For Your Viewing Pleasure - "Hunters"

Amazon Prime has been funding its own video productions in recent years. Their latest offering is titled Hunters. The story concept is that the current year is 1977 and surviving Nazis (actual WW II Nazis) succeeded in smuggling themselves into the United States as well as other countries (S. America receives brief mention in the dialogue) in the immediate post-war years in far greater numbers than anyone realizes. They have successfully recruited younger members into their iteration of the Nazi Party, and have seemingly securely established themselves in the USA in order to create a Fourth Reich.

Opposing them are surviving Jews from the same WW II years (many of them, at least, being holocaust survivors), along with the younger members of their organization (it's not clear if all of the group are Jewish, though that does seem to be a dominating membership qualification), who pursue the Nazis from motives of retribution ("The best revenge is revenge.") making them the titular Hunters. The (in 1977 still highly classified Project Paperclip) presence of "legal" Nazis in the US, many of them in government occupations, who are guarded after a fashion by US government/military organizations, but are apparently regarded as enemies by the illegal Nazis, further complicates the plot in an entirely plausible fashion so far.

I've deliberately paced my watching schedule to no more than one episode a night, but having watched Ep. 1, I can say that the story is framed such as to give plot lines seemingly ample scope of field (so far ranging from NYC to Cape Canaveral, FL), characters are not too over-the-top (the writer(s) apparently think it is necessary to make it a tad bit overly obvious that, indeed, Nazis are "bad guys"), and nothing plot or character wise seems too overly contrived so far (one scene involving a bad Nazi killing a good Nazi - that reads sooo weird - by sabotaging her shower to gas her to death pushes the boundary of suspended disbelief right to the teetering edge), but hopefully future seasons will include a few more pragmatic viewpoints in the writers room (a more senior bad Nazi admonishing a junior bad Nazi on risking attracting unwanted attention to themselves by extravagant killing methods - "dead is sufficient; we don't want to send a message" - would largely suffice, I think).

If you have Amazon Prime, I strongly recommend you add this one to your My Stuff viewing list.

13 Hours

Went to see the film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi in the cinema Sunday afternoon; definitely worth the price of admission just for the cinematography and Special Effects.  No spoilers, but like virtually every other "based on historical events" (and in this case specifically "This is a true story") movie, there are gaping holes in the historical record as it is portrayed on film.  I'm not going to go into a long dissertation about the differences between written story and film story; leave it as stipulated that the two formats have mutually opposing criteria and thus there will always be a need to adapt a written record into the more compressed film format, and that that compression often is achieved by illustrating a condition with a fictionalized example that evokes the impact of the more complex actual events to a viewing audience in a reasonable period of viewing time.

Also, it is the height of stupidity to bring your personal ideology with you to any movie.  Enjoy the show for what it is, then have fun dissecting it with your friends and commentariat afterwards.  I guarantee you will have plenty of opportunity to rip it to pieces no matter who wrote, directed, or starred in it.

Ok, one tiny spoiler (paraphrased):  "Shorts to a gunfight?  That's a bold statement, brother."

Go see the movie in the theater if you possibly can.  This is one of those films that really benefits from the big screen viewing environment.

It's Amazon Pilot Season

Periodically, the good folks at Amazon.com present a selection of new TV series developed by people like you and me (well, me anyway; your fantasy life is your own) at Amazon Studios for Amazon customers to rate and review.  I want to recommend one particular program currently up for audience review, Cocked.

Brian Dennehy plays the family patriarch and gun business founder Wade Paxson.  Jason Lee plays the elder son, heir apparent and perennial ne're-do-well Grady.  Sam Trammell plays his younger brother Richard, who has made a life and career outside the family business and industry.

Wade Paxson has built a solid business catering to the traditional "Fudd" segment of the gun buying market; rifles and shotguns for hunting and target shooters.  Grady Paxson has spent all the family's available cash designing and manufacturing a new product line for the company, a "semi-automatic revolver".  Revealing further depth to the Paxson family structure, Wade's brother Rayburn has his own gun company, and apparently has Wade's shop thoroughly penetrated with his own people, as he also brings a "semi-auto revolver" to market - at considerably less cost.  Desperate to save the company he spent his life building, Wade begs (and otherwise coerces) his younger son to help stave off the pending disaster.  High-larity, as they say, not to mention drama and more than a little comedy, follows.

