Jonah Hex – or, A Coffin Full of Suck
Ah, Jonah Hex. The movie. Also known as the Crow Goes to the Wild Wild West. Seriously. That’s the plot. Of all the movies to model on, they chose those two?
Yeah, it was bad. Uwe Boll bad? No. But not good.
And this was one of the ones I was sorta looking forward to. I mean, horse with gatling gun, right? Sure that was cool, but it was used once in the beginning of the movie, and then Jonah traded down for some weird dynamite crossbow things. Jonah wasn’t the only one making bad decisions like that in the movie. In front of or behind the camera. I won’t catalog the stupidity — I don’t have all day. I will mention one, though, since it’s a doozy, in terms of setting up motivations. Jonah Hex’s backstory, as presented in the movie, has him killing a superior officer who wanted to burn down a hospital. This the trigger for the rest of the movie, setting everything in motion. But do we see that confrontation on screen? Nope. We are told about it several times. It might have been quite the dramatic scene, but all we get are words, most of them mumbled by Hex. It’s not like they didn’t have time to show it — the movie’s less than 90 minutes long, credits included. It was just lazy story-telling.
The whole thing was that lazy.
But on the bright side, there were plenty of explosions. And a cool (if completely implausible and apparently magic) super-gatling canon. And, at least at the theater we saw it, the Tron Legacy trailer, which dripped with awesome.
Godzilla is My Copilot
Ever since I dove in to writing Sharkasaurus vs. Robo-Twister (SvRT), I’ve been getting re-obsessed with all things giant monster. Been watching Godzilla movies on the Netflix stream, and my writing music of choice the past couple days has been the Godzilla vs Megaguirus soundtrack I picked up over the weekend at Half-Price books for $4. SvRT may have started out as a parody of those bad SyFy mega-monster of the week movies, but the more I plot it out and write, the more it’s shaping up to be like a classic Daikaiju piece. (Which, when you look at it, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus was too, frankly.) Which, in my mind, is all the better.
Sharkasaurus Versus Robo-Twister Opening Scene
[scrippet]
EXT. TRAILER PARK – DAY
Lightning-filled storm clouds ominously roll in from the horizon, throwing the run-down trailers into shadow.
At the edge of the trailer park, the door of BOBBY-JACK-JOE’S TRAILER flies open, and out storms a very pissed-off BRITNEY — 19, blonde, buxom, wearing a wifebeater and cutoffs. She heads for a rusty pickup parked nearby, a twelve-pack of IC Light cradled under her arm.
BRITNEY
And I’m taking my beer with me, you perv!
BOBBY-JACK-JOE
Aww, what’s the big fuckin’ deal, Britney? You said you was up for a menage a trois.
BOBBY-JACK-JOE — 20, lean and greasy — stands in the trailer doorway, pulling his jeans on. Britney puts the beers in the pickup’s bed and rummages in her purse for keys.
BRITNEY
If you meant a three-way, Bobby-Jack-Joe, why didn’t you just say three-way? Why you have to go and use them foreign words nobody understands? Just trying to trick me — I thought you meant that Eye-talian cake that takes like coffee!
The wind starts to pick up.
BOBBY-JACK-JOE
What, you mean tiramisu?
Brittany stops rummaging and turns towards Bobby-Jack-Joe.
BRITNEY
There you go again putting on airs! Who you think you are, Regis Philbin?
BOBBY-JACK-JOE
Aww, honey-bunny… come on. It’s my birthday, the kids are at my Ma’s, and cousin Miley’s only in town ‘till the weekend.
MILEY — 19, brunette, wearing a bright pink peek-a-boo nighty — steps up behind Bobby-Jack-Joe.
MILEY
That’s our busy time at the cat house. — Let her go, cousin. She’s just scarred to be compared to a professional.
The wind’s really picked up now.
BRITNEY
Scarred?
She pulls off her wife-beater. Did I mention she’s not wearing a bra?
BRITNEY (CONT’D)
I’ll show you scarred. No whore can do my man better than me.
Bobby-Jack-Joe slaps his hands together in anticipation.
BOBBY-JACK-JOE
Well, hot damn –
Bobby-Joe-Jack cuts himself off as he sees something really, really frightening behind Britney. Miley sees it too, and screams.
Confused, Britney looks down at her own chest.
BRITNEY
What? The stitches open up again?
Britney looks up just as Miley is pulling Bobby-Joe-Jack into the trailer, Bobby-Joe-Jack scrambling to shut the door behind him.
Britney hears a roar and turns to see the pickup lifted effortlessly into the air by a massive, spinning CYCLONE.
She just has time to scream before she’s lifted up herself, and she keeps on screaming as she’s spun round and round, arms and boobs flailing, with the truck as the cyclone plows into the trailer, ripping it to shreds, and then continues on through the trailer park, turning everything in its path into matchsticks.
[/scrippet]
Chasing My Own Cut-Off Tail
So, after six months of running in circles trying to write a novel (five novels, to be exact) I’ve decided I need a break from the pursuit and the anxiety. Gonna write a another script.
Sharkasaurus Versus Robo-Twister.
Yeah, I know… I’d given up scriptwriting because nobody’s even looking at the stuff I already have out there, and even if something gets bought, the chances of a film being made that resembles what I wrote are remote. But, the novel writing has been me throwing myself at a brick wall, and I’m starting to bruise. Time to step back and just get something on paper — for some reason, screenwriting just doesn’t have the same anxiety for me as novel writing. Probably because I don’t see it as “real” writing — don’t get me wrong, I take it seriously, and its a valid artform… it’s just that my entire life has been aimed at writing novels and there’s all this mental investment in the pursuit. It’s all in the head.
I’ll throw myself back into tilting at the novel windmill after the script’s done, which, if anxiety doesn’t hit it too, should be a month.
