that one right way, then we’re doing it wrong. I suppose people have this invisible English teacher in their head, constantly judging their reading choices (or lack thereof). As if people really ought to be reading more Shakespeare or Dickens or Tolstoy. (These days, that might not even be enough. If you’re only reading novels by dead white men, then you still might feel guilt for not reading more books by women or people of color.)

Here’s the thing: if you’re reading to have fun, then there’s no wrong way to do it. Don’t get me wrong: there are certainly books out there that are probably going to challenge you on a more intellectual level than a John Grisham novel, but there’s nothing wrong with reading John Grisham if that’s what you enjoy. There’s a long, storied tradition of people looking down on other people’s reading choices. When Don Quixote first came out, people thought novels in general were just fluff and nonsense. Dickens was very much a popular writer of his time. So was Twain. Tastes come and go. Read what you want to read, because life is too short to read things you think you’re supposed to be reading. (That’s also a very non-fun experience.)

Just earlier this week, I started Anna Karenina, mainly because I’d never read any Tolstoy, and I was ahead on my reading goal, so I thought I might give it a shot. I got fifty pages in and decided I just didn’t want to do it. So I stopped and started The Last Unicorn, instead. I don’t feel guilty about this. I got along just fine for 45 years without reading Tolstoy. I’m pretty sure I’ll get by for the next however long I need. Not all books have to be for all people.

The same is true for other fun activities. I love playing video games, but I’ve felt sometimes that I’m doing it wrong because I don’t beat every game I play, or at least become so good at them that I feel like I’ve mastered them. In the past couple of years, I’ve started Baldur’s Gate 3, Harry Potter, Elden Ring, Final Fantasy VII Remastered, and Diablo IV. Some of those games I’ve played for over 50 hours, but I haven’t beaten any of them. That’s bugged me, especially when I’d start to look at a different game and want to play it, only to tell myself I couldn’t because I hadn’t finished the others yet.

Then I came to the obvious conclusion that I don’t need to finish every game I start. I can play something until I stop enjoying it, and then move on to something else and play that. And there’s nothing really wrong with that. Sometimes I’ve avoided even starting a game, just because I think there’s no way I’ll ever have time to beat it. So what?

The Oscars are this weekend. Guess how many of the nominated movies I’ve actually watched this time? Less than a handful, and (again) that’s been bugging me. I’m a movie fan, or at least that’s how I like to think of myself. What sort of a failure of a movie fan am I if I haven’t even seen the best movies to have come out this year? Instead, I’ve been watching TV series and older films. But once again, I realized that it just doesn’t matter. There is so much media being churned out these days that it would be pretty much impossible to have a full time job and still stay on top of watching all of it, but who says you have to watch it all? Or have to finish a show if you start it?

There’s definitely something to be said for finishing what you’ve started. There are video games that I’ve played all the way through and enjoyed every minute. I finish most books I start, and when it comes to personal projects and responsibilities, I see things through to the end. I’ll be just fine not finishing some things, and I’m officially giving you permission to do the same. Permission not even to start things if you don’t want to.

It seems silly that I even feel the need to have to write that, but I’ve heard too many people apologize for what they’re reading or watching to not bring it up. And if we go beyond just watching, reading, or playing things, the same applies to pretty much any pastime. You’re not getting outside enough. You’re not being social enough. You’re not good enough at whatever-it-is to do it in the first place. (Playing an instrument, writing, acting, playing a sport–you name it.)

Generally speaking, it seems to me people like to focus on the things they do well and enjoy, and then have the tendency to tell other people that they really ought to do the same things. There’s no way we could do all the things that people say we ought to be doing and still be sane.

So don’t worry about having fun the wrong way. Just do the things you like to do, and don’t feel the need to apologize for it. (I’m assuming here that we’re talking about legal, moral things. If you really enjoy beating puppies, please stop.) Life is too short to always be apologizing to that invisible English teacher in your head.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

So, as I’m planning our trip to Scotland, I’m finding one very big piece of information that’s pretty much affecting the entirety of the vacation: the Fringe Festival.

If you’re like me and have been completely unaware of basically everything and anything related to Scotland, you no doubt have no idea what this is. Allow me to inform you. It’s one of the world’s largest art festivals, and it happens every year in Edinburgh for pretty much the entirety of August. And because there’s nothing worth doing that’s not worth overdoing, Edinburgh also hosts the International Art Festival, an International Book Festival, and a world renowned military band festival in August, as well.

All right smack dab in the time that I’ll be in the country.