Cocked airs most of the usual memes and catch phrases anyone familiar with guns (or just gun debates) is familiar with - but does so in a reasonably neutral fashion, and occasionally quite indirectly.  As example, the commonplace pro gun ownership expression "when seconds count, a cop is only minutes away" isn't spoken in dialogue, but following a violent attack on Richard, the responding cop notes there isn't much he can do to catch the attacker or prevent another attack.  In another scene, Richard's wife accuses the family of "selling fear", to which Wade responds that guns are "just tools".  In none of this drama does anyone come off as morally superior, nor does anyone get spared from a sometimes too-revealing look.

I hope Amazon produces this series, and you can help convince Jeff Bezos and the boys and girls at Amazon Studios to do just that.  Follow the link above, watch the pilot episode, then click on the little blue Find out more link, and Take the survey.  You don't have to be an Amazon Prime member, but I expect no one there would outright object if you did join up.  Also, the show is rated TV-MA because, titties, violence and grown people doing some fairly tedious stupid behavior in somewhat explicit fashion.  Nothing too outrageous (which may be more revealing of my standards than anything else), but expect to have to field some awkward questions from the younger set if you let them watch with you.

Finally, there are 12 other pilot shows up for audience review at Amazon right now; I also recommend Mad Dogs and The Man in the High Castle as being worth your interest, pretty much in that order of preference too (tastes vary; get your own).  There are some kid-oriented shows too, but mine are raising there own kids these days, so I don't have to develop an opinion you would want to read about any of that category of programming.

No Amazonians or actual pilots were harmed in the production of this post.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Went to the 4pm matinee Friday afternoon; the theater was about 80% filled with more adults than kids.  If you are a fan of the Marvel Comics universe of movies, you definitely want to see this one.  The writers deftly weave references to other characters and events into the dialogue, which gives an added sense of substance to the story, and the dramatic events don't interrupt the suspension of disbelief a story of this type absolutely requires.  There are a few moments that won't bear up under the strain of even a casual application of high school science class rigor, but a smooth application of handwavium in the dialogue makes it mostly go down easily enough.  Stan Lee almost slipped his trademark cameo appearance past us too.

One thing I've noticed as the Avengers storyline has developed; with the exception of 7 people (I counted), the audience stayed quietly in their seats through the closing credits.  I expect to see this technique of having an added segment of the movie being tacked onto the end of the credits spread to other production companies than Marvel Studios.  This particular viewing audience reflex/expectation has been well and truly established now.  I wonder how soon the cable film producers will adopt it for their work?

Two thumbs up and several "like" buttons for this one.

And Now For Something Completely Different ...

... and maybe even original.

I've decided to try an experiment on this blog.  Before we get to all that, first some back story.

In the last couple months (since my return from Oregon in October), I was invited by Amazon.com to become one of the reviewers of stories under development by them. 

Frankly I have no real idea why they did such a thing.

The barely-restrained conspiracy theorist in me is certain it all has to do with the frequency with which I take Jeff Bezos' name in vain here and elsewhere around the web.  And, while there may actually be something to that, my somewhat more firmly grounded suspicion is that someone at Amazon decided there just might be something to the proposition that the amateur opinion is the audience and figured anyone who buys as many books and DVD's - and presumably reads/watches them - as I do, probably has an arguably informed opinion to offer there-on. 

In any event, I accepted and thereby discovered Amazon Studios, which is their in-house effort to create original content for them to produce and sell.  I should note that the two Amazon-related activities aren't directly linked to each other, in that you don't have to be an aspiring story teller to talk trash offer an opinion about anyone else's story.   Or, at least, I didn't; I was offered the review thing before signing up to have my own efforts put to the question. 

Someday.

