tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81214972654020713512024-03-12T16:45:16.338-07:00Things That Don't Suck"An Imaginary Museum"Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.comBlogger820125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-29450396222400301732014-07-26T12:28:00.002-07:002014-07-26T13:59:46.287-07:00Some Notes On The Stand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I recently reread <i>The Stand</i> for no particular reason other
than I felt like it. I'm honestly not sure how many time I've read it at this
point, more than three, less than a half dozen (though I can clearly remember
my first visit to that horrifyingly stripped bare world as I can remember the
first reading of all the truly great King stories). It's not my favorite of
King's work, but it is arguably his most
richly and completely imagined. It truly is the American <i>Lord of The Rings</i>, with
the concerns of England (Pastorialism vs. Industrialism, Germany's tendency to
try and blow it up every thirty years or so) replaced by those of America
(Religion, the omnipresent struggle between our liberal and libertarian ideals,
our fear of and dependence on the military, racial and gender tension) and
given harrowing size.</div>
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I'm happy to say that <i>The Stand </i>holds up well past the
bounds of nostalgia and revisiting the world and these characters was as
pleasurable as ever. But you can't step in the same river twice, even when
you're revisiting a favorite book. Even if the river hasn't changed you have.
This isn't meant as any kind of comprehensive essay on<i> The Stand</i>. Just a couple
of things I noticed upon dipping my toes in the river this time.</div>
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-First off I should say that I'm an agnostic when it comes
to the original cut vs. the extended edition. On one hand there is a lot of great stuff in
the extended cut that I would hate to lose. Fran's argument with her mother
basically defines the character for the first half of the book and adds a lot
of depth. The segment near the end of the first book that cross cuts between a
series of survivors who were immune to Captain Trips but just couldn't hack it
in the brave new world is some of the best writing of King's career and the
final disquieting epilogue where Flagg is reborn is invaluable. Though Harold
Bloom is probably waking up in a cold sweat as I type this, it brings to mind
nothing so much as the haunting ending of <i>Blood Meridian</i>. Flagg may leave the
stage ruminating that fate is like a wheel but, "He says he will never
sleep, he says he will never die," would be just as fitting of an epitaph.</div>
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On the other hand, it's hard not to agree with<a href="http://litreactor.com/columns/scandalous-is-stephen-kings-original-version-of-the-stand-better-than-the-uncut-edition"> Meredith Borders</a> that plenty of the extra material just hurts the pacing. I for one
wouldn't be at all sorry to lose the infamous Kid segment of the novel, if only
because it cuts the amount of people I can recommend the novel to in half (I
was planning on buying a copy for my little sister this time out and then it
was like, "Oh yeah...") A third cut of the novel would probably be
gratuitous, but it's hard not to wish for a happy medium between the two
versions.</div>
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-I think part of the reason that Hollywood has had such a
hard time adapting<i> The Stand</i>, beyond its length, is that it genuinely is an
ensemble piece. Stu Redman looms large in the memory, and he probably is King's
most successful and sympathetic every man this side of Johnny Smith, but if he
has more pages dedicated to his POV than Larry Underwood, Nick Andros, or Fran
Goldsmith (note how well the names in The Stand stick in the memory) then it is
by the slimmest of margins. <i>The Stand</i> is
not the story of a single hero. The hero of <i>The Stand</i> is humanity as a
collective. The story of the eternal desperate battle between the better angels and
devils of our nature. That's a large canvas, and frankly I'm not sure it's
something you can convey in three hours. If you try and force a traditional story
structure on that it all kind of falls apart. </div>
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- On a similar note, for a character who looms so large in a
certain segment of the popular conscious I was shocked by just how little Randall
Flagg has to <i>do</i> in<i> The Stand</i>. He<i> is</i> a great villain but he's a great
Harry Lime villain, building notoriety in the tension of his absence and in how
others react to him. If you asked me to pick my favorite villain in any media,
Flagg would be near top of the list but why?</div>
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Setting aside Flagg's appearance in dreams and scenes that
infer his disembodied presence is spying among our heroes what do you actually
see Flagg do? After his (admittedly impressive) introduction walking the backroads
at the start of the plague and the scene where he breaks Lloyd out jail
(another great scene, though the less said about the one where he harasses an
old colleague dying of the super flu and then literally grabs the name Randall
Flagg out of a glove box the better) he basically disappears from the novel.
Once "off screen" he becomes the focus of every one's attention,
talked about fearfully in harsh whispers and grandiose statements. </div>
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By the time Flagg finally does reemerge in the last two
hundred pages of the novel, you basically watch him do nothing but fuck up from
one end of book 3 to the other. Losing two prisoners to suicides he can't
prevent, nearly getting blown away by a septuagenarian, losing his unborn heir,
having half his arsenal destroyed and all his pilots killed by a disturbed
lackey and last but certainly not least, accidentally triggering an atomic bomb
in the heart of his strong hold.</div>
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So why are we so scared of this guy again?</div>
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Understand I'm not disparaging King or Flagg. Just noting
that his characterization is a trick, a really, really good trick, even an
enviable trick, but a trick. </div>
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Of course the revelation of Flagg's ultimate nature fits
right in with the idea of Evil as a powerful, but ultimately unstable and self
defeating force. One of the major themes of King's career. "The half life
of evil is notoriously short," one character says in one of the best lines
of the book and the practitioners of evil in King's universe are usually
ultimately, "Bumhugs" not matter how powerful. If nothing else this
reread of The Stand finally brought me to peace with Flagg's abrupt exit from
The Dark Tower universe. Flagg's ending in the saga in which he played such a
part may be ignominious but it is hardly out of character. </div>
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And yet the idea of The Dark Man walking down those lonely
roads, face filled with good cheer, his bootheels worn to nubs, his jean jacket
on in the Nebraska cold and Vegas heat alike still gives me such a chill.</div>
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-Before we leave the subject of adaptation behind entirely,
it should be noted that the structure of <i>The Stand </i>is deeply weird in other
ways around. To use a term that has been thrown around a lot lately in equal
parts derision and praise,<i> The Stand</i> is a novel with a lot of world building
going on. </div>
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After the slow motion car wreck that is book one and before
the final act of book three, the bulk of the novel is taken up by questions of
how to survive in the post Trips world. How to boil water, and scavenge for
antibiotics, how to hold town meetings and elections, the best modes of
transportation, how to get the power back on (in <i>On Writing</i> King revealed that
this last one sparked something of an existential crisis). King basically turns
the death of the world into a kind of play ground. On the page it's all
compelling stuff, on screen it's hard not to see how it wouldn't end up a
series of vignettes.<br />
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-When I compared<i> The Stand </i>to <i>The Lord Of The Rings</i>, I
wasn't being idle. The book does very much feel like an American answer to
Tolkien (In fairness King actually brings up <i>Watership Down</i> as his point of
comparison, about half a dozen times to two Tolkien references. Either way
it's all British epic fantasy to me).</div>
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King actually knowingly inverts Tolkien in some interesting
ways. Making the protagonists all distinctly working class, when Tolkien's
Hobbits were pretty much landed gentry.
Posing Flagg in some of his visions, on "a great high place"
as Tolkien posed Sauron. And in my favorite tongue and cheek touch, putting his
Mordor in the West rather than the East.</div>
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But to me the most interesting touch on Tolkien is how he
handles The Gollum character, neatly splitting him into two between Harold Lauder
in the east and Trashcan man in the west. All three are pathetic, ultimately
pitiful characters who are ultimately instrumental in destroying the evil that
they would serve. In Harold you have the travel with our heroes, the two faced,
split identity between the well liked "Hawk" and the scheming, obsessed,
hate filled "Harold Emery Lauder." In Trashcan Man you have the
precious obsessed half man, deformed both mentally and physically by what he
covets, who ultimately destroys evil not by overcoming it, but by giving in and
following his worst impulses to their hideous logical conclusion. Gollum drowns
the ring in fire, Trashcan Man consumes Las Vegas in flame. Gollum turns his
back on the fellowship offered by Frodo in favor of his old obsession with the
ring, Harold rejects, betrays and attempts to kill all of heroes , mostly because
of being unable to let go of his old obsession with Fran. All three are given
totemistic items to embody their obsessions, Gollum the ring, Trashcan man his
A-Bomb and Harold his Ledger. <br />
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But what I find most fascinating about King's take on the character is the way
he plays with the concept of fracturing identity, the Gollum/Smeagol divide
that is present in both characters but manifests itself in totally opposite
ways. Both characters are given the opportunity for reinvention in the post
Captain Trips world, here is the end of our introduction to Trashcan Man as he
merrily burns his hometown to the ground</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"-Carley wasn't a kid anymore, any more than he was himself.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Maybe now he could be Don Elbert again, instead of Trashcan
Man...</blockquote>
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...From behind a perfect fusillade of explosions, God's
ammuntion dump going up in the flames of righteousness, Satan storming heaven,
his artillery capain a fiercely grinning fool with red, flayed cheeks, Trashcan
Man by name, never to be Donald Merwin Elbert again." </blockquote>
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Compared To:</div>
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"Harold's hair was longer than ever, but it was no longer dirty and
clotted and tangled. He no longer smelled like a shootoff in a haymow. Even his
blemishes were clearing up, now that he had laid off the candy. And with the
hard work and all the walking, he was losing some weight. He was starting to
look pretty good. There had been times in the last few weeks when he had strode
past some reflective surface only to glance back over his shoulder, startled,
as if he had caught a glimpse of a total stranger."</blockquote>
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Later...</div>
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"In that hour or instant, he became aware that he could
simply <i>accept what was</i>, and that
knowledge had both exhilerated and terrified him. For that space of time he
knew he could turn himself into a new person, a fresh Harold Lauder cloned from
the old one by the sharp intervening knife of the superflu epidemic...<br />
Harold sensed it and hated it."</blockquote>
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And most blatantly...</div>
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"All of a sudden the old grudges, the old hurts and the
unpaid debts seemed as worthless as the paper money choking all the cash
registers of America.<br />
<br />
Could it be true? Could it possily be true... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Stop it! Stop it! You
might as well be wearing handcuffs and legchains with one word stamped all over
them. But! But! Can't you stop it, Harold?</i>"</blockquote>
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But of course Harold can't stop it. And his words in his
penultimate scene, "I am doing this of my own free will," reflects
Eleanor Vance, another of horror literature's more pitiable narcissist's final,
chilling, "I am doing this me! Me! Why am I doing thi-". <i> <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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In other words in <i>The Stand</i> we have one character who
positively can't wait to take on a new identity and one who holds on to his old
one kicking and screaming. He creates a Smeagol who just can't wait to be Gollum and a Gollum who refuses to ever consider leaving Smeagol behind. And King posits that both stances are ultimate equally corrosive. </div>
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- Every book is going to date because of the attitudes of
its time, but there is one rather amusing moment in <i>The Stand</i>, where a supporting
character is revealed to be a lesbian and Stu's reaction is more or less,
"What??? A G-g-g-g-gay?" and then a pun is made over him not
understanding the term bisexual. </div>
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Now I'm not trying to take King, or even poor Stu to task
for this. Dayna is ultimately a minor character, but she's also arguably the
most overtly heroic in the book. Stu's
reaction isn't hateful, just confused. Keep in mind Stu's supposed to be a good
ole boy from Backwater, Texas circa 1990 and was originally a good ole boy from
Backwater, Texas circa 1978, so his reaction isn't even necessarily inaccurate.</div>
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All I'm trying to point out is how alien that reaction would
read in a book released today. As a straight dude it's not really my place to
shake my head and marvel, "My how far we've come." But it's hard not
to notice that less than twenty five years later Stu's reaction isn't just
dated, it reads as borderline nonsensical. </div>
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-And yet aside from a few moments like this the thing that
struck me on this read of <i>The Stand</i> is just how forceful a vision it remains.
Like my reread of <i>Carrie </i>last year, <i>The Stand</i> convinced me more than ever that
King's work, will last. Trying to predict what will and won't last in
literature is a fools game, but <i>The Stand</i>, like King's best work, is dated only
on the surface, the raw strength of its vision radiates as strongly as ever. </div>
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Consider this, <i>The Stand </i>is a book that is <i>very</i> tied in with the anxieties of
King's Boomer generation. A world where the military industrial complex has let
Thanos run riot baby and the country destroys itself in an orgy of death with a
feeling uncomfortably close to relief. But consider the events themselves,
journalists are assassinated, the policy of mutually assured destruction is enacted,
protesting students are gunned down by the army, disinformation is spread,
racial tensions flare up into violence (the mini race war that breaks out in an
occupied television station is one of the ugliest things I've ever read and is
still probably one of the finest moments of purely horrifying fiction). In
short the worst case scenario predicted by the students protesting Dow Chemical
comes to horrific life.</div>
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And yet this image of rapid destabilization, of
incomprehensible action and then an equally blind and terrible reaction will
resonate just as strongly with our still rattled post 9/11, post Katrina
consciousness. Compare the apocalypse in
King's book with how dated Chris Carter's boomer based vision in<i> The X Files</i>
looks, despite being much more "current". Carter's conspiracy, which
lest we forget hinged on the terrifying, omnipotent organization known as FEMA,
looks laughable. King's is still chilling. King has created a nightmare that
resonates equally well with two extremely different sets of social fears and
anxiety. To borrow a phrase from King himself, "Man that's not just
good..." </div>
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...</div>
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If you've enjoyed my ramblings about The Stand, perhaps you will consider purchasing Son Of Danse Macabre, which contains many more ramblings about Stephen King, including extended ones about The Shining and Pet Semetary.<b> 2.99 Cheep!</b> On <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Danse-Macabre-Bryce-Wilson-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406402640&sr=8-1&keywords=Son+Of+Danse+Macabre">The Kindle</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540">The Nook</a></div>
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...</div>
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In case you missed it, I'm writing for a new venue now called <a href="http://agentsofgeek.com/">Agents Of Geek</a>. It's mostly book and comic reviews (Here's one of <i><a href="http://agentsofgeek.com/2014/07/seconds-review-bryan-lee-omalley-serves-up-a-new-graphic-novel/">Seconds</a></i> that I'm particularly pleased with) though occasionally I touch on <a href="http://agentsofgeek.com/2014/07/snowpierecer-is-what-great-sci-fi-is-supposed-to-be-review/">film as well. </a><br />
<br />
It's a good crew over there so give it a look. </div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-18021627478147272272014-05-10T06:51:00.001-07:002014-05-10T06:52:33.730-07:00A Fan's Note<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b><br />
</b><br />
"If the crux of ardent fanhood holds a touch or more of madness, then
Cleveland fanhood is a bug eyed, shit smeared lunatic, howling for a God who's
never going to come." <b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br />
Scott Raab, <i>The Whore
Of Akron<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br />
"<span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It's easy to win.