On the one hand: yay! That’s a ton of stuff you can only see once a year, and it’s going to be on right when we’re there! What an opportunity! But on the other hand: ACK! Edinburgh is bursting with people, and finding hotels at a decent rate is pretty much impossible. To make things even more fun, people who go to the Fringe Festival also typically go see the rest of Scotland, so . . . the entire country is more expensive during August. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I’m planning this trip now and not just a few months before. All the guides basically say to avoid Scotland in August if you’re not doing the Fringe Festival.

Well, this is unavoidable for me, as I’m going based around the dates of my conference. So right now I’m thinking of leaning into the Fringe Festival and not trying to avoid it or skimp out. Like I said above: it’s a once-a-year chance to see all sorts of awesome things. Yes, it means things will be crowded. Yes, it means things will be expensive. But it should be quite the adventure.

Have any of you fine people attended the Fringe Festival? Got any pointers?

Television Review: The Last Airbender Season One

My family just finished the first season of the new live action The Last Airbender on Netflix, and I was super impressed. For context, I’ve watched some of the animated show, but I didn’t finish it. (I can’t remember why. I think I struggle to finish entire animated seasons. I haven’t thought too much about the reasons behind that.) Also, what I did watch of the anime was years ago, so I had almost no recollection of what was in it other than the basic elemental bending and flying bison.

The live-action show was fantastic. The storyline was gripping, the plot moved along at a good rate and came to what felt like a conclusion, even though there’s more of the story to tell, of course. The action sequences were top notch, and the effects were also right up there. Really, if there’s anything I’d quibble about, it would be some of the acting left some to be desired. (Though some of that was child acting, and it’s really hard to get a great performance sometimes out of an ensemble of child actors.)

I gave the show a 9/10 and heartily recommend it to anyone, but particularly for people who are looking for a good show to watch with their family. MC (10yo) watched it and loved it, and she’s usually skittish about anything that’s too tense.

As I was watching it, however, I couldn’t help ask myself why I was enjoying this adaptation so much while the Disney live action movies have just left me with no motivation to watch. I’ve watched The Jungle Book and that’s about it. (Maybe Beauty and the Beast?) How is The Last Airbender any different?

After talking it over with the family some, I think the main reason is that the Disney movies feel like nothing more than a money grab. There’s no real motivation behind making the films other than to . . . recreate the films with people and not animation. Any time that’s the sole purpose behind a creative project, the result isn’t likely to turn out all that well.

Also, some things just don’t work as well with live action. Will Smith is not the Genie. End of story. A live-action, singing crab is a thing from nightmares, not a fun loving sidekick.

I don’t know. The Disney versions feel a lot like most of the Harry Potter movies. Taking something that was beloved in one medium and trying to do exactly that in a new medium, and they just don’t click for me. With The Last Airbender, the story all just worked. Daniela said they changed some things significantly, though I have no idea what. And as I think about it, One Piece (also on Netflix) also did a great job adapting an anime. Perhaps it has to do with the creative talent. Perhaps it’s on me for not watching the other Disney movies. But in the end, there just didn’t seem to be a reason to. I heard great things about The Last Airbender to the point that I wanted to check it out. There was none of that for the Disney stuff, so perhaps it’s just a case of “good adaptation” vs. “bad adaptation.”

(And for the record, for me, a “good adaptation” is an adaptation that works as a movie while capturing the spirit of the book. No need for a scene by scene retread. Many changes can and likely should be made. At the end of the day, was it a movie that can stand well on its own?)

But all of that is beside the point, I guess. The bottom line is that I think you should check this TV show out, regardless of your age. Happy watching!

How Much Description Do You Like in a Novel?

As an author, I can’t help comparing my style with the style of the books I read as I read them. Yes, there are times when I get frustrated with a book because I feel like it could have written it better (being completely honest here), but there are times when I’m blown away and wonder if I could ever write that well. Of course, there are also plenty of times when I look at writing and just think it’s a matter of taste. I personally get bored with too much description, and so I often don’t have nearly as much of it as some other books I read.

Is that just me? Because if it’s just me, then I’m doing my writing a big disservice by not giving my readers the sort of content they’d like. My goal is happy readers, after all. I write to entertain, not to change lives. (That’s what the blog’s for, right? Just think of all the countless lives I’ve . . . oh wait.) When I’m reading a book, and I see the next few paragraphs are just talking about what a person looked like or what the room was like, I switch over to skim mode. It’s just not that interesting to me. I want to see what happened. What people thought. What they did. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what it looks like, but I think my writing is often very action-based. I want people to see what’s happening. They can fill in the details about hairstyles and the like on their own.

