E.R. Torre's Blog, page 180

Snowpiercer (2013) a (mildly) belated review

While science fiction movies/tv shows often present audiences with pure, unadulterated escapism, there have been plenty of examples of using this genre to reflect on, analyse, and/or critique society.

One of the earliest (and greatest, in my opinion) science fiction films, Metropolis (1927), was a story of how the haves and the have-nots function in a society…and where their breaking point -and ultimately peace between them- lies.  The original Star Trek series would frequently present episodes which were thinly veiled looks at the then present, and at times turbulent, mid to late 1960’s era.

Sometimes, however, well meaning creators present their futuristic works in silly, obvious, and/or ham-handed ways which makes the whole endeavor fall apart.  The highly anticipated 2013 film Elysium, for example, figuratively hit this particular viewer over the head with its tale of societal dysfunction.  The whole endeavor was so obvious, so hammy, that I couldn’t help but be disappointed.

Incredibly, many of the elements found in Elysium showed up in Snowpiercer.  Yet while the former failed to deliver (or delivered to heavily) on its concepts, the later does so in spades.

To put it bluntly, Snowpiercer totally blew me away.

The movie’s plot goes as follows: In the near future, humanity tried to stop global warming by spiking the atmosphere with some new, experimental chemical.  The result proved horrific: Instead of cooling the Earth down, it froze it, encasing all lands in snow and ice (this concept, by the way, is not entirely new.  It found its way in the for the most part forgotten -and with good reason- low budget film The Colony).  What’s left of humanity rides in a perpetually operating train that runs on tracks around the frozen globe.

The train is divided into sections and we follow the passengers crammed into the dreary rear as they plan a revolt against their oppressors, the ones who live in the sections beyond.

This is all you need to know about the film’s basic story, but be prepared for some very interesting questions regarding humanity, revolt, and true independence.  There’s a delightful added extra for those familiar with -and have a negative impression about- the works of Ayn Rand.  The movie appears to be almost like an anti-Atlas Shrugged, complete with a Ayn Rand lookalike (I’ll get into that later) and a railroad magnate.

Unlike Elysium’s off-putting sledgehammer approach, Snowpiercer offers a far more meaty plot that leads you into interesting, and at times almost avant-guard directions.  The protagonist of the story, rebellion leader Curtis (), proves to be far more than he at first appears and carries some very dark secrets.  His mentor, Gilliam (), proves to carry is own secrets as well, and they may be darker yet.

Perhaps the most fascinating character is Mason ().  Ms. Swinton delivers a terrific, at times over the top turn as the medium between the “head and the heart” (take that, Metropolis fans!) in what I can only guess is a full on parody of Ayn Rand herself.

It’s rare that a movie has hit me like Snowpiercer has.  Walking into it I was cautiously optimistic.  Walking out, I couldn’t help but feel totally blown away.

Snowpiercer is the real deal.  Highly recommended.

What exactly are the odds?!

A little while ago, October 15 to be exact, I was summoned for Jury Duty.  A great inconvenience, but whatever.  About three or so months before, my daughter, who at the time quite literally just turned 18, was summoned to Jury Duty on her very first year -no, months!- of eligibility.

And yesterday, November the 6th, we received through the mail a summons for Jury Duty for my wife, to be performed in the first week of December.

Really?!

All three people eligible for Jury Duty in this household were all summoned to do just that and in such a short period of time?

What are the odds of that?!

I wonder: Is my family among the only ones in this entire county eligible for Jury Duty?

Ain’t this the truth…

Jon Stewart pretty much nails it, as usual:

 

It is exasperating seeing the Democrats flounder so much with so much on the line.  It is incredible to think that at one time liberals were very much capable, willing, and able to go after conservative philosophies and succinctly point out their deficiencies.  Nowadays, they do what Mr. Stewart says.  They act like a bunch of chickens*#ts and, surprise surprise, they get wiped out.

Fast, cheap, and out of control, part deux

Yesterday I made reference to a wonderful article by Mark C. Taylor for salon.com regarding our current fascination with what’s “new and shiny” and the dangers lurking in this form of purchasing.

I noted a bad experience with the iPod touch, which I bought for my daughters years before, and how only a few months after doing so a new and much improved model was suddenly announced and released, which angered the hell out of me (Apple knew this item was coming out but kept quiet so they could sell their inventory of iPod touch machines for the Christmas season and then started the marketing campaign for their new version of the machine).