Anybody can win.”<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Philip K. Dick, <i>Scanner Darkly</i></span></span></div>
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What does it mean when the awfulness of the only team you've
ever truly loved is so apparent that their unrelenting shittiness is considered
a fitting premise for a film? When their incompetence is so taken for granted that
the feelings that others hold for your team have moved past derision into the
realms of condescension and finally, most terribly, pity. This was a question I
had cause to contemplate as I waited in line to purchase my ticket for <i>Draft Day</i>, a movie whose entire plot is
set upon the crux of how much The Browns suck at football.<br />
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Not that I had cause
for a lot of hope going in. Kevin Costner hasn't exactly been raking in the
quality scripts lately and by my count Ivan Reitman hasn't made a watchable
film in twenty years. <i>Ghostbusters</i> notwithstanding I don't
have the affection for his earlier work that others of my generation have (surely
I cannot be the only one who thinks that <i>Meatballs</i>
would work much better without the bizarrely prolonged quasi rape scene). But
one's team is not the subject of a film everyday and I'm nothing if not loyal.</div>
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<br />
For years I've answered questions about The Browns with a
sheepish grin and a quick change of subject (but always honestly). When pressed
on why I'll say something about growing up watching them. That is only a half
truth. </div>
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<br />
Because I really didn't start to enjoy watching football
until my late teens. So the post season contending "cardiac kids" of
the late eighties were never a conscience memory for me. What is a conscience
memory are the nineteen starting quarterbacks we've had since the reformation
(count 'em). It's watching with a slack jaw as Jeff Garcia whipped the ball
into a referee's crotch with sniper's precision and force. It's Brandon Weeden
managing to trap himself under a giant American flag during the pregame. It's
having my heart broken watching <i>Jim
Brown: All American</i> as the documentary about the greatest player ever to
wear a Browns uniform <i>opened</i> with
Brown giving a pep talk to the Baltimore Ravens and declaring that Art Modell,
AKA the worst man who ever lived, should immediately be inducted into the hall
of fame. It's watching Peyton Manning throw a game to get home field advantage
in the post season, keeping us out of the playoffs with a 10-6 record in the
process. It's watching hyped saviors without number be they Kellen Winslow,
Braylon Edwards, Brady Quinn or Peyton Hillis all fail to deliver and implode
spectacularly. It's about watching Mike Holmgren suck salary as a GM, doing
about as much to earn it as a statue of a walrus carved from platinum would
have. It's about a never ending litany of, "Holy shit what's
next?" </div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/T8SsCqpa-Lk" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
Most of all it's never giving up hope in all that time.
Never being content to be the lovable losers, (as one friend has been known to
growl between quarters, "We're not the fucking Cubs"). We go into
every season genuinely believing that it will be different this year, or at
least there's a chance it will be. <br />
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So why do I do it to myself? </div>
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<br />
In part I watch The Browns because it connects me to
Cleveland. A city I love but will never truly be a part of. I've spent enough
time there to have it permanently influence who I am (not to mention instill a
life long craving of Swenson's Galleyboys). Though many of the people I have
loved the most in my life live and have died there, it will never be home the
way that California, or even Austin is. I go there as a welcomed outsider and
when I do visit it's almost as if I spend my time looking for an alternate
universe version of myself; one that I am keenly in tune with every Sunday in
the fall. Or maybe I can't help but relate to something that has been on the
receiving end of so much love and support and yet never comes within swiping
distance of achieving its full potential. </div>
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<br />
I watch The Browns because it's taught me the value of
loving something that doesn't love you back. Something that doesn't make its
rewards immediately evident. The love of a fan that has never been tested is a
poor and brittle thing. Dynasties are pumped up by fair weather fans and
bandwagoners. Anyone can love a winner; it takes character to do the other
thing. It takes pride to love something that long. There are of course the
fleeting moments of glory and the friendships one makes with fellow expats and
true believers. In other words I'd say being a Browns fan has done me good and
will do me good and I saw God bless it. Keep your humbugs I will stay with
Dayenu.</div>
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<i><br />Draft Day</i> gets
that. I don't want to oversell the movie. It's less the kind of film that will
blow you away as it is the kind that will pleasantly surprise you on cable or
netflix, its pleasures are modest. Modest but real, it's the good Kevin Costner
who's shown up this time, grumpy, stoic but charming and Jennifer Garner and
Dennis Leary both make surprisingly good foils for him. The movie has a deep bench as they say, with
an enjoyable ensemble populated by the likes of Frank Langella, Terry Crews,
Pat Healy, Chadwick Boseman, Ellen Burstyn, Sam Elliott. Hell even Diddy and
Tom Welling acquit themselves well. The script is filled with a few exchanges
that really crackle and Reitman mostly gets out of their way, shooting in two
shots and editing to their rhythm (only a few distractingly permeable split
screens spoil the effect). Reitman shoots Cleveland without indulging in rust
belt condescension, or trying to glamour
it up. A montage set to a sports radio, starting with the team's
extending to the hopeful of today sums it up beautifully.</div>
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<i><br />Draft Day</i> may
ultimately be nothing more than comfort food for fans who need it ("I
cried like six times," said the friend I went with, I suspect he was only
half joking). Nothing more than a fantasy. But it is a fantasy that looks
appealingly achievable. I know the day is coming. I'll be waiting for it this
Autumn and the next and the next. </div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-7928874733931598352014-02-28T10:41:00.001-08:002014-05-10T06:54:30.651-07:00Night Film<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3AqLkbmwadRazxutUwroCoVOgoZY9uAUMQX6oJralX3NgmEjUTGdhEO0u8m1rPGy583yV4J557T2Du6wgI8QKAI12eQ1h_4OXPvgbfSM-2eXjMbMD6y0S4IDBOSmbvJypxRg0XX_V1uK/s1600/Pessl_Night-Film.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3AqLkbmwadRazxutUwroCoVOgoZY9uAUMQX6oJralX3NgmEjUTGdhEO0u8m1rPGy583yV4J557T2Du6wgI8QKAI12eQ1h_4OXPvgbfSM-2eXjMbMD6y0S4IDBOSmbvJypxRg0XX_V1uK/s1600/Pessl_Night-Film.jpg" height="400" width="267" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The term "literary thriller" is one of those phrases that is almost always taken as a pejorative even if it is rarely meant as such.
The implication from the genre side being that the author is too self
conscience to really deliver the genre goods and from the literary side that
however good it might be it is still only a thriller old chap. The unspoken
agreement is that everyone would have been happier if they had just stayed
where they belonged. </div>
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<br />
But then you have a book like <i>Night Film</i> for which no other
term will do. Marisha Pessl's novel is a dark mystery that has more on its mind
than its solution, a horror novel that might not be a horror novel but then
again might very well be, a thriller where the hero spends most of the time
running, terrified he's about to get his ass kicked. In other words, it's a
literary thriller and is intermittently brilliant as it is frustrating. </div>
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<i><br /></i>
<i>Night Film</i> follows McGrath a journalist, disgraced in the
aftermath of a disastrous investigation of a reclusive cult filmmaker Cordova.
Cordova, a filmmaker of Kubrick's genius and Argento's perversity, who bears a pronounced resemblance
to David Lynch on a Rolling Stone cover we get a look at, has been a recluse
for years, isolating himself at his private studio "The Peak" and
releasing a series of increasingly disturbing films to increasingly rabid fans
who put the cult in cult audience. Cordova fed McGrath false information
through an anonymous source that McGrath was all too eager to release,
destroying his career in the process. Now years later Cordova's daughter
commits suicide and McGrath realizes that the mysterious young woman had been
trying to contact him. He launches an investigation into her death, searching
for the information she may have been trying to deliver, plunging himself back
into the disturbing world around Cordova. Recruiting two young witnesses to the
daughter's final days, they begin investigating the people closest to Cordova
and his daughter, drawing out a portrait of them second hand like an occult
Citizen Kane. </div>
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The book builds the presence of Cordova well, through a series
of news stories, blog posts and message boards that get the tone just right.
But it's also in this key information that the cracks start to show. At one
point a character describes a later film of Cordova's as "his first out
and out horror film," before going on to describe a series of earlier films
that sound a hell of a lot like horror films. I might sound like I'm nitpicking
here, but for a book that is about and has been marketed to a group of people
as minutia obsessed as cinephiles, these details matter. Much more problematic
is the treatment of McGrath's character, who
despite the fact we are told over and over again that has been
disgraced and out of work for years has no problem affording his Manhattan
apartment and solves nearly every problem he comes across by throwing money at
it. I'm not asking for a fifty page account of McGrath's financial woes, but the incongruity between McGrath's
life and means is indicative of Pessl's worst tendencies as a novelist. It
smacks of laziness, shorthand, of assuming no one will notice because it is
"just a thriller" and who the hell cares about character consistency?
The shorthand comes in other ways too, I don't know if it was an editor or
agent who told Pessl that genre fiction <i>has</i>
to have at <i>least</i> forty <i>percent</i> of its <i>words</i> <i>italicized</i> but
whoever did should have <i>one </i>of <i>their teeth</i> knocked <i>out </i>so every time they <i>run
</i>their <i>tongue </i>over the <i>divot </i>that has been <i>left </i>there they <i>remember </i>not to give
that kind of shitty <i>advice</i>. </div>
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And yet when <i>Night Film</i> works, it kills. The dual Cordova's
make compelling figures all the more entrancing for being so elusive and Pessl's central trio is likable. The mystery she
builds around Ashley's final days is well constructed. She (for the most part)
takes the time to make the details of Cordova's fictional Oeuvre feel right, as
well as the obsessives who surround them. Individual set pieces like the
wonderfully disorienting raid on The Peak, which features a remarkably matter
of fact glimpse at the supernatural, are best in class stuff. </div>
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And then we come to the ending...</div>
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Often times the thing that truly marks a literary thriller
is lack of confidence. The author feels too self conscience about the
supernatural or other gauche elements of the genre and has to build themselves
an out. While I have no intention of revealing the final elements of Pessl's
story, suffice it to say it starts to look like Pessl intends to do that, but
then she doesn't, not quite not really. <br />
<br />
Normally "ambiguous" endings are all too often an excuse by authors
to play to tie. And while you could easily accuse Pessl of doing that, I don't
think that's quite it. The ending of <i>Night Film</i> does not so much play to a draw as
it puts a cunning opponent in a stalemate. Which is not the same thing. The
ending of <i>Night Film</i>, which could have easily felt no more profound than a
stoned dorm mate taking a bong hit and saying, "Like the truth is pretty
hard to know if you think about it," is instead genuinely disquieting. A sense
that though we are skipping out before all is revealed that is A OK with us
because we may not want to have all be revealed. <br />
<br />
All of <i>Night Film</i> is like that, just when you think it can be safely dismissed,
just as you're sure you can write it off as a disappointment it outmaneuvers
your expectations in a way that is well... literary. </div>
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...<br />
<br />
A few other matters of importance:<br />
<br />
If you're reading this site you probably already know who Jeremy Richey is, which is why you would also know that it's a very, very good thing for film fans at large that he is starting his own print magazine. A print magazine that I just so happen to be slated to contribute to. I'm extremely excited at the prospect of writing for Art Decades and its humbling to be included with such a great slate of writers.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/art-decades">Jeremy is currently running an Indiegogo campaign to help with set up expenses and if you'd contribute you would have our thanks. </a><br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
I'm equally enthused to be working once again with Muriel Awards. AKA what would happen if film awards were picked by folks who actually cared about film. It's always a blast to read the carefully considered pieces that go up each year, and this years slate has been particularly good.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://murielcommunity.blogspot.com/">Check it out. </a></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-80779527667081985882014-01-03T20:36:00.002-08:002014-01-05T08:46:54.275-08:00Top Ten Films Of 2013<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
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<strong>6<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Annual Southland Tales Award For Film I Liked For No Damn Reason: The Great Gatsby:</strong></div>
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In all fairness this one could also have easily slipped into Overhated. While Luhrman’s take on <em>Gatsby</em> is certainly, if we are to be generous, a misinterpretation (Psst… Daisy is not supposed to be a good person). There is more than enough here to make it worth watching. DiCaprio himself makes a fine Gatsby his boyish charisma changed to boyish insecurity, his natural charm a thin veneer. But the complaints about the film’s style crossed the line into bizarre. Luhrman is an acquired taste and his take on the material is certainly distinct but what the hell did the people complaining about the gaudiness expect? I’d just as soon watch a staid, restrained<em> Great Gatsby</em> as I would a staid, restrained <em>Titus Andronicus</em>. Luhrman’s Gatsby may not be perfect, but at least it’s not embalmed. <br />