I’ll post a scene every now and again for you guys to laugh at. Intentionally, I hope.
100 or Out
I’ve always had this magick number in my head for Arkham Polytech: 100 unique returning viewers a new strip day, for at least two consecutive weeks (without the aid/crutch of a Reddit link). If I can hit that magick number by the end of the year, I’ll consider Arkham Polytech a personal success (if not a particularly popular one) and continue doing it another year (with a new goal of 1000 uniques a day). If I can’t hit that number, then Arkham Polytech gets a final saying-goodbye strip the last week of 2010 and I move on to something else.
Why am I bringing this up now, when it’s only June? Because it’s half-way through the year — half-way through the first year of the strip — and traffic’s been growing nicely since the start (thanks mostly to a whole bunch of nice people on twitter spreading the word daily). In fact, I’ve been averaging about 40 unique returning viewers for the last two weeks. Which in my mind says a 100 isn’t an unrealistic goal. So, kinda happy about that.
So to those 40 or so regular readers, thanks! Now, go tell your friends.
Lost Finally Lives Up To Its Name
Lost finally lived up to its name with its finale, and lost me. (And if you haven’t seen the finale, spoilers ahead, so be warned.)
The finale has two essentially separate and unconnected storylines, so I’ll complain about both separately.
The “island” storyline turned out to be rather boring and low-key, and didn’t much hold my attention or reward me for all my years of watching. Except Jack died, which was cool. And Hugo and Ben teamed up to run the island… I can only assume they built a line of chicken joints. Which would have been cool, had they actually shown it.
But the “sideverse” storyline — that really just pissed me off. So, apparently, this entire season the sideverse we’ve been emotionally investing in turns out to be limbo. A big-ass shared dream where the Losties go to wait to be reunited after death. Okay, interesting concept, I’ll give ya that — but what exactly did it have to do with the island? It was the most generic ending ever, really just an excuse to get all the characters together and hug each other. You could have had the same ending for any other show — hey, look, all our characters died eventually and most had shitty lives, but it’s okay ’cause they reunited at death, here’s a happy ending for ya. (In fact, wasn’t that the end of Titanic?) Just seemed cheap and lazy and pandering — like the writers, pardon the pun, got lost on the way to a real ending and copped out.
So, color me disappointed.
Iron Man 2 and All the Other Crap
When last we blogged… I had not seen Iron Man 2. Saw it the weekend before last. It was decent — not as good as the first one, which had the benefit of being a breath of fresh air — but long. About 20 minutes too long. The climatic fight was also a bit of a letdown — again, the action happened at night, so it was hard to see what was going on. The race track fight earlier in the film looked sharp, and that was during the day, so don’t know why they decided every other fight in the movie had to be shot in the dark. Maybe too many cartoons running around in the daylight would have exposed them for what they were. Anyway, worth seeing for Downey junior’s performance, and Scarlett Johansson in a jumpsuit.
Also worth seeing — by a far larger margin: Kick Ass. Which, was, ahem, kick-ass.
Haven’t see Robin Hood, and probably won’t until it comes out on vid. It just hasn’t struck me as a need-to-see, even with Ridley Scott at the helm.
Arkham Polytech: Continues, three strips a week. Quite enjoying it, still working on improving the art.
Black Adder Obsession
I’ve been obsessed with Black Adder — especially series 2 — ever since Netflix added all four series to streaming a couple weeks back. I had been obsessed with it years ago when it was on BBC America — back when BBC America played stuff other than Gordan Ramsey cooking shows, Top Gear and Doctor Who (not that I’m complaining.) It’s just one of those shows that’s downright looney, but in a brilliant, extremely clever way. And of course its main character is a scheming bastard, so no surprise I like it. Been considering getting this Black Adder Remastered
In the Company of Idiots – Yep, back to this, after getting 27% into the first draft of Fear and Shopping on Planet Earth and realizing it sucked. I’ll probably return to it someday. Like I’m returning to In the Company of Idiots. Did 850 words this morning, so the 1st draft’s 1% done. Any bets on how far I get before switching to “The Confounding Exploits of Dr. Harvey Morbid, Esquire”?
Arkham Polytech – Just wrote the script for the 50th strip. 50 frickin’ strips. Didn’t think I’d keep up with it this long, frankly, but still having fun. Thanks to all for the feedback and comments and just plain reading it.
You Must See Black Dynamite
So, Black Dynamite (official web site) has kung-fu chopped its way onto my top 100 movies of all time list.
It’s dead on parody/spoof of ’70s blaxploitation… down to boom mikes in the shot, stunt doubles being swapped mid-fight, stock footage car chases and explosions, and every cliche you can think of. But it’s what they do with the cliches that makes it hilarious. Intentionally hilarious — these guys know what they’re doing. The script’s inherently funny, the acting’s spot on, and it’s just a fun ride.
To spill the beans on any of the gags would just ruin the fun. All I’ll say is this: Just when you think it couldn’t get better… they go to Kung-Fu Island. Literally. It’s an island. They go to it. And that’s NOT the film’s climax. The climax… that gets even, impossibly, better than that. I know, better than Kung-Fu Island — impossible! But it is possible. It is!
So, Netflix it. Or just buy it (Amazon DVD
Dynomite! Dynomite!
It Ain't Clash of the Titans Without Stop-Motion Action
Still debating whether to bother seeing Clash of the Titans on the big screen. Heard from multiple sources to avoid the 3D version. But the 2D version is being bandied about as a decent mind-numbing popcorn movie.
To watch or not to watch… The original (Amazon DVD
Oh, what to do, what to do… Probably should just see How to Train Your Dragon, or better yet, rewatch Black Dynamite (Amazon DVD
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