Bryce Moore's Blog, page 301

Movie Review: Rio (or, Wannabe Pixar)

TRC's birthday is coming up, and as part of the celebration, we went to the movies yesterday. His choice? Rio. For those of you who don't know, it's a movie about a blue bird raised in comfy captivity who goes back to Brazil and has exciting adventures. It's made by the same people that brought you Ice Age and its successors.



So what did I think?



I thought that the movie was trying too hard to be like Pixar. We all know the Pixar formula by now. Make something that's funny throughout, with interesting characters you can connect with, and then make it have heart. Make it matter. And because of the incredible run Pixar's been having, it seems at times like that formula is just so easy to pull off. That clearly seems to be what Rio thought. Because instead of trying to just bust out all the laughs they could, they kept trying to make the movie have heart and real meaning. And they fell short on many of those attempts.



It's not a bad movie. I'd probably give it three stars. But it's got four star aspirations, without having four star material. Does that make sense? And that really dragged down pieces of the film for me. I kept seeing them try to Pixar things up, and all that made me do was see how they couldn't pull it off. It's like watching a weight lifter struggle with lifting something about 20 pounds above his maximum limit. There's lots of straining involved, and you just feel uncomfortable after a while--as if you could *will* them to success, just so you could stop seeing all that wasted effort.



So how does it fail? First off, it doesn't quite manage to pull of the memorable characters bit. A lot of the smaller characters really get short changed, and they end up being basic stereotypes that just aren't that memorable. They all blend together quite a bit, and you're left not really remembering who was who and who did what.



The other big way it fails is in its blend of humor and heart. The problem is that the humor they go for is usually pretty basic: lots of rump shaking and some poop jokes. And that's fine, if that's what you're going for--but trying to blend that with a feel good message just feels out of place. There's a climax with main characters dressed in skimpy clothes for Carnival, and it's just harder to feel for these characters when they look so screwy (and it was so predictable anyway). Imagine Toy Story 3, but with Woody dressed in a bikini. Not quite the same gravitas.



Still, I feel bad--I don't mean to put the movie down this much. It was fun. Three stars, remember? But a guy's gotta have something to blog about, and the thing that kept going through my head over and over was this blog post while I was watching the film. Sorry, Rio--just keepin' it real.

Season Two Doldrums: Why So Many Great TV Shows Get Lost

I remember back when Lost was on the air, some of my friends had gotten hooked on Season One, but then got disgusted with Season Two and jumped ship, complaining that the characters no longer felt like they were real people--that they were more like pawns in the hands of the show's creators. That conversation has stuck with me since then, and as I've watched television shows developing in the years since, I think I've seen a pattern developing:



Crappy Season Twos.



In addition to Lost, I've personally seen this pop up in various other series: Angel and Heroes come to mind. Veronica Mars suffered from it somewhat. 24 sort of puttered through some of its later seasons, as did Alias. Buffy had consistent issues with the beginnings of its first three seasons or so. Battlestar Galactica had some bumps toward the front half of season two, as well.



Why is this, you ask?



I have an answer. A theory, at least. It seems to me that television series as we know them are evolving into Something Else. It started with shows like Twin Peaks and the X-Files. Shows that demanded a lot from their viewers. Shows that expected viewers to obsess about them. To follow hints and clues down a rabbit hole of trivia and theories. Buffy and Angel built on this, Alias branched out into other genres--you get the trend. Whereas in the past you had tv shows that were fairly stable (think of MASH or the many Star Treks, for example)--shows where the main characters remained fairly constant, with the main conflict of the show stemming from what adventures those characters fell into next. It's like most of the James Bond movies. Bond never really changes (except the actor playing him). He's suave, collected, full of one liners--he's Bond.



Until Daniel Craig, where suddenly James Bond has a plot arc. He grows. He changes. Do you see the difference? That's what's happening to tv shows. I'm not saying the old style of shows don't exist anymore. You've got plenty of sitcoms full of that style, and you always have Law & Order, CSI and the like. But there's a new niche in town, and it's closer to a really long mini-series than it is to a standard tv show.