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<strong>Overhated: Man Of Steel:</strong> No it wasn’t the perfect Superman film we were all promised but like all of Zack Snyder’s films <em>The Man Of Steel</em> was just eccentric and weird enough to make me really like it. Prog Rock Record Cover Krypton was fun. Digital Jedi Russell Crowe was fun. General Zod as played by 70’s Christopher Walken as portrayed by Michael Shannon was fun. The ending was apocalyptic but caused more genuine dread than anything I’ve seen in a blockbuster that comes to mind. As for the neck crack heard round the world, look I didn’t hear you all complaining when Christopher Reeve straight up tossed three people into a bottomless pit. <br />
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<strong>Underrated: Elysium:</strong> Sometimes it just plain feels like no one had as much fun with a film as you did. But how that was possible when the film in question involved a Cyborg Hobo Samurai played by Sharlto Copley, the most impressively realized Sci Fi world this side of <em>Children Of Men</em> and gore that would make <em>Dead Alive</em> era Peter Jackson blink, I am still not sure. It might not be subtle but then again neither was <em>Metropolis</em>. <br />
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<strong>Most Pleasant Surprise: Oz The Great And Powerful:</strong> With words of reshoots and a few iffy trailers I walked into <em>Oz</em> full of apprehension. But while <em>Oz</em> might be a second tier Raimi film, never quite reaching the emotional depth it’s striving for, it is a Raimi film through and through. A PG <em>Army Of Darkness</em> driven by an eccentric sense of humor, a genuine generosity and doesn’t skimp on its horror imagery. As pleasing and unexpected as a china girl with a butcher’s knife.<br />
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<strong>Most Disapointing: Carrie:</strong> The only movie of 2013 that left me genuinely heart sick. A waste of potential on every level so flagrant that it’s downright criminal. <br />
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<b>Worst: Parker:</b> Nearly as criminal as reimaging Donald Westlake’s consummate sociopathic motherfucker of the ages as a cuddly robin hood type with a strict list of moral rules. Fuck you. <br />
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<strong>10. Much Ado About Nothing:</strong> Call it slight, so is the play. But Joss Whedon’s noir restaging plays to his strengths. All of them. From his affection for his cast and characters, only matched by his love of putting them through the shredder. Simply put, <em>Much Ado About Nothing</em> is tailor made for Whedon and while it can be argued that all he does is get out of the plays way, that’s A) infinitely better than getting in the play’s way (see Branaugh, Kenneth) and B) It’s Shakespeare what else does he need to do? Call me undiscerning but I can’t help but be thoroughly happy watching a great filmmaker pull off one of my favorite love stories with this level of ease. “Get thee a wife,” indeed.<br />
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<strong>9. A Band Called Death:</strong> I cannot imagine anyone who has ever tried to create any kind of art walking away from <em>A Band Called Death</em> without being enormously affected by it. Not so much a recording as a redress, <em>A Band Called Death</em> is a funny, moving portrait of the joy of creating music, fraternal love and that of a man who never lost faith that he had created something worthwhile even as he lost his grip on himself. If you’re not smiling when the end credits role I think there might be a part of you missing. <br />
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<strong>8. Pacific Rim:</strong> No film plastered as sloppy of a smile on my face as this one. Del Toro once again unleashes his imagination on the biggest canvas he’s gotten to play with yet and the results are as always spectacular and singular. Genuine imagination and heart are rare qualities in movies, and nearly extinct in blockbusters. Del Toro has told a story that digs up your inner twelve year old and gives it a high five, and does so with more exuberance than seems strictly possible. <br />
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<strong>7. Lords Of Salem:</strong> It’s been a strange mixture of bizarre and gratifying watching the response to this film. For every Noel Murray, Tim Brayton, Kevin Olson, and Bill Ryan (though he may deny it) who has gotten behind it, there have been people whose response has been downright hostile. I’ve had not one but two people literally insult me to my face for daring to recommend a Rob Zombie film to them. It’s been strange. </div>
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Which is fitting because as I said in my review <em>Lords Of Salem</em> is one weird fucking movie. To quote the aforementioned Mr. Brayton it does genuinely feel like Dario Argento suddenly remembered how to make movies again and tried to atone for <em>Mother Of Tears</em> with a fourth“Sisters” movie. It’s a film with its own queasy unique energy that burrows under your skin and stays there. <br />
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<strong>6. Before Midnight:</strong> Even with all of the praise that has been heaped upon it I still think<em> Before Midnight </em>has been underrated. People haven’t acknowledged just what a risk it really was. As lovely and true as the first two films in the sequence ring they’re both idealizations to the point of being fairy tales. Before Midnight takes that idealization and dumps on fifteen pounds of reality stuffed in a twelve pound bag. Creating one of the most caustic relationship movies this side of <em>Husbands And Wives.</em> It could easily have fucked everything up. Instead in a way that feels damn near alchemic <em>Before Midnight</em> doesn’t just work well on its own, it makes <em>Before Sunrise</em> and <em>Before Sunset</em> into better movies. It’s bitter, but never hopeless and all the more moving for being so hard won. <br />
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<strong>5. To The Wonder:</strong> A lot of people came down hard on this one and while it is the least of Malick’s films I cannot help but be still be overwhelmed by it. In part the frustration is understandable, at its core <em>To The Wonder</em> is a story of failed grace, and that by definition is going to be frustrating. And yet it’s such a beautiful and moving portrait of an attempt, anchored by a performance by Javier Bardem so naturalistic that I am fairly certain that most of the cast was simply not told that he wasn’t actually a priest. Make no mistake, this one is going to endure. <br />
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<strong>4. Gravity:</strong> I’m pretty sure that the breath I inhaled during the opening credits of <em>Gravity</em> is the same one I exhaled as the final credits began to roll. It’s as pure a visercial experience as I’ve had in a film, as if Cuaron somehow extended the car chase sequence in <em>Children Of Men</em> to feature length. Yet those dismissing it as such are missing the point.<em> Like To The Wonder, Gravity</em> is a work of poetry not prose. It doesn’t need any justification, it justifies itself. <br />
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<strong>3. The World’s End:</strong> I’ve talked to people who have had fairly uncomfortable reactions to this movie and that’s kind of why I love it. Make no mistake The World’s End is bleak. A movie that starts at rock bottom and continues to tunnel until it explodes like a depth charge and starts the stunning comic anarchy of its last two acts. That bleakness never leaves the film, few lines have rung as bitter and true as “Nothing happened.” (one of the exceptions being “I fucked up my life because I like the way you sing.”) </div>
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Like all of Wright’s films <em>The World’s End</em> functions both as a parody of its genre and a superlative example of it. Ending with a kind of brazen pride in the fact that humanities defining attribute might be its ability to fuck things up. Now please tell me that Roger Moore has a part in Ant Man.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvojIYMBlryLouMP7algpJrNPeF9zvhWnK1umHW_WVJmzxPLnjhGV1UZlq8KTHP2LWbpgZX-x_SdXBSbP9S0n7kXlYd0k_yqf53qvIkvDziFPCrd0h8_z3jbYHGCQQGAZz2BPZ9bDAjtXa/s1600/upstream_color_xlg%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvojIYMBlryLouMP7algpJrNPeF9zvhWnK1umHW_WVJmzxPLnjhGV1UZlq8KTHP2LWbpgZX-x_SdXBSbP9S0n7kXlYd0k_yqf53qvIkvDziFPCrd0h8_z3jbYHGCQQGAZz2BPZ9bDAjtXa/s400/upstream_color_xlg%5B1%5D.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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<strong>2. Upstream Color</strong>: Remember the first time you saw a David Lynch movie, before you were exposed to endless repetition, parody and attempts to ape his style. Remember the pervasive wrongness of it all and the horrid intractable logic behind it. Now take that feeling of unease and make it absolutely heart broken as two people try and rebuild in the aftermath of what can only be described as a mental rape, and you’ll maybe start to get why <em>Upstream Color</em> is among the most remarkable experiences I had in a theater this year. </div>
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<strong>1. The Wolf Of Wall Street</strong>: This is a film that’s almost hard to write about given just how infuriating some of the willful misinterpretations of it have been. Suffice to say if you cannot tell that Scorsese holds Belaforte and all that he represents in complete contempt, even after showcases a room full of men in five figure suit beating their chests and yowling like the apes at the beginning of <em>2001</em> before the monolith civilized them, even after he casts himself as Belaforte's first victim, even after he has them recreate part of Dryer’s <em>Joan Of Arc</em>, even after he has them repeat the <em>Freaks</em> chant for the love of Christ, then I’m not sure how you’ve found your way to the internet to deliver your opinions. Make no mistake this is Scorsese's depiction of hell no less than Shutter Island, with Matthew McConaughey serving as a cornpone Mephistopheles. </div>
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It is Scorsese’s genius that he doesn’t treat Belafortes story with any kind of dignity or gravitas but warps it into a degenerate farce. This is Scorsese’s most Felliniesque film (he would have loved the midget tossing) with displays of degenerency that would be at home in a surrealist film if they weren’t, you know, real. </div>
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As far as I'm concerned at this point DiCaprio's collaboration with Scorsese is every bit the equal to Scorsese's with DeNiro. They both dig into to playing a character with no redeeming facets, nor any interest in acquiring them, DiCaprio in particular throwing himself into the role with such abandon that it makes the days when he passed on Patrick Bateman because he was afraid it'd look bad for his image seem like a surreal memory. Whether it's having a lit candle jammed up his ass, or the already legendary Quaaludes scene, a work of extended physical comedy that makes the most outlandish of Jerry Lewis and Jim Carrey look restrained and dignified there's a dedication that's stunning. </div>
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71 years old and Scorsese still hits harder, more creativity and with better accuracy than filmmakers half his age can dream of. As long as he's making movies I look forward to many more years as good as this one. </div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-87629478755524522312013-12-31T19:42:00.000-08:002013-12-31T20:06:13.507-08:00Top Ten Oh Bloody Hell Eleven Books Of 2013<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGY7oQOLfMGIvt9roccAyFUqn4KBK4om0Frje-nuoO6OHniozA4km5JRtIyGZDi__tD7Zgn8TyGYn7aJsdIs1JnVwrMMEeJIrLRUDgoSNGkXomlHCVehgUK2aEh5x7e051YK4uwO_e1TSH/s1600/9781439142004_custom-7e81f0840812e7c2097afb8f1ed7955662489442-s6-c30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGY7oQOLfMGIvt9roccAyFUqn4KBK4om0Frje-nuoO6OHniozA4km5JRtIyGZDi__tD7Zgn8TyGYn7aJsdIs1JnVwrMMEeJIrLRUDgoSNGkXomlHCVehgUK2aEh5x7e051YK4uwO_e1TSH/s400/9781439142004_custom-7e81f0840812e7c2097afb8f1ed7955662489442-s6-c30.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
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<b>11) The Flamethrowers:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Following a rootless young woman as she drifts from the Bonneville
salt flats, through the pretentious art scene of 70’s New York and into violent
revolution in Italy, The Flame Throwers paints a portrait of a character who is
adrift in a world that is unmoored. Written with an eye for character, place, a
wry sense of humor and a just this side of detached style that recalls vintage
McMurtry, but wedded to a sinister undercurrent and global spanning, time
slipping narrative that makes it feel like something else entirely, <i>The
Flamethrowers</i> is hypnotic, ineffably disturbing and unlike anything else I read
this year. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>10) The Ocean At The End
Of The Lane:<o:p></o:p></b><br />
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Neil Gaiman’s fable is deceptively slight and simple, but
like all of the great man’s work it contains multitudes. Bringing the mystery and terror of childhood to life in a way that few books have. </div>
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<b>9) Double Feature:<o:p></o:p></b><br />
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What more canbe said of<i> Double Feature</i> than that one critical
moment of schadenfreude made me laugh so hard in public that I actually
disturbed passersby? It's not isolated either, and a consultation with a severely incapacitated poetry professor provoked a laugh nearly as loud. To give too much of the plot away would be the very
definition of spoiling the fun, suffice it to say that <i>Double Feature</i> follows
the estranged son of a B movie icon, whose own career as an aspiring director
takes some unexpected turns. Intercutting a modern day Amisian farce with wistful remembrances of the initial fracturing of the father son relationship. Funny and
humane, <i>Double Feature's </i>final chapters do wraps things up just a touch too neatly. But then again
there are far worse sins for a novelist to have than an abundance of
generosity towards his characters. Funny novelists are rare, funny novelists free of misanthropy are
virtually as common as Dodos. I eagerly await King’s next book. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>8) The Double:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Despite featuring what is without a doubt the worst author’s
photo I have ever seen, George Pelecanos delivered a superb sequel to <i>The Cut.</i>
As he did two decades ago with <i>Nick’s Trip </i>Pelecanos really finds his rhythm on his second go round. The Double deepens Spero
Lucas, an Iraqi war veteran who works as a PI, making
him a flawed man who try as he might can’t solve everything. And who Pelecanos seems
to understand to his core. The plot of <i>The Double</i> starts with a neat set up and
ends with a fray of unsolved strands and unavenged deeds, with Lucas not so
much saving the day as performing triage the best he can. Pelecanos tends to
abandon reoccurring characters after three or four books, but I truly hope he
shoots for a longer run with Lucas. He has a rare hero here and despite his flaws Lucas earns that designation, one with a lot to learn and a lot to lose.