Whereby we close the bloggish circle.  I'm having difficulty getting started with the story I want to tell first, so I'm going to try telling (at least a good portion of) a different story here on the blog.  To that end I've created a new label, "my original fiction", which I will be using exclusively for this project.  My hope is to use the Blogger format I'm reasonably familiar with to develop the basic writers habit of writing something every day.  Yes, I know, how is that different from ordinary blogging?  Well, aside from the obvious distinction that this will be deliberate fiction, as inflammatory as what will appear is going to be, I hope to avoid at least some of the sillier accusations and suspicions that might otherwise arise if it wasn't labeled as explicit fiction.

I expect to write as much about my experience of the process of writing a story as I do actually telling a story.  [It's my blog; go write your own if you want it done differently.]   As introductory, what follows is my not-too-terribly-original premise:

At some undeclared point in the near future, there will be an explicit effort made to take advantage of the current societal discontent within the United States.  This effort will comprise an organized group of criminals funding the creation of a "resistance" (based rather loosely on my understanding of the experience of the French efforts during WW II) aimed at continuing their (probably drug related - at least in part) criminal enterprise, whatever the political climate within the US.

All details subject to authorial whim and inspiration, but I intend to use real people's names in a "ripped from the headlines" style of story context.  If you are also a blogger and wouldcare to risk your reputation'nt mind having your name taken in vain also, please let me know; one of the many problems I'm experiencing is coming up with character names (the bios are actually much less trouble - more on that anon).

Topics I hope to excite discussion on will include: story formatting, character development and presentation, quirks and idiosyncrasies of some specific aspect of life (law, motorcycle mechanics, welding, what-have-you, etc, etc, etc.), proper grammar ... well, you get the idea.  As to the story itself, it is what it will be; I kinda don't care if you care for it or not, and I'm quite confident you can write a better one, but I want to tell this one so as to get good enough to tell the one that's sloshing around inside my head and won't come out yet.  If I offend you (as seems likely) I'm not all that sorry.  Its not that I want to especially, it's just in the nature of this particular story, that's all.

More tomorrow ...

Gun/Ammo Question

So, I bought the new-ish Brad Pitt shoot-em-up KillingThem Softly and can unreservedly say that if you like the typical mob violence genre than you'll enjoy this iteration too.

That said, there is a slo-mo scene where the Brad Pitt character shoots the Ray Liotta character at a traffic light with what looks like a typical example of the 1911 framed pistol (exposed hammer, apparent SAO, etc), but the spent shell casings are visibly necked down.  Not having ever owned or fired a 1911 in .38 Special, I'm guessing this is an example of one in cinematic action but thought I'd display my ignorance and put this out there.  Given that this film is adapted from the George V. Higgins novel Coogan's Trade it could very well be some comparatively obscure Euro caliber instead, but if I read the book it was too long ago now to remember.

And just in case people are really bored, is there a consensus on how well a .38 Special round out of an auto loader would perform in the assassination role (as opposed to the alternative 9mm or .45acp)?  Over kill (to include my usual bad pun)?  Kinda iffy?  Too much buck for the bang?  They didn't use one in the film, but how might a suppressor alter the dynamics of such a shot?

Act Of Valor

Went to see the movie Act Of Valor today; I encourage all to see this film in a cinema if at all possible.

A reasonably straightforward telling of an entirely plausible-seeming (to me, at least) threat with all of the to-be-expected combat action people have come to associate with SEALS and Special Forces generally. HALO jumps, air insertion of SEAL Tactical Assault Boats, the STAB boats in riverine action, it's all included and beautifully filmed to convey both an accurate image as well as the impact caused. I found the commo discipline as well as the shooting under stress and movement (specifically, the reloading and communicating between fellow teammates) to add an additional layer of suspension of disbelief.

I suppose that the predictable-seeming plot point that occurs towards the end of the film (no spoilers here - spend the money for this one, it's worth it) is more than justified by the final on-screen scene. It stops being a screen writers dodge when you start to count up all the names of those who actually did just that sort of thing at some point during these last ten years of war.