But this style of show is still a work in progress. Creators haven't quite figured out how they work just yet, and so often times they have some really rough edges. I'd say it's because this new style of show has three very different stages in its life. Stages that each have their own pitfalls. To me, they seem like the three pieces of a standard fantasy trilogy.



In Book One, you set the stage. You provide interesting characters and conflicts. You establish how the world works, and what makes it unique. This is the Season One of most of these shows. (Sometimes it bleeds into Season Two a tad.) For the most part, these shows do really well with Season One, because that's how they came into existence in the first place: they had a great hook. They knew how to start and capture audiences.



But then comes Book Two. The second part of any trilogy is a tricky beast. You've got to sustain the tension and make it bridge to Book Three without making Book Two seem lame and drawn out. Authors these days know how to do that, but tv shows are different. In books, authors can introduce new characters. They can drastically change the setting, explore new main leads--do all sorts of things to keep it interesting. That's now how it works in a typical tv show, however. You've established who the main characters are. They're all paid by actors who have contracts. You can't abandon your leads. You don't have enough money to start paying brand new actors to get major roles (typically). So all your conflict has to come from the pieces already in play.



This means you have to start mixing things up. Make some characters start doing different things. Have them show that they weren't all they seemed to be in Season One. If your audience really liked how things were in Season One, they can start to feel betrayed by Season Two. Characters you loved are suddenly doing things you hate, and that's a hard pill to swallow--especially when you're forced by the nature of the show to wait for a week to see new content each time. It can kill a series. What's worse, is that by the nature of tv up to now, shows never knew how long their Book Two would last. It might be for a season, it might be for five seasons. You have to somehow keep changing things up without alienating your audience, but also without becoming boring. Good luck with that.



And then of course there's the end. Most people can do a Book Three: the grand finale. You've been building up to a climax, but it's different with television. For one thing, who knows if you ever get your Book Three. You could get canceled (Firefly). You could get the ax midseason. You never know. And even if you do get your shot, you have an audience that has invested *years* into your product. They have very firm ideas of how it should finish. If you don't meet those expectations--or better yet, exceed them--then you'll be accused of ruining everything.



No pressure.



And even if you have everything planned out ahead of time--your whole show's arc ready to go--who knows what the audience's reaction will do to that. Maybe you suddenly discover an actor who's doing great, and everyone wants him to be the new lead, or at least play a main role (ala Ben in Lost). And now you have to accommodate that, which might ruin all your carefully laid plans.



This "new beast" is one of the reasons I think you've seen show creators start turning to fantasy for inspiration. Game of Thrones. True Blood. Prepackaged, multi-arc stories ready and rearing to be adapted to the small screen, if you can weather the ups and downs.



Anyway. I've gone on about this enough. What do you have to say about it? Am I right? Way off base? In either case, I'll be interested to see where television heads next. I've been loving the new style of show, and I look forward to seeing how it further evolves.

Smelting for Fun and . . . Not Really Profit

TRC and I went out last night with a friend to go smelting. I know most of you read that sentence and assumed we started heating up ore in the hopes of extracting metals, and you're wondering what in the world I was thinking, getting my son close to so much hot molten metal. Well, no fear. We were fishing with a net, not melting ore.



Smelts are tiny fish, a couple of inches long. In early spring, they swim in schools upstream to spawn. If you stand with a net and shine a flashlight or headlamp into the water, you can see them swim by and swoop 'em up. Your catch size is limited by the quart--2 quarts of smelt per person. That's a lot of smelt, in case you were wondering. We came home last night with maybe a quart, and it still took forever to clean them all. (Cleaning them involves cutting off the heads and then squeezing the body like a tube of toothpaste to get out the guts. It's fast, but when you've got to do it 200 times, it can get a tad tiresome.) Supposedly the best way to eat them is to bread them and fry them up, tails and all. Denisa's going to try that.