Most authors would kill for a character this rich. I eagerly await seeing him
do so. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>7) In One Person:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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About fifteen years ago Tom Wolfe engaged in a vicious feud
with John Irving and I’m not even going to pretend I was on Irving’s side. But
looking at their last two novels side by side I cannot help but feel that some
particularly vicious act of literary karma has taken place. Wolfe has descended
into shrill self parody going from one of the most engaged working writers to
one of our most tone deaf, meanwhile Irving has produced two of his most vital
works. Novels every bit as strong as those he wrote in his eighties heyday. I’m
not saying Voodoo is involved but I’m not saying it’s not. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Either way<i> In One Person</i> is a remarkable novel. Crafted with
Irving’s trademark open heartedness. This is simply put one of the most
sympathetic novels, let alone mainstream novels, involving transgendered
sexuality, or hell sexuality in general, that I've come across. Funny, tragic sweeping
and generous <i>In One Person</i> shows Irving’s skills to be fully intact. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<b>6 & 5) Doctor Sleep, Joyland<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br />
As do these two numbers. As I've written before I was
genuinely frightened that reengaging with one of his best works would derail
King’s late period winning streak, I needn't have feared. <i>Doctor Sleep</i> shows
King doing what he does best, ripping into a porterhouse of a narrative,
populating it with characters both light and dark worth getting invested in and
setting up stakes that truly matter. King doesn't try and best <i>The Shining</i>, he
just uses it as a base to tell one hell of a yarn. And if it takes it’s time
getting started it’s only because how clearly it all matters to King, both the
legacy of his original novel and Torrance’s experiences with addiction and
recovery which feel nearly as raw as the material in <i>On Writing. </i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Joyland</i>, is a slighter novel, but no less pleasurable. Time,
place and character have always been King’s tools as a novelist and <i>Joyland
</i>excels at all three. Even if it does occasionally feel as though King would
like to pull a <i>Colorado Kid </i>and just forget the whole mystery thing. A few fans groused that together they
represented a softer King, this being the same guy who recently wrote the end of <i>Duma Key, Full
Dark No Stars</i>, and cheerfully BBQed an entire town at the climax of <i>Under The
Dome</i>. But as I said of his son’s novel, generosity is no vice in a novelist. Watching King practice his craft over the last
seven years has been a pleasure. I can’t wait for the next three decades or so.
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzudYLRtMJJN2LTNw2y67hAat1vVxRbvf3aIrLcwmUkXq2RDqG7LOzphWD2k3ewz7wOA0owr0gs1KwYUPKHgUDFWYoZZw5PyLW8eyMj8eH3R87349uN4YtPE7BVMnm9haede07uAD1zvSk/s1600/Republic+of+Thieves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzudYLRtMJJN2LTNw2y67hAat1vVxRbvf3aIrLcwmUkXq2RDqG7LOzphWD2k3ewz7wOA0owr0gs1KwYUPKHgUDFWYoZZw5PyLW8eyMj8eH3R87349uN4YtPE7BVMnm9haede07uAD1zvSk/s400/Republic+of+Thieves.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<br />
<b>4) The Republic Of Thieves:</b> Now this is an interesting little
bugger. No one in the fantasy genre writes quite as well as Scott Lynch. Oh
sure Patrick Rothfuss has the whole conversational literary style down pat, and
Sanderson has his efficient world building and can plot like a mofo. But where Rothfuss can
occasionally be ponderous when his humor fails him and slide into self parody
when his reach exceeds his grasp (“Bless the moon for sending me this lusty
young manling” and so forth) Lynch slides through his narratives with the
propulsion of a con man convincing you to get a second mortgage. And while
Sanderson makes his world building unobtrusive Lynch makes exploring his world
feel not like a chore but <i>fun</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Lynch through fans for a loop by backing away from the high
stakes of the first two novels for what seems like a particularly ingenious
game of Spy Versus Spy. For all but the last thirty pages or so of the six
hundred fifty page novel, all that seems at stake for the characters in <i>The
Republic Of Thieves</i> is their hearts. It is testament to Lynch’s skill that
seven year hiatus or no, this seems more than enough. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNVbm1-PypVVV0l9vLyyvMKKyfF3QVuvW1_3FGExZwVBcO7BZGrWiOWQ7aFoMt9qpCQPslMDK5wBHKxHPrEzex1RSvuJsDFyndkaYa6A5CAtF98WjIQGwoAN3na1VaYQHu6gjyDdbpEV7H/s1600/9781451626889_custom-34aa90e0dfe1556b4ed1df1b3a306645748378f5-s6-c30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNVbm1-PypVVV0l9vLyyvMKKyfF3QVuvW1_3FGExZwVBcO7BZGrWiOWQ7aFoMt9qpCQPslMDK5wBHKxHPrEzex1RSvuJsDFyndkaYa6A5CAtF98WjIQGwoAN3na1VaYQHu6gjyDdbpEV7H/s400/9781451626889_custom-34aa90e0dfe1556b4ed1df1b3a306645748378f5-s6-c30.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>3) You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me:</b><o:p></o:p><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
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If you know Nathan Rabin, chances are you will be
unprepared. I walked into <i>You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me</i>, expecting
one of Rabin’s trademark outsider looking in works. In the vein of his famous
Year(s) Of Flops, or his sojourn through country music. That’s not what this
is. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
<i>You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me</i>, is one of those
happy books that increases your good opinion of the author (especially nice
when you already like the author in question a great deal). Showing him capable
of more than you expected. S<i>imply put You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me</i>
is self laceratingly honest, incredibly dedicated and howlingly funny. Rabin
never condescends to his subject matter and instead throws himself into the
loathed subculture of The Juggallos and Phishheads with an intensity that
recalls Hunter Thompson’s <i>Hell’s Angels.</i> No I’m not shitting you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Take that aforementioned work and mix it with the hurt,
passion and soul of Scott Raab’s <i>The Whore Akron </i>and you might have some idea
of what <i>You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me</i> reads like. Buy it. Buy it now.
The next three books might be “better” but <i>You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like
Me i</i>s easily the most undervalued book of the year. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
<b>3)Bleeding Edge:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br />
This is the first Thomas Pynchon novel that hasn't read as
a period piece to me (which is not to say the first he has written) and to be
honest that kind of sort of scares the shit out of me. But it’s hard to be
unnerved for so long when the man holding the fun house mirror up to your own
time is such a charming host. <i>Bleeding Edge</i> has all the head long energy, virtuosity, absurdest humor and manic paranoia of Pynchon’s best work. A cross between the
Gospel according to Groucho Marx and Kafka’s <i>Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Pynchon remains line by line the most brilliantly
unpredictable writer I've come across. Like a man who walks into a drawing room
with a sledgehammer which he uses to tap out a delicate version of Fur Elise.
Slapstick broad one page (Perhaps no moment of my reading in 2013 was quite so
odd as realizing that Thomas Pynchon had made a fucking Daikatana joke), almost
unbearably delicate and poignant the next.<br />
<br />
Like King Pynchon hasn't so much
softened as he has chosen to highlight elements of his work that served as a
background hum. Here he adds a wholly unexpected portrait of observant Judaism
sans the usual neuroticism and regret, as well as a dedicated portrait of family life.
Neither of which shield Pynchon’s heroine from his trademark waves of
conspiracy and counter conspiracy and shadowy organizations who never quite
coalesce. But which, Pynchon seems to suggest, might serve as consolation enough.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
The world Pynchon writes is the world I see outside my own window
(how perfectly Pynchonian was PRISM?) this is welcome news.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<br />
<b>2) The Wes Anderson Collection:</b> Matt Zoller Seitz’s <i>The Wes
Anderson Collection</i> isn’t merely a scrupulous piece of criticism blended with
an incisive career spanning interview. Instead it is a book with such a keen
understanding of its subject that the book feels less like a book on Anderson
as his films as it does an object from one of Anderson films. Few books have
brought me as much pleasure. In fact only one book has…<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhogEgtjWjp4b5OXQc20hv4sXYj9g1kXhHInBdD51DWD3Nwdew1DHb3yYQorLEsSLnxLvTrT7lYGFUeU4oK4vXbIfyH5x7PMWMJAVI3IeYwEFeTn06l-5IDqbA_JU-YpwF2XXFaoMXJR3X6/s1600/51783ed84aeda.preview-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhogEgtjWjp4b5OXQc20hv4sXYj9g1kXhHInBdD51DWD3Nwdew1DHb3yYQorLEsSLnxLvTrT7lYGFUeU4oK4vXbIfyH5x7PMWMJAVI3IeYwEFeTn06l-5IDqbA_JU-YpwF2XXFaoMXJR3X6/s400/51783ed84aeda.preview-300.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>1) N0S4A2:</b> It seems dismissive to describe <i>N0S4A2 </i>as a complete blast
and dishonest to call it anything else. At it’s core it’s a page turner, with a
stripped down roaring engine of a story. The kind of book that has you glancing
at your clock at 3AM as you try and convince yourself that you’ll function
perfectly fine at work with five hours of sleep so you might sneak in a few
more chapters.<br />
<br /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But it only works that deviously because of how thoroughly
Hill invests himself in his characters and in his world. <i>N0S4A2 </i>isn't a
throwaway, and Hill’s empty devils and tattered angels aren't merely cardboard
cut outs and or victims. But people who matter. Hill’s darkness is not simply
the darkness of grotesquery but the darkness within the human heart, to be
rejected or fed at our will. He gives evil its weight, and as a result good
gets its own as well. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Simply put <i>N0S4A2 </i>is a great story told to its full
potential by a master storyteller in full command of his craft. And if there’s
anything better than that I haven’t found it. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-76156200502731777842013-12-17T13:26:00.003-08:002013-12-17T13:26:46.448-08:00Unlockeing Keyhouse
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After 5 years and 40
densely imaginative issues <i>Locke & Key</i> is drawing to a close on Wednesday. And I'm going to lose my monthly dose of literary smack. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So in tribute to what has been for my money the best book on the racks for over the last half decade. I want to do a little something different. Rather than look back on the highlights of the run I think I'll let you discover them for yourself. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But <em>Locke & Key </em>also offers a puzzle of another sort. Hill is a
novelist and has peppered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Locke & Key</i>
with all sorts of literary references. Some are fun tributes, others offer
hints to the mechanics of Hill’s world offered nowhere else in the text, some might hint at whatever end is coming tomorrow. Here
are a few of the more prominent ones. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">H.P. Lovecraft:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <i>Locke & Key</i> follows three siblings,
Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, who move with their Mother from California to their
ancestral home of Lovecraft, Maine in the wake of a family tragedy. There they
find themselves heir to their family legacy, a series of reality bending keys.
If you are in a horror story there are few worse ideas than moving to a place
called Lovecraft Maine. Perhaps only Satansberg, OH and
That-Place-Where-All-Those-Camp-Counselors-Were-Butchered, TN can compete.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Lovecraft influence
actually lay dormant for most of <i>Locke & Key’s</i> run as the book
developed its own intricate mythology. But the Lovecraft DNA reared its head
with a vengeance in the first issue of the <i>Clockworks </i>arc, “The
Lockesmith’s Son”. Revealing (via a fantastic <i>Drag Me To Hell</i> reference)
that the mysterious Black Door buried beneath the ancestral Locke home leads to
the Lovecraftian Gods, the Great Old Ones. Making it approximately the 798</span><span style="font-size: small;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> portal to the Great Old Ones that protagonists in horror fiction
have stumbled upon.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have mixed feelings
about Hill making the Lovecraft connection explicit- well explicter. On one
hand it’s not the first time Hill has used the device, his novella “Voluntary
Committal” hinged on a similar reveal. But as Lovecraft himself noted, “…the
oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown" and ironically
Lovecraftian horror has become a very well known quantity. Hill’s homebrewed
mythology was up until that point not. Which brings us to…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdEDELCu9dGHjdqH0Y-GBQj-oKlxY4nsJ5_XKtRZVktTgLItk62dIXm1fi7_8CM1-sbIHY2p7OpvB0wJNBKT_yVF3arbbWV6SsvJQBLu-Lnl-p90W6NvPbXJLETVHPeUsSY9C8ip_lwK6/s1600/51783ed84aeda.preview-300%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdEDELCu9dGHjdqH0Y-GBQj-oKlxY4nsJ5_XKtRZVktTgLItk62dIXm1fi7_8CM1-sbIHY2p7OpvB0wJNBKT_yVF3arbbWV6SsvJQBLu-Lnl-p90W6NvPbXJLETVHPeUsSY9C8ip_lwK6/s400/51783ed84aeda.preview-300%5B1%5D.jpg" width="263" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">N0S4A2: </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In Hill’s latest (and absolutely phenomenal)
novel, <i>N0S4A2 </i>the Locke Family makes a cameo on a list of Inscapers. <i>N0S4A2</i>
was an ambitious book, among other things it ties Hill’s previous work into one
cohesive universe using the concept of Inscaping.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To simplify, Inscaping
is the power to make imaginary things real, or to be more precise, the ability
to bring the things inside of your head into the real world, whether they’re
actual physical things or abstract concepts (such as when Kinsey Locke first
removed and then imprisoned her capacity for grief and fear). Hill uses the
Head Key to literalize the process, which allows characters to physically open
the mind and access whatever is within it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Inscapers can be
benevolent or malevolent but all eventually pay a great price for the use of
their ability. The Lockes are no exception. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5zJaXOLwje4423o-ilEiVYykUPwXsu7DDrfLPPZAGh8ncCAwvaeUv9KxgvuyvrAhFxtikVok9VreGdhQbD-vkEhSR2dIiQFjEAhuOKebrH46jkNmvaPPwW_zwfMZG3zv1gQ6Ky4C784b/s1600/prv6019_pg5%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5zJaXOLwje4423o-ilEiVYykUPwXsu7DDrfLPPZAGh8ncCAwvaeUv9KxgvuyvrAhFxtikVok9VreGdhQbD-vkEhSR2dIiQFjEAhuOKebrH46jkNmvaPPwW_zwfMZG3zv1gQ6Ky4C784b/s400/prv6019_pg5%5B1%5D.jpg" width="260" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bill Waterson: </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In one of the oddest stand alone issues, the
first issue of <i>Keys To The Kingdom</i>, “Sparrow”, found Gabriel Rodriguez
drawing almost the entire issue in the style of Bill Waterson. It tells the
story of youngest Locke sibling, Bode, as he uses the keys to explore the
wilderness, recruiting a flock of sparrows in the fight against the evil
stalking the family.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What at first seems like
an out of left field choice pays off brilliantly, utilizing Waterson’s
signature style to bring the New England winter woods to starkly beautiful
life. A simple, unshowy mastery and respect for nature and wildlife were always
a hallmark of Watterson’s art. It’s put to beautiful use here, as is the
emotional transparency of Watterson’s signature character style.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the true brilliance
of the reference comes at the end of the story. After all what is such a
situation for a child than one of Calvin’s daydreams come to life, with the
stakes risen to terrible proportions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLfM79ZpHCVC8bMK5990sbpgggjVCSEkSSQEHJ2UiHrvmcmhbIthB85rNpT2rWZ73z46r_NvP2Obz3_iCK-x6NdlEEuDZ3na-jSs-Cx2erW7zOl_AgXm8rbgeZVi82gnajtHsLIkV1LgA/s1600/GuideToTheKeys_008%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLfM79ZpHCVC8bMK5990sbpgggjVCSEkSSQEHJ2UiHrvmcmhbIthB85rNpT2rWZ73z46r_NvP2Obz3_iCK-x6NdlEEuDZ3na-jSs-Cx2erW7zOl_AgXm8rbgeZVi82gnajtHsLIkV1LgA/s400/GuideToTheKeys_008%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ray Bradbury: </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bradbury is one of Hill’s biggest, yet least
cited influences. Hill has played with Bradburyian conventions before. His
first published collection, <i>20</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">th</span></sup></i><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
Century Ghosts</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, featured the short
story “Last Breath” which could have come straight out of <i>The October Country</i>.