I think this is one reason I write in first person, as when I’m telling stories in real life, I also skimp on description. It just feels to me like a person telling a story to someone else isn’t going to have huge long asides to describe every little detail of a room or a setting or a person’s dress. (Honestly, it doesn’t help me much at all that I struggle to tell faces apart in real life, and that I am a very unobservant person when it comes to fashion. As I think about it, these issues might be the biggest reason my descriptions often end up being pretty terse.)

Clearly some people love description, as it’s in great abundance in plenty of books I read. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

Writing from Different Perspectives

A personal pet peeve of mine is when someone critiques a book by saying the author had no right to write from a certain point of view. Specifically, it’s the “men shouldn’t write about women” mantra that rubs me the wrong way, though I also feel the same way about other perspectives in general. There have been times when I have specifically ended up avoiding talking about something in a book simply because there are too many pitfalls for me to stumble into. When it gets to the point that people would rather not even address an issue or point of view than actively engage with it, I think something’s gone wrong. (Yes, you can criticize me for not being brave enough, I suppose, but I’d also point out the fact that I’ve been ready and willing to write about just about anything on my blog. I’m not generally the type to shy away from something, so the fact that I have should be indicative of just how skittish it’s made me. Authors have been torn apart online for inadvertently saying something wrong.)

Of my 6 published books so far (including the one coming in August), three are from a boy’s point of view, two are from a girl’s, and one is from an alpaca’s. (A female alpaca, I suppose I should mention, though no one’s really lambasted me on that point yet.) I don’t mind people saying that I wrote a point of view poorly. I don’t think I’m perfect. But I really dislike when they say I did it because I don’t understand women and can’t see things from their perspective. Don’t get me wrong: I realize I’m not a woman, and that my lived experiences will never be identical to a woman’s. What gets me is this idea that there’s a “woman point of view” or a “man point of view,” as if all people fall in the either/or category.

Yes, I’m a guy. It’s not really something I’ve ever thought about that much, in part because it’s a position of privilege, but also in part because when I start thinking too much about it, my head starts to spin. What does it mean to be a girl? What does it mean to be a boy? My entire life, I have generally related more to women than men. I am far from the stereotypical macho man, and many of the things I like to do are more typical for women than men. Whether it’s the profession I work in (definitely dominated by women), the activities I enjoy (baking, crafting, the arts), or just how I generally purport myself, if you were going to mark me down on a spectrum from male to female (in terms of stereotypes), most of those would fall on the feminine side of things.

So what? I get the argument that gender is a construct, and that our society tries to shove everyone into certain categories that may or may not fit all that well. But I personally believe we’re all unique, and I don’t get that hung up on what I’m “supposed” to do or think or say. Because I feel greater kinship to more feminine things than masculine things, does that make me a woman? I think these are questions most people never thought to ask twenty or thirty years ago (or at least, I never thought to ask them). It’s a different ball game now, as for some reason picking a side has become more and more important to some.

I am me. I like the things Bryces like, and I dislike the things Bryces dislike. I realize and sometimes feel the pressure from society to be something Bryces aren’t generally inclined to be, and I typically just ignore it. (Again, I also realize that as a straight cis male, this is much easier for me than it would be if I were in a different situation.)

When I write about a character, I try my best to see life through that character’s perspective. I really try to put myself aside and think how they would think, instead. I think that sort of exercise is a healthy one, and if more people were to do it, it would foster greater compassion for each other. (Ideally.) I suppose what people mean when they say men shouldn’t write from a woman’s perspective is that men don’t seem to capture what it’s like to be a woman for that specific individual. The idea that all women see things the same way is just as preposterous as claiming all men see things the same way.

I don’t know. I’m spinning in circles here, and I’m just trying to get to some sort of a conclusion that makes sense to me. I see it this way: I could just as easily write from a boy’s perspective and be critiqued that I screwed it up. That the boy didn’t feel genuine. But if I did that, it’s not because of my gender. It’s because of my skill as a writer, or lack thereof. So when people paint it all with a broad brush and say men shouldn’t write from a female perspective, I immediately bristle. That could also be because of my background in science fiction and fantasy. Authors regularly write about aliens or talking lions or people in imaginary kingdoms. They succeed or fail not because of their gender or race or sexual orientation, but because of their writing chops.

Maybe that’s what people are trying to say when they say that of my writing. If so, I can’t really argue the point, but I do wish they’d phrase it differently. We need more people seeing things from other perspectives, not fewer. True, you can say the world needs more actual women writing, more actual people of color, more actual diversity. I don’t debate that. But I also don’t think the only people who are allowed to write about white, straight, Latter-day Saint, male librarians who live in Maine are . . . people who are exactly that. And if someone did write about a person like that, and I read it and didn’t feel like it captured who I was, I still wouldn’t really care that much.