TRC and I really enjoyed ourselves. The smelt didn't start coming in earnest until about 9 or 9:30, and since it was about 40 degrees out by 10:30, I had to take my helper home. (Too bad--it sounds like the smelt really started running twenty minutes after I left. Maybe they didn't like how I smelled.) There were a few other people by us--you smelt on the shore with a long pole with a net at the end, or in the pond if you've got waders (then you use a really big net that you set on the pond floor and lift up when the smelt come by). About 9, a group came along that was pretty drunk and obnoxious. I didn't like that part too much, but them's the breaks.



Basically, it was a great chance to be outside with a friend and my son, enjoying some non-freezing weather and experiencing something new. I'd like to do it again. TRC had a blast--he used the net all on his own to bag a few smelt, and he thought it was fun to have a headlamp on and be able to check out the brook. Not to mention the fact that there was lots of mud for him to squish through in his boots.



So . . . smelting. Assuming Denisa likes to eat them, I think I've found a new yearly tradition (smelt season only lasts a few weeks). That fishing license I bought back in January keeps coming in handy. :-)

Google-Fu: Tips for Searching Google like a Librarian

(I'm double dipping today, using the same post for my Library Blog and my personal blog. Because it's That's Sort of a Day.) I had the pleasure to attend the Maine Academic Library Day this past Friday at Colby College. The keynote speaker was Daniel M. Russell, a Google exec in charge of search quality and user happiness. (Can I just say that Google has some pretty cool titles? 'Cause they do.) Anyway, I've sat through my fair share of keynotes over the years, and this one really stood out from the crowd. He went over all sorts of tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Googling. I will say that most of what he went over was review for me, but it was a really healthy review. (In looking over his web site, he had a post on the Einstellung Effect which I thought was fantastic. So many times as a researcher, it's too easy to get used to using one tool. When  you get really good with a hammer, everything you look at starts looking like a nail. Got a board that needs trimming? Just beat the heck out of it, and eventually it'll be the right length. Get the picture? Being reminded from time to time about the various research tools available to you can be really beneficial.)



Anyway.





Another cool thing I discovered--remember that post I did last week on agoogleaday? Dan was one of the people who set that in motion and got it running. It's not often I do a blog post about something cool online, and then I meet one of the people who contributed directly to that cool thing. Dan was nice enough to leave us with some links to training materials Google uses to teach people how to search more effectively, and since I'm a nice guy, I'm here to share those links with you.





First, a disclaimer. A lot of you are no doubt rolling your eyes, offended that anyone might think you don't know how to do something as simple as *use Google*. But you know what? I'm willing to bet you don't. I don't mean to be offensive, but if I learned a thing or two from this, I'm willing to bet good money you will, too. And don't skip the easy stuff. Don't rush off to "Advanced Lessons," assuming you're good to go on all the basics. One of Dan's points was that there are many basic tricks that the vast majority of people don't know about. For example, to find something on a web page, you can just hit Control + F, which brings up a "find" window in your browser. According to Google's studies, 90% of users don't know they can do that, so when they go to a search result, they end up scanning the page, looking for the word they searched for.





So don't be in a rush. You probably use Google every day. Taking a bit of time to learn how to use it wisely is time well spent. Okay? Here are the links, direct from Dan and endorsed by yours truly:





9 lessons for teaching search: http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html



Google site with a LOT more materials for teaching search skills: https://sites.google.com/site/gwebsearcheducation/ )



Webinars: https://sites.google.com/site/gwebsearcheducation/webinars



And... you can sign up to get intermittent email about teaching

search: http://groups.google.com/group/google-search-education-k-12/subscribe



(And Dan, since I know you have a Google Alert set up on your name, and I'm betting you might end up reading this, can I just say thanks for the great presentation? Really made the day worthwhile for me.)

What am I Doing this Patriot's Day?

It's Patriot's Day today in Maine, which means I don't have to go to work. Why do we celebrate this holiday? To commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord. So first off, thanks to the British, for making this holiday possible. I suppose to celebrate, I really ought to be joining the Tea Party or something, but I think I'll pass this year.