He also contributed “By The Silver Water Of Lake Champlain” to the collection
of Ray Bradbury tributes, <i>Shadow Show.</i> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Locke & Key
standalone “Open The Moon” finds Hill once again trying on Bradbury’s voice for
size (the issue is dedicated to him). Exploring Bradbury’s style at his most
wistful, “Open The Moon” tells the story of a Locke ancestor’s attempt to use
the keys to create a refuge for his terminally ill son.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The story is true to
Bradbury’s voice, paying tribute to his singular ability to blend whimsy and
sentiment with melancholy, to take the awareness of the omnipresence of death
and to use fantasy to disarm it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirKtUCVVMn5g7RUjy8Q-iB8ICGE3l-hUVhjleNThXteCvRCrpU-V6sJhbA-si6isM90Xw2Xr7gVTiB4IUB1Xlb3czhC5TqzPzm44oDgFUgQaA96gP3AtKND5-MoxrHNwXxAngKFF4PML-9/s1600/splash-lockandkey2-1%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirKtUCVVMn5g7RUjy8Q-iB8ICGE3l-hUVhjleNThXteCvRCrpU-V6sJhbA-si6isM90Xw2Xr7gVTiB4IUB1Xlb3czhC5TqzPzm44oDgFUgQaA96gP3AtKND5-MoxrHNwXxAngKFF4PML-9/s400/splash-lockandkey2-1%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Tempest: </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But by far the text most central to Locke &
Key is <i>The Tempest</i>. The image of the Shakespeare play performed with
real magic is introduced in “Intermission” the first issue of <i>Headgames</i>,
arguably the best issue of the entire run. It’s an event returned to time and
again, the lynchpin that sealed the fate of the Locke family. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Echoes of <i>The Tempest
</i>can be seen across <i>Locke & Key</i>. Like <i>The Tempest</i>, <i>Locke
& Key</i> is about a child (or in this case children) kept in ignorance of
their legacy by their parents. It also doesn’t take much to connect <i>The
Tempest’s</i> magical character Ariel, sealed in a pine, to the main antagonist
of <i>Locke & Key</i> the demonic Dodge who begins the story sealed in a
well. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I am most interested
in how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tempest</i> might hint at the
ending of </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Locke &
Key. The Tempest</i> </span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">ends with Prospero, a practicing sorcerer, drowning
his book of spells. Given the handy grotto beneath Keyhouse, where several of
the principles are now trapped, it’s possible that the story might end with The
Locke children drowning their keys.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, it is possible that another, darker,
meaning is hinted at by the reference to <i>The Tempest</i>. After all among
the play’s most famous lines is the phrase, “Hell is empty and all the devils
are here.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">...<br />If you REALLY want to hear me geek out about Locke And Key (and other things Joe Hill) over an extended period of time, be sure to check out my book Son Of Danse Macabre, available on </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Danse-Macabre-Bryce-Wilson-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387315256&sr=8-1&keywords=Son+Of+Danse+Macabre"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. 2.99 Cheep!</span></span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-59694214782033454832013-12-06T20:51:00.001-08:002013-12-07T18:01:48.983-08:00That Obscure Object Of Remakes With Potential That Somehow Do Not…<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijfLdagfPyIw5PQkiezGO1x1ul5mIwNExlbJxzmlaU6anIyZ7niYBUxYm23ghjJ6xjPa_pFoLlnTUZbLdQsNgOzwmLgzaT0kJGf1-pSjWv8uIGgsL_UTJu24tbWxpohXwA4NwEt05GF1Rp/s1600/oldboy-remake-poster%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijfLdagfPyIw5PQkiezGO1x1ul5mIwNExlbJxzmlaU6anIyZ7niYBUxYm23ghjJ6xjPa_pFoLlnTUZbLdQsNgOzwmLgzaT0kJGf1-pSjWv8uIGgsL_UTJu24tbWxpohXwA4NwEt05GF1Rp/s400/oldboy-remake-poster%5B1%5D.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Since it was released a decade ago <em>Oldboy</em> has felt almost
like a dare to American filmmakers. The shock still hasn’t come off of it. It
is a caustic film, rage choked in a way that makes it feel legitimately
dangerous on a level above the average foreign melodrama or fanboy geek show.
And it accomplished this not because it pushed away from American ideals of
filmmaking but because it embraced and made sweet unnatural love to them.
<em>Oldboy</em> isn’t a great film because it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before, we
know the tools it uses; a premise that is like some sort of Hitchcockian
platonic ideal, an eye for action and a well shot showdown, a gripping mystery
and a gloating villain. Like Oh Dae Su’s hammer, Oldboy takes these familiar tools
and uses them to hurt us- to say nothing of the hero. And ever since
Tarantino anointed it with the Grand Prix it’s like it's been grinning, asking, “Can
you do the same? Can you still hit this hard? Play this rough?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well points for trying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Out of all the directors who have taken up, and then put
down the challenge I found Lee the most intriguing in a just crazy enough to
work sort of way (yes even more than Spielberg- let’s face it fellas there was
no way certain stuff was going to show up in a Spielberg movie, in one of his “This
Is For A Serious Purpose” films such as <em>Munich</em> sure, but not one of his “entertainments.”)
Sure it was nothing much like anything else in his filmography, but then again
there’s no two films that are much like one another in Lee’s filmography. While
there’s a certain image everyone has of a Spike Lee joint, he’s also able to
put on other writer’s voices (albeit through his own filter) like Richard Price
or David Benioff, step offstage for his documentaries and follow his
various muses through the structures of musicals and biopics. Nothing in
his filmography immediately made me think of him for Oldboy, both nothing
discouraged that notion either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s not even fair to stand by the old critical phrases like
“interesting failure” when it comes to <em>Oldboy</em>, because <em>Oldboy</em> doesn’t so much
fail as it does succeed at aims that no one else is going for. It’s as though
Lee invented an alloy that no one knows what to do with, let alone wants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The smartest decision Lee makes with the material (and oddly
enough the one he seems loath to admit to) is setting the film in New Orleans.
By transplanting <em>Oldboy</em> into the south, he transforms the story into an maniac
Southern Gothic. It’s one of those head slapping, “Why the hell didn’t I think
of that,” ideas, because it’s the only Western context in which <em>Oldboy</em> can even
be parsable. Set <em>Oldboy</em> anywhere else and the long imprisonment and web of
incest at the heart of its plot would seem outlandish, but in the south, well that just feels like
another day in Yoknapatawpha County. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Brolin does dedicated work bringing “Joe Doucett” to life.
Both as the grieving monster he becomes when he’s unleashed and as the
tormented figure he embodies when he’s torn down again and again. The hotel
sequence at least matches the original, and nearly tops it with Lee cooking up
a vignette involving a short lived pet of Brolin’s that’s more personally cruel than
anything that happened to Oh Dae Su. When he’s unleashed, he’s less showy than
Min-sik Choi’s performance, but arguably more damaged. In one key substitute Lee exchanges a scene where Dae
Su fought a street gang in some generic violence, with Joe going up against some well
meaning Dudebros in the middle of a pick up game, who as far as they know are merely trying to prevent an
assault. Brolin nearly cripples them. There’s a real sense that he may no
longer be a man <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fit</i> to be released.
That the damage done to him has already run too deep and may be permanent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And it’s moments like these that make it all the more
frustrating when <em>Oldboy</em> just goes dead for long periods of time. Including
the infamous Hammer sequence which now plays out with all the impact of Side
Scroller The Movie (though interestingly enough Lee has a much better handle on
the up close and personal violence that precedes it). There are some, well let’s
call them deliberate, choices that make up the film. You’d be hard pressed to
find a bigger Sharlto Copley fan than I, but man I’m not sure what’s going on
here. I’m not going to be as condemnatory as nearly every other review I read,
because it feels like he was giving Lee exactly what he was asking for. But he
plays the mastermind, the cancerous heart of the mystery, as history's most malignant </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqkdcT25ss"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Upper Class Twit Of The Year</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> contestant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His character is Lee’s most overt political statement in the
film, portraying the one percent as decadent and depraved lunatics. Emphasized by one of the few deviations from the plot that Lee makes underlines this
with a sequence, that once again, only works if you’re thinking of <em>Oldboy</em> as a
Southern Gothic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lee does makes some other changes to the ending, though not
the one you are thinking of, credit Elizabeth Olsen for not flinching from the
material (and while we’re at it Michael Imperiolli does well and Samuel Jackson
seems to be having the most fun). And, just for a little extra kick of confusion out the door, I’m
reasonably sure I find this ending more satisfying than the original’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So here we have a movie equal parts infuriating and
fascinating. One that strings perhaps forty minutes of electric scenes between
eighty minutes of dead weight. I can’t in good consciousness recommend <em>Oldboy</em>
to anyone as a film. But I would absolutely recommend anyone who was interested
see it as an experiment. I guess at the end of the day I feel like my biggest
problem is that if someone were to capture Spike Lee and pose him two all important questions of his own,
“Why a remake?” and “Why this film?” I’m not sure he could answer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">…</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd_OsBtH68-oYUQb6-KWqaBGDOE_d8QVlIjBZYZy7-WHkVn2MSuQ_mpFjfiq3lJ8OuFZ6va4H3VGM3qyPKzHIc_sVhftT10LCAid35g3VtI7X5hdRWI_eRajDEYqbqDSxzTVvtEFqh8vOL/s1600/p-carrie%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd_OsBtH68-oYUQb6-KWqaBGDOE_d8QVlIjBZYZy7-WHkVn2MSuQ_mpFjfiq3lJ8OuFZ6va4H3VGM3qyPKzHIc_sVhftT10LCAid35g3VtI7X5hdRWI_eRajDEYqbqDSxzTVvtEFqh8vOL/s400/p-carrie%5B1%5D.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And now to a remake that I’ve just been plain too dispirited
to write about until <em>Oldboy</em> got me thinking about it again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let me be perfectly clear, there are other directors whose
underuse disappoints me. Kim Peirce is the only one who makes me angry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s not just because she’s an auteurist woman working in a
field where both are in short supply. It’s because she’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> fucking good. If the director of <em>Boys Don’t Cry</em> and <em>Stop
Loss</em> had a nine and five year gap between films respectively and was named Jim
Bob I would still be pissed. And unlike so many films that get shucked for
their last ounce of name recognition <em>Carrie</em> was ripe for reinterpretation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Few works capture the nastiness of adolescence as sharply as
<em>Carrie</em>. The rage, the isolation, the loneliness, the thwarted potential, none
of it has aged a jot. And in the wake of cyber bullying scandals, school
violence and the highly publicized rash of gay teen suicides Carrie hardly
needed to remind anyone that it was still a pertinent, potent piece of
material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s just recap. We have a
remake that is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">A)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>More socially relevant than ever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">B)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Despite the excellence of the previous
adaptation, there was material in King’s novel that just couldn’t be portrayed
at the time, most of <em>Carrie’s</em> apocalyptic final rampage was excised. Leaving plenty of plumb <em>new</em> material to mine for the new adaptation. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">C)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Would be helmed by a director who not only would
almost have to offer a more interesting take on the gender politics than
Brian DePalma, who has always had a well let’s just call it complicated
relationship with women, but who knows the rhythms of small town life in her
bones. This was someone who wouldn’t just make <em>Carrie</em> matter, she’d make it
hurt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So there you have it. A remake with a bonafide reason,
strike that, multiple reasons to exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Why the only way they could screw it up is if they ignored the book
completely, pretended that the last thirty five years never happened, and just
readapted DePalma’s film!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">…anybody want to guess what they did? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s hard to know who to be mad at with <em>Carrie</em>. Sure Chloe
Moretz was miscast, but she does honorable work, and she’s able make at least
one line near the end really hurt. I understand that Peirce may not have had as
free of a hand as she was accustomed to and some of her detractors have been
unfair in their criticism of her handling of her horror material, there’s at
least one gore gag here that goes cheekily far, and while her prom scene may
not match DePalma’s it has its moments. Julianne Moore does fine work as
Margret White. It would be easy enough to call it a hard won single, off of
what should have been an easy grand slam. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And yet, the sheer, stubborn unwillingness of Carrie to
engage with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anything </i>leaves such
rationalizing feeling hollow. There’s NOTHING new here, no unused material from
the book, no attempt to understand the new kind of bullying that will follow
kids home through their computer, no attempt to portray how questions of sexuality
are used as an attack, no new empathy, no new insight. It might as well have been
titled <em>Carrie! Again!</em> And that’s the last thing it should have been. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well it made money at least, which means that maybe Peirce’s
next film will get off the Launchpad a bit easier. But now her all too short CV
carries something else new. A disappointment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/12/cheap-license-theater-awaken-punch-1973/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So in case you missed it I’m now writing a weekly column forParacinema about Cheaply Licensed movies. Hurrah! And there was much rejoicing.</span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh also I saw Frozen, it was pretty neat.</span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-4179046840799882282013-10-18T19:30:00.002-07:002013-12-07T13:46:26.040-08:0031 Days Of Horror: The 31 Dayening: Doctor Sleep<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNF704TRMroatre3tjgHXNaxfH7Z4aEBa8jly4k32w5bShp2KVqWkc5Il8UADsNGpcWGUM-iylFHrl-7Sz_ocC7sQ_c2nnu7wTGZjvDlQqt4EF1Zpwz-YQytx1XKOlP5k57-yF8h5MZE-8/s1600/Doctor_Sleep%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNF704TRMroatre3tjgHXNaxfH7Z4aEBa8jly4k32w5bShp2KVqWkc5Il8UADsNGpcWGUM-iylFHrl-7Sz_ocC7sQ_c2nnu7wTGZjvDlQqt4EF1Zpwz-YQytx1XKOlP5k57-yF8h5MZE-8/s400/Doctor_Sleep%5B1%5D.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There’s no point in mincing words, I’ve been dreading Doctor