Mr. Taylor’s article so fascinated me that I couldn’t get it out of my head and I thought back even farther, to where (perhaps) the genesis of the whole disposable tech industry began: With the desktop PC.

Many, many years ago, I purchased an IBM desktop computer with an 8086 processor.  It looked something like this (no, that’s not me in the picture):

 

I absolutely loved the machine, but a year or so later a friend of mine purchased a new machine that had a 286 processor.  It looked very similar to the one I had, but the internal mechanisms made my machine look like it was a Model T compared to a state of the art Ferrari.

I didn’t buy the 286 as much as I wanted to.  Turned out I did the right thing as the mighty 386 models were released shortly afterwards.  If the 286 made the 8086 seem like it was from the stone age, the 386 made the 286 look like it came from the dawn of time!

I bought the 386 model and chucked my 8086 and was mighty happy…until the 486 model appeared.

I eventually purchased a 486 model computer but realized something curious: The difference between the 486 and 386 wasn’t as pronounced as the 8086 vs the 286 vs the 386.

Then came the various Pentiums..

…and I came to realize that the PC tech industry had reached something of a ceiling.  Yes, the newer machines were better and faster, but to my eyes not significantly so.  Unless you were a heavy duty gamer, the “older” Pentium machines were good enough to accomplish the things you needed to do (in my case, web browsing, writing, email, etc.).

At about this time I noticed there were articles about the “fall” of the PC market, and that desktop PCs would go the way of the dinosaurs.  A curious concept.  As much as I liked laptops, the bulk of my computing was still done on my desktop.

The only difference?

My current computer was so good that I didn’t need to swap it out for a new model after a year of usage.  In fact, the desktop computer I’m writing this very blog on I believe is at least five years old.  Maybe more.

It works perfectly fine and, apart from buying a new video card, a modem plug, and exterior hard drives to protect my files, I haven’t had the desire or need to go out and buy a completely new machine.

The point here is that perhaps, perhaps, Apple and company noticed the way people like myself were willing to shell out thousands of dollars back in the day to buy the latest, best available desktop computers as they grew from infancy.  What they might have missed, however, was the reason we were so willing to buy the next generation model: Because it was significantly better than the previous one.

Can the same be said of the latest iPhones or XBoxs or Playstations?  In my case, is the Samsung S5 really all that much better than the S3 that I’m currently using?  Is the iPhone 6 truly a major step up from the 5?

Or might we be reaching a point where buying the latest, newest thing doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting something far, far better than what came before?

Fast, cheap, and out of control…

…an absolutely terrific article by Mark C. Taylor examines today’s “hyper-fast, hyper-modern” markets and the inherent problems with them:

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/02/fast-cheap-and-out-of-control-how-hyper-consumerism-drives-us-mad/

Ladies and gentlemen, this could well be THE article regarding today’s markets and consumers, something I’ve personally found worrisome for a very long time.

There used to be a time we would buy a product, say a television, and if it went “bad” you would call a TV repairman to come over and check it out.  Not so today.  Today, we simply throw the old away and buy the cheap, new, “better” product, thus putting us in more debt and adding to a tremendous amount of waste products created annually by consumers.

I first noticed this trend of throwing the old away, even if it still works pretty well, with Apple and their i-products.  How many times have we had the Apple marketing folk unveil their newest, “greatest” product only to go through the same thing the very next year?

For me the realization came when my daughters were younger and the “must have it” item near Christmas time was the touchscreen iPod.  Commercials for the product were everywhere and it was one of the hottest items on sale during that Christmas season.  I bought them for my daughters and, not even two or three months later, was shocked when the company announced it would soon release its next itineration of the very same item, and this one had cameras which users could use to communicate via wi-fi and actually see each other as they talked!

I was furious with Apple because here they were, only three or so months earlier, promoting the hell out of their iPod and they knew damn well the next version would come out very soon and they would happily go through the process all over again and were hoping to force people like me to simply chuck the previous iPod and buy the next, better one.

Needless to say, I developed a great skepticism for Apple and their products from that moment on.  I may have, but others either haven’t or don’t care.

Apple has been following that same game plan for years, and so far there remain millions of customers drawn to their products.  The Apple iPhone 6 is but the latest example of something “new” that clever marketing makes desirable to its clients but which maybe we don’t quite need or isn’t quite as big a step forward as marketing would have us believe.

Not to pull out my fuddy-duddy card, but I use a Samsung S3 phone.  I bought it when it was first released sometime in 2012 and it still works fine for me.  Currently, the Samsung S5 is available and the S6 is expected to be released in early 2015.