Instead, I'm going on a hike. To a waterfall somewhere. And maybe have a cookout.



I'd get a bunch of stuff done around the house, but I had the bright idea of starting a stone wall on Saturday. Denisa and I got a fair bit of it done, and then my back reminded me that it's really not into lifting heavy rocks for long periods of time. Mustn't make the back angry. So no big chores today.



I need to get some writing done, but I have no idea what I'll write. I suppose I'll work some on Tarnhelm, since the Q&A is done, the next edit for Vodnik isn't here yet, and I have no idea what else I'd write about.



This was a fascinating blog post, I know. Basically, just a long way of saying "Have fun working today, suckers. I've got the day off."



:-)

How Did You Become a Writer?

I'm still working my way through the Q&A my publisher has provided me with, so I thought I'd share another answer today. How I became a writer:



I first tried writing a book when I was in third grade. It was a time-travel fantasy, and I was really proud of it at the time. (I still have a copy, actually—I even posted it to my website, just for fun.) I've loved to read since I was little, although writing was sometimes a bit rockier. (In fact, my eighth grade English teacher encouraged me to gravitate more toward math or science, since he didn't think I was up to the task of taking advanced English. That might be one of the reasons I ended up heading deeper into the subject—I've always loved a challenge.)



I wrote some attempts at novels in high school, but I never had the stamina to keep at it for very long. Writing a book is a long process, and you need to really be dedicated to it. There are times when it's very difficult work, and if you give up, you'll never get very far. But if you can push through those difficult times, it can be a blast.



When I got to college, I decided I wanted to be more serious about writing. I signed up for a creative writing class taught by Dave Wolverton. I really enjoyed it—loved hearing Dave talk about the experiences he'd had as a successful fantasy author. (That same class had several other students who went on to become professional authors, including Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells.) However, as much as I loved it, I ended up getting a B+ in the class. I know it sounds silly looking back at it, but at the time, I took that as a sign that creative writing wasn't for me. I felt like I didn't have enough talent to succeed, so I gave up. I put away my books and focused on studying literature instead of writing it.



That was the plan, at least. The problem was I couldn't stay away. I just had to keep writing.



A year later, I took another creative writing class—this one focused on general literature, not science fiction and fantasy. I liked it, but my short stories all ended up being really depressing. I'd write about divorces or life crises. I loved writing, but I didn't love the end result. When I took a Writing for Young Readers class from Louise Plummer, all of that changed. Suddenly I was enjoying what I was writing: a novel about a teenage girl who gets sucked into an alternate world full of talking keys, rumor magic and evil machinations. My writing wasn't great, but Louise kept encouraging me, and I kept at it.



When I started my English Masters program at Brigham Young University, Brandon Sanderson entered the program at the same time. He and I both taught Freshman Composition, and I mentioned in passing to him that I was writing fantasy books. At the time, he had just signed a contract for Elantris to be published in a year and a half or so. He was looking for writing group members, and he invited me to join. Suddenly, I was around other people who were serious about their writing. Brandon writes like a machine—he cranks out words and approaches it like a business. We're talking millions of words. Still a fan of a challenge, I followed his example—not managing millions of words (I was still writing young adult fantasy, after all—not epic), but finishing six novels. I would write 1,000 words a day, every day. It was excellent training, and I've been doing it ever since.



How about you. How did you become a writer? (Or how did you choose your career, if you're not a writer?) Do share!

I'm Thinkin' Arby's

[image error] The last time I ate at Arby's--that I can recall--I was in Utah on summer vacation, hanging out with my cousins. At the time, Arby's seemed ideal. Lots of meat, low price, and cool curly fries. I think I got something like 4 sandwiches and ate them all, and I enjoyed the fries. Mission successful.



Of course, that was something like fourteen years ago, so apparently the mission wasn't *that* successful, at least from an Arby's marketing standpoint. But still, I remembered two basic things: roast beef and curly fries. So when I was out and about on the road yesterday, and my boss and I couldn't find anywhere else to eat, I decided to give Arby's another shot.