Sleep pretty much since it’s been announced. Not in a good way either. I’ve
been a big proponent of King’s late period. By my mark everything he’s written
since Cell has been worth reading and a good deal of it (particularly Full Dark
No Stars) deserves mention among the best work he’s done. While the last seven
years haven’t been entirely without missteps (I still say Under The Dome
stumbles at the finish line) taken as a whole the body of work King has
produced is incredibly strong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This did nothing to bolster my confidence in Doctor Sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Shining is a perfect popular novel. If you have any
interest in writing genre fiction, not just horror fiction, you owe it to
yourself to read it. It’s a freaking machine. The word page turner is often
used dismissively, but the construction of The Shining, the way every revelation
baits you deeper and deeper into the book is a thing of beauty. And it’s all in
the service of a story with so much empathy and hurt that it matters. The fact
that the book is scary as hell almost seems like a bonus. That’s not the kind
of thing you can just replicate. Particularly thirty five years after the fact.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And as details on Doctor Sleep leaked out it didn’t exactly
inspire confidence. The initial premise, Danny Torrance working at a hospice
where he helps ease his patient’s transition into death, sounded promising, but then King announced that “psychic vampire pirates” would be in the mix and
sometime after that I trained myself to stop reading articles about Doctor
Sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So color me pleasantly surprised that Doctor Sleep is a
complete blast of a novel, it might not have the ambition of 11/22/63, it might
not be as introspective as Duma Key, or push his limits like Lisey’s Story. But
it ranks among King’s most purely entertaining work. God help me I never
thought I’d type this, but the story in which Danny Torrance battles what for
all the world reads like the world’s first NC-17 Sailor Moon villain, ends up
being not merely an entertaining read but a genuinely satisfying conclusion
(continuation?) to The Shining. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After a brief prologue Doctor Sleep opens with Danny
Torrance as a wreck, having followed his father’s footsteps much closer than
the ending of The Shining would have you guess. Drifting and self destructive
Danny finds himself drawn to a New England town where he joins AA, finds work
at a hospice, and prepares himself for a destiny he can faintly see coming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Doctor Sleep is one of those happy books were even its flaws
end up working for it. At first The True Knot, arguably the best villains that
King has cooked up since Annie Wilkes, and their carny slang patois seem
jarring and out of place. But they end up being conduits for the sheer love of
language that has always been one of King’s best qualities. No other popular
novelist has King’s pure pleasure in playing with words, deconstructing them
into babble, smashing together disparate bits of counter slang into inimitable
phrases. It takes Doctor Sleep a bit to kick into its main plot, but that’s
only because the AA material is so obviously heartfelt. And if Doctor Sleep,
like this year’s Joyland, is kinder gentler King, with characters he can’t
quite bring himself to really put the screws to, he’s still capable of hitting
hard enough in the early goings of the story that you never take anyone’s
safety for granted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Heartfelt, funny, and genuinely eerie at times, far from
derailing King’s late period resurgence as I feared it might Doctor Sleep
continues it in high style. Hail to the king baby. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-41541365844545536862013-10-15T14:54:00.000-07:002013-10-15T14:54:07.167-07:00Our Lady Of Darkness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWGvB45PX1NCTa0q3TeuP_g6pA0zhEMsrigydxNc0KyUgehVUcF7tCY0vuYvXPXCahyaurfzAzG8hSYOv2v4vGZ24yqwfYNBnUrk1JXnp-X5O6Sq1c2eAcJU7mTZBWsRUVJsnGgJr1Z6W/s1600/Our_Lady_of_Darkness1%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWGvB45PX1NCTa0q3TeuP_g6pA0zhEMsrigydxNc0KyUgehVUcF7tCY0vuYvXPXCahyaurfzAzG8hSYOv2v4vGZ24yqwfYNBnUrk1JXnp-X5O6Sq1c2eAcJU7mTZBWsRUVJsnGgJr1Z6W/s320/Our_Lady_of_Darkness1%5B1%5D.jpg" width="189" /></a></div>
<br />
For six years now Bill Ryan has been running 31 Days Of Slash. And if you want an education in horror literature there is no better place to go. <br /><br /><a href="http://wwwbillblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-kind-of-face-you-slash-day-14.html">This year he's invited some of us to play along, and I somehow got on the guest list. My contribution was Fritz Leiber's Our Lady Of Darkness. Check it out here.</a> <br />
<br />Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-45645078222699799742013-10-10T10:50:00.002-07:002013-10-10T10:50:25.987-07:00Evil Dead
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlHI26H8Y7mxjRUS9YFb2t_HLe53ERydPj0UKVg_4BjTZZFX7fdqli3lha-84HZNgxwjMRpct132C0-dJh4LehKNxPpjWKqL6q0CKyK0uV1X2xnHCaNLZ_nRAqTjEPN3d8v3ELDo6KvmC/s1600/EvilDead2013Poster%5B2%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlHI26H8Y7mxjRUS9YFb2t_HLe53ERydPj0UKVg_4BjTZZFX7fdqli3lha-84HZNgxwjMRpct132C0-dJh4LehKNxPpjWKqL6q0CKyK0uV1X2xnHCaNLZ_nRAqTjEPN3d8v3ELDo6KvmC/s400/EvilDead2013Poster%5B2%5D.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I did everything short of suffer a major head wound in order
to walk into the new <em>Evil Dead</em> with an open mind. After all, this wasn’t a
Platinum Dunes situation. Sam
Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell retained the rights to their breakthrough
movie. The remake was put into production by the three. They handpicked the
director and the script. No reason it couldn’t be good. Why there’s no reason
to think of it as a remake at all really, just a film set in the same universe,
another group of unlucky so and sos who stumbled across the wrong book and got
possessed by some nasty Kandarian demons for their trouble. To quote another
beloved cult film, I walked into <em>Evil Dead</em> thinking, “I have a positive feeling
about this.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In all fairness <em>Evil Dead</em> isn’t as bad as most of the
remakes of classic horror films that have oozed out over the last decade and a
half. The fact that it’s made by people who clearly understand and care about
the source material, rather than seeing it as a license to print the coin of
the realm shows. This is more on the level of the profoundly miscalculated
remake of <em>The Thing</em>. Which is even more baffling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Evil Dead </em>actually starts of pretty strong. With an opening
prologue that cleverly inverts expectations and actually bares a closer
resemblance to Raimi’s <em>Drag Me To Hell</em> than <em>Evil Dead</em> (not that this is at all
a bad thing). But things get off to a bad start just as soon as we get to the
plot. The story is basically the same as the original, five friends go to an
isolated cabin in the woods, where they find a book bound in human flesh and
inked in human blood (also wrapped in barbed wire with a helpful note urging
them reconsider reading it, no points for guessing what they immediately do).
The twist on the remake is that the friends have gathered for an intervention
not a vacation and so when one of their members starts shrieking, convulsing
and cursing its hardly unexpected. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the early going <em>Evil Dead</em> is an effective, if still
vaguely pointless remake of<em> The Evil Dead</em>. It’s not shot with the innovation or the
passion of Raimi’s original, but there’s some decent character rooted horror in
the mix, and a few intense scenes that make good use of the film’s hard R. But
things go off the rails and hard when for some bizarre reason the filmmakers
decide that the threat of being murdered by your demon possessed friends isn’t a
strong enough hook for the film to rest on, and they instead must bring in a
master plot, about prophecies and chosen ones and the apocalypse and
yadaddaaddaaa because now even freaking <em>Evil Dead</em> needs to have the exact same
plot as ninety percent of what comes out of Hollywood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The original <em>Evil Dead</em> is as organic and eccentric as movies
get. It’s a film that made because the creator <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> to make it and was determined to have a career directing. It’s
more than a labor of love it’s a labor of will. The remake never really had a
hope of matching that passion, and all the cute call backs and gallons of gore
can’t disguise the fact that the urgency just isn’t there. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-89970623718704864412013-10-07T14:01:00.002-07:002013-10-07T14:01:31.880-07:0031 Days Of Horror: The 31 Dayening : Afflicted<div style="background-color: white; color: #161616; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/10/afflicted-ff2013/">For the second time this year (The first being <i>The Conjuring</i>) I’m put in the strange position of basically loving every creative decision that a horror film made while only liking the end result. It’s a conundrum.</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-8625858745913688942013-10-04T19:09:00.000-07:002013-10-18T19:31:11.740-07:0031 Days Of Horror: The 31 Dayening: The Horror Of Self Publishing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So not exactly the roaring start I wanted to get off to. But circumstances beyond my control kept me from getting this up earlier. </div>
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A year (and some change ago) I self published the e version of my book Son Of Danse Macabre. If you've ever been to this site before you've heard of it. Since then I've sold more copies than I have friends or family thus ensuring that my head would come out of the oven. I'm modestly in the black and proud of the little bugger. I've received great reviews and pans. In short it's been a blast. <br />
<br />
So for the one year anniversary (more or less) I've decided to write up some reflections on the whole ebook thing. Make no mistake the learning curve was steep and brutal. If you're thinking of entering the lofty realm of epublishing, see if you can't avoid some of my mistakes with the advice below. Or just, you know- laugh at my pain. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplsoI25AKud72ZPGKm902qlhOTjxdRjmsot3LUipooT9ozmZfSUsi-FKwP6aLYH0Ez7NG0vvM-g6dngMw6q7lYIBt_TkCVJVfGzDHyzpOjgdoMThtRyIJV7xGnzJ1nF2JDzJgIfcPkMen/s1600/eeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplsoI25AKud72ZPGKm902qlhOTjxdRjmsot3LUipooT9ozmZfSUsi-FKwP6aLYH0Ez7NG0vvM-g6dngMw6q7lYIBt_TkCVJVfGzDHyzpOjgdoMThtRyIJV7xGnzJ1nF2JDzJgIfcPkMen/s400/eeb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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So you’ve decided to self publish an ebook! Congratulations.
No you’ve earned it. Spending all that time muscling through your first draft. Then taking the time to painstakingly fine tune it through a couple more drafts, to
make sure that it was theoretically something people might want to read. Giving
it to a few Beta Readers so you can make sure that it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">actually</i> something that people would want to read. Hiring a copy
editor to- Wait you have done all this right? </div>
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Because if you haven’t that’s a whole ‘nother article’s
worth of stuff. This is for after you have already gone through all the
travails and psychological damage of actually writing your book, and having
given traditional publishing a miss for one reason or another (They didn’t want
your book, or you’re looking to take advantage of the exciting new
paradigm…they didn’t want your book) you are now actually trying to get people
to read it. Because brother, I know you’ve put a lot of work into it already,
but we’ve got a whole new mountain to climb. </div>
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I published my ebook, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top"><i>Son Of Danse Macabre</i></a>
<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647">at the beginning of October</a>, and I’ve learned a lot. True, much of what I learned, I “learned” the way a
hapless schmoe learns not to make bets with a bookie he can’t afford to pay when a thug with forearms like Popeye’s shatters his knees with a lead pipe.
But learning is learning so lets see if we can’t save you the trouble. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGOqdCmVwU16dxP_5BgdAogYqDvOBxpQuDaFoXfmsKT3VJjosjs2G3VUQOmgBAzr06sm7hD56c5KS-Le8OylmxfTHIYJjqnddI05-zjRqNOSdvydfoY1V01Wx8u8UX-Qurwn1S_zhYIw8/s1600/broke1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGOqdCmVwU16dxP_5BgdAogYqDvOBxpQuDaFoXfmsKT3VJjosjs2G3VUQOmgBAzr06sm7hD56c5KS-Le8OylmxfTHIYJjqnddI05-zjRqNOSdvydfoY1V01Wx8u8UX-Qurwn1S_zhYIw8/s400/broke1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>5. It Isn’t Free:</b> If you take one lesson from this article
let it be this one. Ebook publishing is “free” the way that digital filmmaking
is “cheap.” It’s true in a very loose sense, and you can upload a video of you
and your buddies hitting one another with your cars (or whatever the kids are
into these days) for next to nothing. But if you want something that looks more
professional than sour owl poop you are going to need to shell out some bucks
somewhere. </div>
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Let’s start at the beginning. Do you have a cover? Can you
draw? Does your drawing look better than something on the side of a van? Can
you ink what you’ve drawn? Can you blend your illustration with a graphics like
your title, and author? Can you do this all so it is legible on a tiny ebook
screen, and the tinier version that the ebook shop will give it? No? Can your
cousin Cletus? Would you buy a book that only had size fourteen Times New Roman
on its cover? No? Than why would you expect someone else to? Prepare to shell
out to pay for an artist, and if you’re extremely lucky an artist with a
halfway competent sense of graphic design. </div>
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But lets say that you’re an amazingly talented artist with
photoshop skills that would make the angels weep. Do you know anything about
coding? Yes coding. Ebooks need to be formatted. No? Are you willing to spend
hours wading through contradictory tutorials and advice? Are you willing to
spend further hours experimenting with trial and error in order to get
something that looks halfway legible up on the mock e-reader screen that Barnes
and Noble and Amazon provides (Oh how you will grow to hate that screen). Are
you willing to throw up your hands and weep tears of blood when there’s stuff
that still just won’t work even after you’ve painstakingly learned the
principles and made sure that there’s no logical reason for it not to work. (My
author photo won’t show up in my Kindle edition of the book for reasons that no
one, least of all Amazon can figure out. In the nook edition There is word that
the nook decided should be represented vertically? Why? Why not? Though it was
at the beginning of an article on Lovecraft so perhaps I was asking for it.)