Will I get the new phone?  Unless mine develops some serious problems, I don’t think so.  Yet companies such as Samsung and Apple live and die on the basis of “planned obsolescence”, something Mr. Taylor’s article points out and which I realized back when I bought those iPods.

We’re living in a time when it has become desirable to buy whatever is new and improved and toss aside whatever is “old” and which the magic of marketing makes us feel is suddenly useless.

I worry, as does Mr. Taylor, about the economic, social, and environmental impacts of this hyper-consumerism.

Read the article.  It’s pretty damn interesting.

Horror Movies…

Given the date, I figured I’d link up to my list of favorite horror films but, lo and behold, it doesn’t appear I ever made one!

Strange.  I could have sworn…

Anyway, I’ll offer this list.  If I did make a favorite horror film list before and just proved how inept I am at finding it, consider this the 2014 edition of E.R. Torre’s Favorite Horror films.

Without further ado, in no particular order…

Nosferatu (1922) The very first version of Bram Stoker’s famous novel Dracula is, in my opinion, the best.  While Bela Lugosi made a great Dracula, Max Schreck’s Count Orlok is positively chilling.  This is a great, timeless film, made all the more incredible because film itself was in its infancy during this time.  The film was recently restored and released on BluRay.  Very much worth checking out if you haven’t yet!

Duel (1971)/Jaws (1975).  Yes, a bit of a cheat here, including two films at once, but I’ve always felt these two films were part of a single whole.  Both were, of course, directed by Steven Spielberg and the first put him on the map while the second made him a superstar.  Both films are also, in my opinion, thematically similar as they follow a “common” man’s attempt to destroy a murderous, seemingly unstoppable monster.

In the case of Duel, the monster was a truck bent on killing our hero…

…while Jaws featured a giant man-eating shark.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) Perhaps my all time favorite “siege” film.  Director John Carpenter, just before hitting it big with Halloween, delivers a tense, unflinching suspense film that does not let up.  A group of prisoners are held overnight in a Police Precinct that’s about to be shut down.  A skeleton staff watches over them, unaware that the shadowy, deadly gangs of L.A. have united and are intent on terrorizing the city.  Their first target?  Take a wild guess.

The movie is essentially a modern day western with elements of Night of the Living Dead.  A terrific piece of work.  Whatever you do, don’t bother with the remake…

The Warriors (1979) Director Walter Hill delivered a terrific, suspenseful reverse siege film with The Warriors.  In this case, we have a gang that’s deep in “enemy” territory trying to make their way home while every other gang out there wants them dead.  The climax of this film -and the villains taunts- are the stuff of legend.  Unfortunately, Mr. Hill returned to the film a few years ago and made a bunch of changes, delivering his “Director’s Cut” of The Warriors.  This version is the only one available on video nowadays and…well…it’s not as good as the theatrical version.  Perhaps one day we’ll get it back.

Alien (1979)  The years may have somewhat dulled this movie’s impact, but it remains one of the all time best Lovecraftian horror films.  Director Ridley Scott presents an almost cinema verite horror film, complete with another unstoppable force of evil.  Even the theatrical trailer freaked me out…

The Shining (1980)  When I first saw this movie in theaters back when it was released, I didn’t find it scary at all.  At the time I was just starting to recognize certain names in the industry, and director Stanley Kubrick was, to me, an unknown.  Shortly afterwards I discovered -and grew to absolutely love- his movies.  The Shining, however, remained a curiosity.  Perhaps, I figured, Mr. Kubrick simply misfired.  Then, over the years, I would catch bits and pieces of the movie on TV and I’ll be damned if the film’s eerie horror didn’t gradually work its way into my blood.  While The Shining may not be one of those films that grabs you by the throat on its first viewing, its one of those horror films that festers and grows.  A terrific piece of moody horror.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) George Romero shocked the world with the low budget 1968 Night of the Living Dead but, to me, his follow up truly took the Zombie genre into legendary realms.  A movie that is alternately horrifying, gory, dramatic, and…humorous?!… Dawn of the Dead has it all.  A movie whose influence is still being felt today…I’m looking at you Walking Dead.

The Terminator (1984) / Aliens (1986) Another double feature, this one via director James Cameron.  In these two films Mr. Cameron delivered his unique, crazy vision of the ultimate in action and horror.  Once things get going, they never stop…

There are those who think Terminator 2 is the better Terminator film.  I disagree.  The original, though made on a far lower budget, is to me far more relentless.  As for Aliens, Mr. Cameron another great (and scary) roller coaster ride!