Big mistake.



I had a medium something or other--whatever their standard sandwich is. It arrived looking vaguely pancake-ular, with two squished, soggy pieces of bread bookending a big mound o' roast beef, topped with globs of what supposedly was melted "cheese" at some point in its life, with a bit of what I hope was barbecue sauce splatted haphazardly through the rest of the thing. I should have looked at it a bit longer, since that sandwich was going to be with me for the next twenty hours of my life or so. I finished eating it, and it felt like my stomach was heavy enough to anchor a small boat.



The curly fries were okay.



In any case, I have no idea how this store is still open. The only reason I would *ever* want to "think Arby's" was to use the store's names in creative similes that would inevitably end up as foul and rancid as Arby's cheese sauce.



Next time, I think I'll just go hungry.



Thanks, Arby's!

So Long, Angel. Hello, Starbuck! Battlestar Galactica Begins

Denisa and I have put Angel into cold storage for the time being, moving on to something less broody. I'd heard wonderful things about Battlestar Galactica, and it's on streaming in HD through Netflix, so I figured we'd give it a shot. Denisa did have to be persuaded some that she wanted to watch it, but I had to do some persuading back with Buffy at the beginning, too. I'm a good persuader. We're eight episodes in now, and loving it. In fact, the two parter focused on Starbuck--her getting stranded on that moon and her coming clean with her involvement in her fiancee's death--was some of the best television I've watched in a long time. Really well done. If the whole series can keep that up, I'll be ecstatic. If it can keep even half of it up, I'll still be very pleased. Fans of the show--what can I expect ahead? (NO SPOILERS, PLEASE!!!)



When I was in Utah this past summer, I had the chance to play the board game version of the TV show (linked from the picture above). I really enjoyed it, and I've been even more surprised to find out how well the board game captures the feel of the show. (For those of you who don't know, the premise of BSG is that robotic cyborgs have all but destroyed humanity. They look and feel human, and they're hell-bent on finishing their master plan, whatever that is. Humanity's reduced to a small fleet running for its lives. Some members of that small fleet are cyborgs. They know that, but they have no idea who is and who isn't. Very paranoid, and full of cool.) Anyway, I'm liking the board game even more in retrospect. I might have to go and purchase it, if I can find three or four local people willing to learn the rules and play it. It's definitely on the more extreme end of the board game rule spectrum, although I was playing it with expansions added already. Actually, if you all could just go ahead and buy that game for me, that would be great. Click the ad, buy it from Amazon, send it to me. :-)  I wonder if I could ever get to the point where I review things that people send me for free. That would be awesome.



In any case, that's all the time I have for today. I'm off to a meeting in Portland.

Faith and Metaphor: A Long, Rambling Post by Yours Truly

I've been following the production of The Book of Mormon: The Musical with great interest, primarily because I'm always interested to see how outsiders perceive Mormons. From what I gather, the musical pokes fun at Mormons--but at least it's poking fun at things we actually believe, as opposed to stereotypes that just are play wrong. But that's not what today's post is about.



As I've been reading the comments of the creators of that musical, something clicked in my head. They were comments that mirrored many of the remarks people made about Mitt Romney when he was running for president a few years ago. Here's one random quote that illustrates the sentiment:

While disputing the validity of the faith, Lopez (one of the creators of the musical) also acknowledged its inherent good. "It's such a load of baloney," he said, "But people believe in it so strongly, and their lives are demonstrably changed for the good by it."

In other words, Mormonism is crazy as all get out, but its end result is good people, so I guess that's okay. Slate Magazine said this during Mitt Romney's run:

One may object that all religious beliefs are irrational—what's the difference between Smith's "seer stone" and the virgin birth or the parting of the Red Sea? But Mormonism is different because it is based on such a transparent and recent fraud.