Because they wouldn’t be writing about me. They’d be writing about someone else who happens to share many of my same characteristics. And that someone else could be (and likely is) completely different than me.

And I guess that’s all I have to say about that for now.

Looking for Advice: Planning a Trip to Scotland

Worldcon is in Glasgow this August, and I’ve made a goal to try and go to more conferences that are writing focused. It’s a tough goal, isn’t it? I have to go to Scotland in order to fulfill it? How ever will I manage?

So this means I’m back in trip planning mode, as there’s no way I’m flying to Scotland and then just sitting in a conference center the entire time. For a while, I was thinking of seeing more of the British Isles while I was there, but after looking at the logistics, it didn’t make that much sense to me to try and rush rush rush just to see more countries. (That aren’t even really countries. What’s up with that?) Better to take my time and not be so harried.

With that said, I have pretty much zero experience with Scotland. I know there are bagpipes and kilts and James Bond’s home (which I realize is fictitious, before you rush to correct me.) Other than that, we’re talking about a clean slate. I know there are many people who have actually been to Scotland, though, so I’d love to have some advice as I start my trip planning.

Specifically:

What are the main places to use as a home base to see things? I know there’s Edinburgh and Glasgow (so I guess there’s actually a bit more to my knowledge to Scotland than I initially let on), and then there are those Highlands. Do those end up just being a bunch of day trips out of one of the bigger cities? Is there a third hub people like to use?How hard is it to drive on the left side of the road? Part of me wants to have the freedom of a car, but I’m honestly really intimidated by the thought of driving on the left. (Especially driving stick on the left.) Is it really not that bad? Or are the trains good enough that I shouldn’t even wonder?What are your favorite things you’ve done in Scotland? What are your “can’t miss” experiences?When it comes to Scottish cuisine, my knowledge stops at haggis. Are there foods that I should make time for?

Those are the questions I know to ask. I assume there are some I don’t know to ask. I’m open to any and all advice, so please send it my way!

General Tomas Update

So, quite a few of you have reached out, wondering how Tomas is doing. It’s been two months since he last sent a written update, but we’ve continued to talk to him on FB Messenger every week. Since he hasn’t had the time to update, I thought I might give you a general update here, to the best of my knowledge.

First up, I think the language has taken a lot of his attention. His last companion was the one who was called to speak Ukrainian, so when he arrived in Slovakia, he had absolutely no knowledge of Slovak. Tomas spent a lot of time trying to teach him Slovak while also learning Ukrainian. Because his companion couldn’t speak Slovak, that meant it was up to Tomas to do all the business side of missionary work. Setting up appointment, speaking with most people on the street, working with members. If something needed doing, it was up to him to do it.

You’d think that when he was transferred to Plsen, things would have gotten a bit more straightforward for him. For one thing, he wasn’t with a brand new missionary anymore, so that had to make a difference, right? In reality, he was with a missionary who came out the same time as his last companion, and was also called to speak Ukrainian. So the big difference was that instead of needing to be the person to do all the communicating in Slovak, Tomas had to do all the communicating in Czech, a language that’s similar to Slovak, but still very much its own thing. So he needed to get up to speed with Czech as quickly as possible, while also continuing to learn how to speak Ukrainian.

Three new languages at once? Let’s just say it’s a good thing his Slovak was already really solid.

This was all on top of the need to learn a new city, make new connections with members, and navigate a different country. To spice things up even more, the Czech side of the mission and the Slovak side of the mission generally operate separately. What I mean is that Czech missionaries typically stay on the Czech side, and Slovak missionaries on the Slovak side. So when he moved, he stopped having as much contact with all the people he’d gotten to know over the last year. He still hears from them on Facebook, but it’s different.

Which is all to say that yeah. He’s been busy.

On Monday, he got a new companion. One who honestly speaks Czech! (Or at least, was called to speak Czech on his mission. I haven’t heard yet how good his Czech actually is. I don’t think he’s been out a terribly long time.) While this means that now Tomas is the only person able to speak Ukrainian now, that should make things at least a little more straightforward. (Honestly. The amount of language challenges he’s had on his mission would have driven me batty, I think.)

How long will he still be in the Czech Republic? I’m not sure. I think there’s another transfer in about a month, and then another one . . . two or three months after that?I would expect he’d leave during one of those two windows, but that’s not a for sure thing.

The good news is that he’s still in good spirits, healthy, and doing well. I’ve backed off on asking him for letters much recently, just because he’s had a lot of other things going on. I’ll try to keep you posted if anything changes, but that’s the latest I know of.