Would you perhaps like to use that time for something more productive? Like say
drinking and staring at a wall?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s another one for size. Are you a good copy editor? No
let me ask that again. Are a good copy editor? Not do you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">think</i> you’re a good copy editor. Do you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> you’re a good copy editor. The importance of this is
impossible to overstate. I feel like my generation was brought up with a very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Laissez Faire</i> approach to grammar. But
nothing separates the amateur from the professional quicker than a quick look
at the neatness of copy. A fact I learned to my sorrow when I sent my
manuscript to an author I truly admire, something of an elder statesman in the
field of my book, who sent me back an email that so indignant that one would
have thought that I had sent him a slate with that consisted of the single word
Cat spelled K-A-T-T with only a crudely etched picture of Mr. Whiskers beneath
to give him the context I felt he needed to decode the work.</div>
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And in all fairness, he wasn’t the only one. The copy editor
I sent the book to for triage sent me letters that often sounded as though he
was considering seppuku rather than finish my work. Because no matter how many
times I went over the book with a fine tooth comb there came a point of saturation when my
brain was simply reading what it wanted to be there instead of what was
actually there. This is common. No matter how talented of a writer you are.
Trust me. </div>
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Which brings us back to our original point, lets say that
you’re lucky enough to know three dependable people who can help you out in
these areas. Let’s take it a step further and say that you know three people who
will help you out in these areas for friend prices (Because I don’t know about
you guys but I like to pay my friends when they do work for me. I’m funny that
way) as I was, farming my cover out to a talented <a href="http://surrealistobituaries.com/content/?p=1462">web comic artist </a>
and the copy editing out to a seasoned copy editor I was lucky enough to know
(The formatting I did myself but it wasn’t fun. Trust me.) You’re still
starting out two to three hundred dollars in the hole. And that’s assuming that
like Disco Stu you have decided not to advertise.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwzmKuzARSCZAQu-FM0lgaiEVnLxK1FO3pmZun0irwRM9gqPJAbmKAFmfsP9mizDid67YjGAYUp8WWDl7Ky0RpfZo6InnnPyPKvxBR9KXPqHS_b1ANFF9DHDp6qQwKqhVW0BFmteevUr1/s1600/3762931996_54d7340559.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwzmKuzARSCZAQu-FM0lgaiEVnLxK1FO3pmZun0irwRM9gqPJAbmKAFmfsP9mizDid67YjGAYUp8WWDl7Ky0RpfZo6InnnPyPKvxBR9KXPqHS_b1ANFF9DHDp6qQwKqhVW0BFmteevUr1/s400/3762931996_54d7340559.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>4. Pricing Mysteries</b></div>
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“Well that’s no problem!” you say to yourself. Three hundred
bucks I can make that back in no time! I’ll just price the book at .99 cents
and three hundred copies later whammo!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(We’ll strip you of that delusion when we get to number three.) I’ll be
swimming in profit just like the swells!” Why you have started talking like
Frankie from <i>The Goon</i> is a separate issue, and this article cannot help you
with it. </div>
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There are several things wrong with this line of thinking
but let’s tackle the biggest first. Let’s try a little thought experiment shall
we? </div>
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Lets say you are walking down the street when you pass a
shady looking character sitting atop a large red cooler, Tilde Cap pulled down
over his eyes, handle bar mustache waxed to a gleam, only the absence of a
Pabst Blue Ribbon makes you think he’s not a hipster. “Psst… Buddy,” he
whispers, “Wanna by a human liver?”<br />
<br />
Being a sharp fellow with an open mind you stop in the street to consider,
“Welllll…” you say stroking your chin, “I do like a good human liver? How much
is it?”</div>
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And that’s when the guy grins, “That’s the best part chum.
It barely costs nothing! Just .99 cents.” </div>
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Which is the part where you cry out, “Aw nuts to you!” and
keep making your way down the road, grumbling, “Who does he think he is, gonna
offload his lousy busted human liver on me. What does he think I was born
yesterday? Never bought no black market organs before?” Down the block you meet
a second gentleman, very much like the first, who offers you a human liver for
100 bucks, “A hundred bucks!!!” You exclaim, “Now thems’ human liver prices!”
You put the liver in your pocket and walk away whistling, “Sing Sing Sing (With
A Swing!)”.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The point is that we as human beings immediately assume that
if something is cheap there is something wrong with it. Or in the wise words of
Lt. Aldo Raine, by whose model I always attempt to live by (the rash of recent
scalping in Austin TX has nothing to do with this) “If it sounds too good to be
true, it ain’t.”</div>
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Assuming that you can sell a lot of copies by making your
work unbelievably cheap is foolish. All you’re going to do is make potential
customers think that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> don’t
believe your work is worth very much. And if you don’t think its worth
anything, then why the hell should they?</div>
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To make matters even worse for you, you have to remember
that it’s not like you<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>get all the money
you make off your ebooks. Amazon and Barnes And Noble aren’t making giving you
a publishing platform because of their altruism (trust me I worked for Barnes
And Noble, Ebenezer Scrooge was a more generous employer) They’re doing it to
make money, and because of the smaller amount involved in a .99 cents sale they
take a larger cut of the royalties. As in a seventy percent one.
So lets say that you did sell your three hundred copies in the first month (you
won’t) that wouldn’t get you the needed 300 dollars to cover your expenses. It
would net you closer to 90. Still 210 in the red. And it’s not like you’re
getting the money the next day either, it takes two months
for the big two to cut you a check, assuming that you’re using direct deposit
and assuming that your book has made the minimum amount of money for them to
bother. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Thankfully there’s an easy solution, raise your price, at
least to the point where you get a seventy percent royalty. Go on be a man,
stick out your chest, tell the world “I deserve it!” That’s what I did, taking
my book all the way up to the giddy heights of 2.99. Isn’t that still pretty
cheap you say? I’m glad you asked oh hypothetical guy who lives in my head
because that brings me to my next point.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKSjEdVmUrx3lanIYjBcM5mnhSdmR2rCITaphj9UUBzXyKnC7Sf2yytvCLe7NOmrChp9Y17b3Hk3lnxeKasqgInxGIM60DEC6SEE1AM9rKtP65JnaHMHH3GMgt_0WduiS_wHx3gfuB1EZ/s1600/LonelyTitle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKSjEdVmUrx3lanIYjBcM5mnhSdmR2rCITaphj9UUBzXyKnC7Sf2yytvCLe7NOmrChp9Y17b3Hk3lnxeKasqgInxGIM60DEC6SEE1AM9rKtP65JnaHMHH3GMgt_0WduiS_wHx3gfuB1EZ/s400/LonelyTitle.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>3. Know Thy Audience Or Lack There Of.</b></div>
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Part of the reason that my book was so cheap was that it was
a work of criticism. More specifically a work of criticism on the last thirty
years of the horror genre. Covering films, comics, games and literature. </div>
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I know what you’re thinking, “Oh man he must be rolling in
that Lit Crit money!” It’s true it’s true, with the obscene amount of wealth
I’ve made from my royalties from my Literary Criticism I’ve been able to buy a
gold plated Audi which uses Evelyn Waugh’s writing desk as the passenger seat.
The back seat is filled with crates of The Complete Poetry Of Czelaw Milosz. I
throw them at the heads of random passersby screaming, “EDIFY YOURSELF.” It’s a
fine life if you don’t weaken.</div>
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The point is that my book is selling not just to a niche,
but to a niche within a niche within a niche. Not just to horror fans in other
words, but horror fans who care to read what someone else things about horror,
and furthermore care to read what I think about horror. It’s only fair that I
meet them halfway, hence the low price point. </div>
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You should also make sure you know what you’re getting into.
For all the wonderful democratizing elements about electronic self publishing,
readers still treat Publishers as gatekeepers who ensure a minimum standard of
quality. They see buying self published work as a risk. And in all fairness,
they’re not wrong. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Of course some readerships are more open to it than others.
As a rule Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy readers are all relatively open to the
prospect since they are the readers of work that is pretty much on the fringes
anyway. This is the same reason why these are the only genres that are able to
support anthologies of short fiction (barely). They are genres built on a
readership that knows the rewards of taking risks. </div>
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<br /></div>
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If you’re working in general fiction, mystery or various non
fiction sectors (<i>A Modest Proposal: Was John Swift Really That Far Off The
Mark?</i>), I’m sorry to say you are facing a much bigger uphill climb. Which
funnily enough brings me to my next point…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-rbV9xIvrrLXdqd_YNi5UgtUS-wn0r6bkVXydnAEOEXiKvdGsw1PkOHlUclfGv92T_ggXiPdjALAqL3V8ubiXL92uWGAwvrZFteP4jsyElNPOs30kLwujwELDeFVxYQud4t-V_hKerbE/s1600/8b7fd709243ca421f34ae17beb265304.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-rbV9xIvrrLXdqd_YNi5UgtUS-wn0r6bkVXydnAEOEXiKvdGsw1PkOHlUclfGv92T_ggXiPdjALAqL3V8ubiXL92uWGAwvrZFteP4jsyElNPOs30kLwujwELDeFVxYQud4t-V_hKerbE/s400/8b7fd709243ca421f34ae17beb265304.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>2. Be prepared to whore thyself in new and Interesting Ways.</b></div>
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Lets get this out of the way, advertising for books doesn’t
really work. It was something I was eager to experiment with. I bought space on
the popular cult film web series The Cinema Snob. It resulted in zero sales.
After that I tried a campaign on Facebook. It also resulted in zero sales.
After that I tried working with Project Wonderful, and when I awoke from my
nightmare coma (seriously don’t work with Project Wonderful) I found it had
resulted in zero sales. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I’m currently running a campaign on Goodreads, a campaign
that has thus far resulted in, let me just check the numbers here real quick...
Ah yes. Zero sales. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The point is that traditional advertising doesn’t really
work so well for books, or at least for ebooks. Another avenue is of course trying
to get your work reviewed by web sites and magazines. You should totally do
this. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But as Brian Michael Bendis (back when he was still
interested in telling stories that other people hadn’t already told a million
times before) wrote in his comic memory <i>Fortune And Glory,</i> you should do this
with the same attitude of sending out a resumes. Send a hundred out in the
hopes of landing one return response. Of the magazines and bigger sites I’ve
sent my work to, I have been reviewed in a grand total of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://famousmonsters.com/reviews/book-reviews-sons-of-danse-macabre-by-bryce-wilson">two </a>and one was pan (And I know I shouldn't respond to bad reviews but <i>Henry Potrait Of A Serial Killer</i> was completed and screened in 1986, Hammer is British thus doesn't have any bearing on my thesis and I didn't cover short stories because I was following King's structure. That's why.)
Don’t get me wrong I did the Snoopy Dance when I landed both, but it was a matter
of playing the percentages. And trust me, seen that way it took <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a lot</i> of work to get those two reviews. </div>
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You can also try reaching out to smaller blogs, but don’t
expect a much higher rate of success. As anyone who has blogged and had any
semblance of a readership knows, the second more than a dozen people who were
searching for monkey porn and accidentally stumbled across your blog and start
reading you, you are instantly inundated with requests to review everything
from student films, to well… monkey porn. Often the monkey pornographers
compose themselves with more dignity. It quickly becomes difficult for even the
most modest blogger to respond to these people, let alone review them. However,
if you have an ebook to sell I hope you treated these folks kindly, because in
a nightmarish act of Karmic Retribution you become one of them. Clogging folks
emails, the way you yourself have been clogged. </div>
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<br /></div>
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You can only depend on the kindness of strangers, and hope
that they aren’t actually dragging you off to a mental institution. </div>
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<br /></div>
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So if advertising doesn’t work, and reviews are at best a
crapshoot what does that leave you. Well unless you’re a complete sociopath
(and lets face it this is the internet odds are about 50/50) you probably know
some folks on the internet. And chances are if you know them on the internet,
they probably have some sort of web presence as well. Use that. </div>
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<br /></div>
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By far my biggest boosts in sales came from my friends. Guys
like the twin national treasures of <a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/">Tim Brayto</a>n<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and <a href="http://wwwbillblog.blogspot.com/">Bill Ryan</a>
who were generous enough to give me plugs. Guys like the dudes I podcast with
at the<a href="http://onthestick.com/"> On The Stick </a>collective, who let me flog the book relentlessly on their various shows. Or stand up fellas like <a href="http://rheaven.blogspot.com/2013/10/creepshow.html">JD. LaFrance</a> or <a href="http://le0pard13.com/2013/01/04/son-of-danse-macabre-ebook-review/">Le0pard13</a></div>
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Get creative, if you’ve written an entire book, chances are
its not the first thing you’ve written. Maybe you’ve written for a website,
maybe they’ll let you write about the book (<a href="http://www.inreads.com/2012/10/02/diary-of-a-reluctant-e-publisher-the-books-the-thing/">http://www.inreads.com/2012/10/02/diary-of-a-reluctant-e-publisher-the-books-the-thing/</a>).