So it's okay to be religious if you're believing things that happened thousands of years ago, but believing that God and angels still appear to people in recent history must mean you're an absolute lunatic.



The sad thing is, some religious people seem to be agreeing more and more with this sentiment. (BIG DISCLAIMER: I'm not aiming this at any religion in particular. In fact, I don't even have one in mind. I'm just talking about the general feel I've gotten from reading a variety of articles and commentaries over the past few years.) Religious people seem to be turning to scripture more for the metaphor of it than for actual belief in it.



I understand the appeal. It's a lot easier on you if Christ was talking about metaphors. If Satan isn't an actual being, and heaven and hell are states of mind, not actual locations. You don't have to worry about any conflicts with current scientific findings. You don't have to defend your beliefs to anyone--because you're just endorsing good morals, or proper choices, or healthy living. But to me, that's religion without the teeth. You might as well pick a favorite movie and live by its precepts. I could found a "religion" based on the teachings of Groundhog Day or The Princess Bride pretty easily. Heck--people have already started some for Star Wars. And if "religions" like this get people to do good things, then what's the harm in it, right?



If God doesn't exist, and it really all *is* a bunch of baloney, then there is no harm. But if He does exist, then it detracts from true religion. It cheapens the faith of millions of people.



It's easy these days to have a whole lot of faith in science, and not a lot of faith in religion. People are getting smarter. We know about cool things like atoms and quarks and relativity and evolution. We know how immense the universe is, and we've got things like genetics to keep us occupied. And since we know so much, it becomes more and more laughable to believe in God. You might as well say publicly that you believe in the Easter Bunny.



Then again, I think it's right at the moments when you start having so much faith in your own knowledge and understanding that you might be in need of God the most, too. Let me put it this way: I've always thought I've known a lot. I've always thought of myself as well-informed. Even when I was in grade school, I thought I had it all down. I'd be willing to go so far as to say that's a trait of humanity. We always want to think we know everything. Go back in time a hundred years, and people would believe that. Go back to the Egyptians, and I think they'd believe that, too. Jump forward a thousand years, and we'll still believe it. Despite the fact that science will have progressed so much further. That "truths" that seemed so solid at one point (flat earth, helio-centric universe, blood letting) now are laughed at.



My point is that human knowledge changes. All the time. Scientists can't even decide whether it's better for babies to sleep on their stomachs or their backs. So turning to science for proof of anything as enormous as the existence of God seems sort of like using crayons to design a new form of life.



Either God exists, or He doesn't. If He does, then science can say all it wants, and that won't change that fact. If God doesn't exist, then all the theologians in the world can shout that He does, and it won't change it, either. If He does exist, then true religion should be an effort not to find a harmonious lifestyle, but to find out who God is, and what His will for us is. But that's a post for another day.



For now, I just want to say that I don't believe religion is a metaphor. I personally don't believe Christ was just a good guy with some good ideas about peace and harmony. I literally believe he was and is the son of God. And I literally believe that He and God appeared to Joseph Smith in the early 1800s. It's not some feel good story to me to get me to make good decisions and pay my taxes. I believe we live after we die, and choices we make in this life affect our lives in the hereafter. But again--all of that is a post for another day.



I'm not writing this post to persuade you Mormonism is true. I'm writing to say that faith--any faith in God--isn't just a metaphor.



And I don't think I'm irrational to believe that.

Bryce Moore: Personal Website Revised!

[image error] After quite a bit of revision and effort, I'm happy to announce that the new version of my website is up and running. I'll be adding more to it in the months ahead, but for now, it has all the content my (very) old website had, along with some compiled information on Vodnik--mainly through links to blog entries.



Anyway--now that it's done, I can turn my attention back to that questionnaire I'm supposed to be filling out for Vodnik, and then it'll be on to my next round of revisions. Sorry there's not much of an entry for today. Most of my time has been taken up with putting the final touches on this web revision. I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have. If anything's confusing or irritating about it, let me know! (And if you happen to like anything, that's always welcome, too. (-:  )



Check it out.



Happy Monday, all!