Evil Dead II (1987) While Mr. Cameron proved adept at mixing action with horror, director Sam Raimi proved just as adept at mixing horror with what would appear to be a more unlikely genre: Comedy.  The first Evil Dead, a very low budget affair, shows glimmers of humor, but with Evil Dead II, Mr. Raimi and lead actor (and cult favorite) Bruce Campbell take things several steps forward, creating a movie that’ll have you laughing out loud just before screaming!  A terrific, twisted piece of work…

Whew.  I think I’ll stop there, at least for now.  I’m sure there are dozens more I could add, though.  Give me some time…

Just in time for Halloween

The Horror Movie Music Quiz!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/28/horror-movie-theme-music-quiz-guess-the-horror-film-from-its-soundtrack.html

I managed to get 10 of 13 (making me just slightly above the average of 9 out of 13).  I probably would have done worse but the Wheel of Fortune way they make you fill in the movie’s title allowed me to figure out at least two soundtracks though I had no idea where the music was from (one movie’s name is very long while the other has an apostrophe, which helped to figure out at least one of the letters!).

Anyway, good stuff!

Writing update…

A few days back I wrote about where I was with various new writing projects and how, creatively, my mind basically exploded with new story ideas following finishing off Ghost of the Argus. (available now!)

So much so that I suddenly had four novels in the works simultaneously, three of which were new and one of which I wanted to finally get “done”.

As of last Friday, October 24, I finished the first draft of that later novel, a story that is effectively the conclusion/postscript to the whole Corrosive Knights saga.  I had a “rough draft” of this story done years beforehand in the form of a graphic novel/comic book but felt since the other Corrosive Knights stories were presented as novels, I might as well make this story a novel as well.  Earlier this year I began converting the graphic novel into an actual novel.

So last Friday I finally got the first draft of this novel done.  It’s a little on the skinny size, clocking in at a mere 50 pages, single spaced (in comparison, my other Corrosive Knights novels run about 170-200 pages).  This is obviously a bare bones work at this moment and there’s much more work to be done with it.  I suspect when I’m properly done with the novel, it will be closer in size to the other Corrosive Knights novels.

The big question, therefore, is: When will this novel be ready and released?

That question is a tricky one to answer.  Now that I have this first draft done, I intend to put it on the back burner and work on it with whatever spare time I have while focusing more exclusively on Corrosive Knights books #6 and 7 and my standalone novel expanding on a short story in my Shadows at Dawn book.

The fact is that this “final” Corrosive Knights story is just that and I want to have it completed but I don’t feel it appropriate to release it until the other Corrosive Knights stories are out.

While tempted to pat myself on the back because of my ability to get something done and save its release for another day, I’m certainly not the first author to do something like that.  During the London bombings of World War II, mystery author Agatha Christie wrote Curtain, the final Hercule Poirot novel, because she feared she -and England!- might not survive this war and she wanted to have a final story for her beloved sleuth.  The war ended and Ms. Christie kept that novel in a safe until the 1970’s, when she was very old and knew she would be unable to write any other books.  It was then that Curtain was released.

I’m hoping my final Corrosive Knights novel won’t stay hidden quite that long…

We’ll see.

Premonition…

When I first saw a couple of the very…odd…Matthew McConaughey Lincoln commercials…

…I just knew it wouldn’t be long before we’d have a long line of people ready, willing, and able to parody it.

Given how weird those commercials were, I couldn’t wait.

And sure enough…

From Cracked…

…a couple of interesting Halloween themed lists.

First up, 17 Most Unintentionally Funny Moments in Scary Movies:

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_1120_the-17-most-unintentionally-funny-moments-in-scary-movies/

The gifs are good.  My favorite is probably the very last one, regarding Friday The 13th Part 3, which was filmed for 3D but which some of those 3D effects didn’t look quite as scary when put into regular old 2D.

Next up are 5 Real-Life Horror Movies Deleted From Your History Books:

http://www.cracked.com/article_21742_5-real-life-horror-movies-deleted-from-your-history-books.html

#3, found on the first page of this link, is particularly gruesome as it details (and in one case shows!) a person who “survived” a scalping.  I’m tempted to include the photograph of the scalping survivor below, but it truly is quite revolting. Besides, if you really want to see it, you can do so by clicking the link above.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you, as this stuff is not for the faint of heart!