Go see this movie; buy a copy when it becomes available on DVD, you will want to watch it more than once, I promise. And if you don't have to hold back the tears just a little at the end, I don't want to know you.


Update: Via Glen Reynolds, this is no surprise.

Iron Man

I should preface this by noting that I haven't read an Iron Man (or any other for that matter) comic since I was 14 years old or there abouts. And when I did read them, they weren't objects of deep study. All that said, I am impressed with how well this movie rings true to those more-than-a-little fuzzy memories of the comic book character. The technology isn't remotely similar, but doesn't suffer from the modernisation either.

I'm not quite sure what movie this guy saw, but I suggest he leave his political agenda at home next time he goes out for some action/adventure movie entertainment. Tony Stark discovers during his ordeal in Afghanistan that his company's weapons are being delivered to our country's enemies. Added to this, a certain amount of psychic and emotional upheaval is only to be expected following such a traumatic ordeal. Finally, the writer needed to present the audience with a source of conflict as motivation for Tony to make such a drastic adjustment from his previous, and obviously very acceptable to himself, lifestyle. Rejection of previous beliefs and business objectives, followed by a gradual process of accommodation to life's realities, is a perfectly plausible mechanism to use to achieve this crisis of confidence for Tony to confront and eventually overcome.

Unlike everyone else in the theater, I sat through the closing credits. "I'm Nick Fury, head of SHIELD..." Can you spell sequel? Maybe I'll have adjusted to Gwenyth Paltrow as a redhead by then. :)

Like almost everyone else, I think this is an excellent movie and suggest you go see it in the theater. The visual effects aren't going to be nearly as impressive on a smaller screen.

UPDATE: Judging by this report we might see a sequel released as early as this time next year. $200+ million from just the opening weekend? Wow! A lot of that timing will depend less upon the principal actor's scheduled commitments then it will on the availability of the computer graphics talent I suspect.

Link via James Hudnall who also links to this topical YouTube video.

Fillum review: National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Went to the movies last night and saw the National Treasure sequel. I've never really tried my hand at writing one of these, but I'll do my best to limit any spoilers and still put up some degree of coherent content. As much as I ever manage to do at least ...

Some good points to start. Nobody got too cutsie (or professionally greedy), so all the original good guy characters are back and all of the actors have aged well into their roles. Everyone is subtly changed, but just as the viewer would expect them to have done a couple of years on from previous events. The presentation of events is familiar to viewers and combines some new talents with variations on old tricks from the first film to move the action along at a brisk pace. The obscure historical references are easily as well done as previously, as is the attention to detail in the set dressing and prop construction.

As for the bad points; it really comes down to two major flaws as I see it. The first is more of a continuity error then anything else that would have benefited from some brief dialogue to explain how several assassinations and at least one major post-invasion fire didn't cause an interruption of transmission for a titular plot device. The Mt. Vernon exposition would have benefited here, I think.

{This being precisely vague schtick is tougher than it reads}

The second involves the bad guy du jour character played by Ed Harris. Whichever writer was responsible for this character's design obviously redacted as little as possible from the first film's baddy, slapped on a transparent coat of US Southern generic as overlay and called it a day. Phoning it in doesn't begin to describe how little original material Mr. Harris had to work with here - and a very workmanlike job he did too, I might add. I spent much of the England exterior scenes looking for Andy Bean as an extra, laughing his ass off at poor Ed's predicament. The audience would actually have been better off not to have seen the first film, it was that distracting to the suspension of disbelief any good film must create.

The obviously flimsy security breaches at Buckingham Palace and the White House are scenes nobody expects to be in any way realistically portrayed. The actors carry off the scenes quite well and I didn't have any sense of interruption of mood nor noticed any from other audience members.

A fun and very satisfying film all in all. I encourage everyone to see it in the theater rather then wait for the DVD and I hope it does well financially. I think there's at least one more episode to be crafted from this format and characters combination. Here's hoping Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney don't flinch; with all the quirks and questions to be found in even an average history book, the potential for this formula remains fresh with possibility.