Maybe you’ve written for a paper, maybe they’ll have someone review the book. (<a href="http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/8517/the-man-who-knew-too-much/">http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/8517/the-man-who-knew-too-much/</a>)
Why the hell not? Stranger things have happened. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRwCboMJnnOtCrGVL27m0PI_9NJnaxUiva_3GFSn0De4LXGYHeqRlny5cNTrlIce-n6zXN0Lqe7z65mHiC4PcAPRJrvOGpopgmtszrCICgg0NCyRcboNGEpezpKR44gwSihkqc9xZ3WRGm/s1600/freddie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRwCboMJnnOtCrGVL27m0PI_9NJnaxUiva_3GFSn0De4LXGYHeqRlny5cNTrlIce-n6zXN0Lqe7z65mHiC4PcAPRJrvOGpopgmtszrCICgg0NCyRcboNGEpezpKR44gwSihkqc9xZ3WRGm/s400/freddie.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
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<b>1. Prepare for Exhilaration When You Sell. </b></div>
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So right now you might be wondering why you should bother at
all. After all, You’ll have to shell out cash, work really hard to get the book
seen by people, work even harder to get them to buy it and even harder than
that to get them to read it. And if that all goes right you probably won’t make
much money at all doing those things. So why the hell should you bother. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Because I guarantee you, that if you stick with it there will
come a day when you look at your sales figures and go, “Wait a minute. I don’t
have this many friends and one side of the family is no longer speaking to me.
So that can only mean…” And then it will dawn on you. Someone, multiple
someones, who you don’t know, have paid there good hard earned money to read
what you have to say, and they have not apparently demanded there money back.
There’s no other feeling like it in the world. It makes crack cocaine feel like
a sip of O’Douls. Is E publishing worth the giant pain in the ass? Oh yes my
friends. Yes it is.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And if you're one of the people who gave me that charge, thank you, thank you, thank you.</div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-11104125583611115122013-10-01T14:39:00.002-07:002013-10-01T14:39:59.455-07:0031 Days Of Horror: The 31 Dayening: V/H/S/2<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNbocJVBm8-32ZIXvpc9T5mGc6RyyamIvu1dRqbDR4H3g-y0KiwazK4tAizhOFPILZ3cp72Cws4p8itFCj0KvuJbe4AnLOusblEEXenfe9z-2ysKRwUTJSExf4NsifMLVJkRdedboJ1Pgp/s1600/article_vhs2_poster%5B1%5D.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNbocJVBm8-32ZIXvpc9T5mGc6RyyamIvu1dRqbDR4H3g-y0KiwazK4tAizhOFPILZ3cp72Cws4p8itFCj0KvuJbe4AnLOusblEEXenfe9z-2ysKRwUTJSExf4NsifMLVJkRdedboJ1Pgp/s400/article_vhs2_poster%5B1%5D.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes I am actually giving this a shot. We’ll see how it goes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>V/H/S/2</em> is a much stronger film than its predecessor. <em>V/H/S</em>
was one of those films that I didn’t mind as I was watching but which curdled
somewhat in hindsight. Curiously, considering the first films success the
makers of <em>V/H/S/2</em> seemed to agree and the anthology film wipes the slate clean
creatively, caring over Adam Wingard who directed the framing story of the
original. The film features no returning directors and replaces the rather
loathsome group of thugs who provided the first film’s wrap around story with a
significantly less vile shady Private Eye, who along with his girl Friday,
stumbles across a new cache of haunted tapes while searching for a missing
student. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The tapes are pretty solid for the most part. Adam Wingard’s,
“Phase I Clinical Trials” is an old fashioned haunting story that wouldn’t be
out of place in MR James, about a man who receives a new high tech eye and
starts to see ghosts with it. As said Wingard is the only director returning
from <em>VHS</em> and thus his film is the only one that still has a whiff of the
misogyny that plagued the first film like so much stinky cheese. But given that
this particular character is clearly meant to be damaged it’s less
objectionable and briefer than anything in the first film. It’s a pretty tough
story to fuck up, and Wingard doesn’t, though he does raise questions he has no
apparent interest in answering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If there’s a bummer in the bunch it has to belong Eduardo
Sanchez’s “A Ride in the Park.” Not that it’s a particularly bad piece of work,
but given its pedigree I was expecting something a little stronger. It’s not
every day that the man responsible for pretty much defining the modern day
incarnation of a subgenre returns to said subgenre. But when he does one hopes
it will go better than, “pretty clever”. Blame it on Zombie fatigue or over
hype but while this is some well staged mayhem it falls short of Sanchez at his
best. <em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Blair Witch Project</em> still
stands as one of the most frightening films of all time, and Sanchez has done
strong (and sadly underrated) work since then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The film is a solid single, but given that its Sanchez’s most high
profile project in a while I was kind of hoping for him to knock it out of the
park. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">No that particular distinction belongs to Gareth Evans “Safe
Haven” a chillingly effective piece of horror that managed to be a lot of fun
even with The Sacrament rattling around in my head. Though the idea of Evans
leaving Kung Fu behind makes me sad on the inside, “Safe Haven” proves that
should he ever chose to shed genres he will have no problem doing so. He finds
the most innovative staging for the naturally limiting, first person horror
that the series demands. He finds the most vantage points to shot from, and
carefully sets up some matching shots, while keeping the limited claustrophobic
viewpoint that the format provides. Most of the scares belong to him. The only
flaw comes in the film’s final punchline, which while fine in and of itself is
provided with a bit of physical effects work of which it can kindly be said is
not up to snuff. Might I suggest a silhouette next time Mr. Evans?<br />
<br />
Things close with Jason Eisener’s Slumber Party Alien Abduction. While a better
than Eisener’s grotesque and not in a good way, entry into <em>The ABCs of Death</em>,
Eisener’s work still falls short of the lunatic energy of Hobo With A Shotgun.
Though in all fairness, the task of following up “Safe Haven” is pretty damn unenviable.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All in all <em>V/H/S/2</em> isn’t going to revolutionize the found
footage genre, or change anyone’s mind about the format, but it’s a solid piece
of work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">...</span></div>
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvqumV8ktTIEPsVItlb6us1wUeIla-JgSsS3ktCDbndEZ5pFCxiihSiub9LBltG-GVyf8n-KyA_Gb0vhTFB4doAcp9lhOgyQz741pbRrnfhUwCAdhqNB7H2CJrYj3ArxgzdvVjVp7rQ2q/s1600/lg20%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvqumV8ktTIEPsVItlb6us1wUeIla-JgSsS3ktCDbndEZ5pFCxiihSiub9LBltG-GVyf8n-KyA_Gb0vhTFB4doAcp9lhOgyQz741pbRrnfhUwCAdhqNB7H2CJrYj3ArxgzdvVjVp7rQ2q/s400/lg20%5B1%5D.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am happy to announce that you can buy my work in print now. Yessir, the good folks at Paracinema have seen fit to unleash my words on an unsuspecting world. <a href="http://paracinema.net/issue-20-june-2013/">It's a retrospective on Sam Raimi's work, and you can read it in Issue 20. Seven Dollars! Cheep!</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In further news I'm also happy to announce that I've started writing for Paracinema's website. Right now I'm in the midst of releasing my Fantastic Fest Coverage which was more fun than should be allowed. I've covered such works as <a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/09/the-sacrament-ff2013/">The Sacrament</a>, <a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/09/nightbreed-the-cabal-cut-ff2013/">The Nightbreed: Cabal Cut,</a> <a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/09/all-the-boys-love-mandy-lane-ff2013/">All The Boys Love Mandy Lane.</a> And some movies that <a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/09/man-of-tai-chi-ff2013/">aren't</a> <a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/09/jodorowskys-dune-ff2013/">even</a> <a href="http://paracinema.net/2013/09/we-gotta-get-out-of-this-place-ff2013/">horror</a>. <br /><br />Any tweets or facebooking is much appriciated. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">...<br /><br />And as always you can pick up my book Son Of Danse Macabre on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380663500&sr=8-1&keywords=Son+Of+Danse+Macabre">The Kindle</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540">The Nook</a>. 2.99. Cheep! We're coming up on a year of my baby, and there'll be more to say about that later...<br /><br />Until then, Hell Yeah OCTOBER!!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br /></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-4573421479546094322013-07-31T21:45:00.002-07:002013-07-31T21:45:43.983-07:00Only God Forgives
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDcMwfhKsFHHkCqMyH93KDlSrfOfwv5SSQR5G9muv5w_53yaI2akwcJT9WM4WwKbNQx-qPeAPCB0Jnv2QuRbGFvfyuNZHM9wULsAGa3Ezp7jhrFityD2vvI8ocRaPeUDwCCedF6z2dVJNl/s1600/only-god-forgives-poster%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDcMwfhKsFHHkCqMyH93KDlSrfOfwv5SSQR5G9muv5w_53yaI2akwcJT9WM4WwKbNQx-qPeAPCB0Jnv2QuRbGFvfyuNZHM9wULsAGa3Ezp7jhrFityD2vvI8ocRaPeUDwCCedF6z2dVJNl/s400/only-god-forgives-poster%5B1%5D.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A film like <em>Only God Forgives</em> tend to make terms like
failure and success more difficult to quantify than one might think. <em>Only God
Forgives</em> shows Refn’s preternatural stylistic instincts in full bloom, backs it
up with a Cliff Martinez score that is the perfect tone of icy disquiet, all at
the service of a bunch of appalling people doing and saying appalling things.
If this is all you require of the film it is a success. If you expect to give a
shit about the people within the frame or anything they say or do you will most
likely be disappointed. As has been said before, this ain’t <em>Drive</em>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fact let’s take that a step further, “This Ain’t <em>Drive</em>”
may as well have been the title and the tagline and seems to have been the
single defining philosophy and creative impulse behind the film. The only way
<em>Only God Forgives</em> makes any artistic sense at all is as a direct response to
<em>Drive</em>. Despite having the same creative team I don’t think it goes too far to
say that the film plays as a direct inversion of the earlier collaboration.
While The Driver certainly had his issues, was arguably psychotic, he also had
an undeniable glamour and more important, competency. While Gosling may wear
the same stoic expression throughout <em>Only God Forgives</em> here it is not a mask of
a man reigning his potential for violence and passion in, but an accurate
reflection of a ruin. An emotionally retarded, mush mouthed little boy who
literally fails at every single thing he attempts to accomplish throughout the
film. (I happened to see the film after a screening of Evangelion 1.11 You Are
(Not) Alone and Shinji Ikari had more agency as a character) He gets the snappy
wardrobe but wears it as comfortably as a six year old in an Easter Suit. In
short The Driver had a damaged nobility. In <em>Only God Forgives</em> there is only the
damage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">While <em>Drive</em> tempered its occasional ugliness with great
gouts of romanticism Only God Forgives features an entire cast that is irredeemably
evil, a group of people who have without exception rotted all the way down to
their cores. While <em>Drive</em> made vengeance cool Refn goes out of his way to make
it a bloody sordid waste of time. Unlike <em>Drive</em> where no one outside of the main
cast was affected there is so much collateral damage in <em>Only God Forgives</em> that
it begins to border on the absurd. By the time the first act draws to its close
the body count on innocent bystanders is in the dozen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">None of this is a bad scene in and of itself, and isolated
scenes of <em>Only God Forgives</em> showcase Refn’s ability to create an almost
Lynchian air of unease (particularly during a torture scene featuring a room
full of witnesses who have all closed their eyes). But perhaps it also explains
why despite its aesthetic pleasure I cannot help but feel cool towards <em>Only God
Forgives</em>. Seldom have I seen a film so dependent upon its relationship with
another. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-75706479102566383582013-05-30T19:27:00.000-07:002013-05-30T19:32:07.194-07:00The ABCs Of Death (And Others)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I've written before about my affection for anthology films, and the pitfalls that this particular format invites. Almost inevitably an anthology film is going to end up uneven, it's built into the form. But even judging by the standards of the anthology film <em>The ABCs Of Death</em> must win some kind of record for staggering shifts in tone and quality. There are EKGs that are smoother. Say what you will about it, but it makes for a lively film. <br />
<br />
The gimmick of <em>The ABCs Of Death</em> is pretty easy to grasp. Each short film is based around a mode of shuffling off this mortal coil. The tone goes from literal cartoonish to grim. The films that contain them range from so good that I'm pretty sure that it qualifies as a minor masterpiece (D) to films that though bad, I'm happy exist if only because it means that the directors were busy, and thus not out murdering people (F,H).<br />
<br />
Oddly enough it's the big name heavy hitters who do the worst job. Ti West's entry is such a throwaway that it would have been less insulting had he simply videotaped himself walking onscreen, yawning and then flipping the audience the bird. Jason Eisener's entry though stylishly shot, is also bizarrely unworthy of the treatment it is given. It's a dirty joke that has been polished until it gleams like a black diamond. Kind of what a fifty million dollar John Waters film might look like. Except it isn't funny. Of the big names only Ben Wheatley delivers with his slight, but stylish and clever bit of first person horror. <br />
<br />
Among the less memorable episodes are the collections two animated features. Both of which are toilet themed. Beyond suggesting that a rather unsettling Venn Diagram might be drawn between Animators and Scat fetishists, neither of the shorts does much worth commenting on. <br />
<br />
Among the highlights are the aforementioned D, a top notch piece of silent storytelling, that seems as though it will end with one punchline before abruptly substituting it for another. It's among the most heartwarming films where someone is eaten alive that I can think of. The manic W, and the stylish O are also worth watching. And I must give a certain begrudging respect to L. Easily the most disturbing short of the bunch. Like something from Old School Takashi Miike, or Eli Roth's id. It's absolutely repulsive, but follows through on the courage of its convictions so thoroughly that I can't help but bow to it. For all the blood and bad taste that the various filmmakers flaunt throughout <em>The ABCs Of Death</em>, L is easily the only one that disturbs. <br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
I was lucky enough to get a chance to sit down and talk with Xan Cassevettes, director of The Z Channel, you might recall that I have something of a fondness for her work. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJIwRWtxmfs&list=UUtoBo7qYsGBTmFdMtzJVXUA&index=2">To the point where I went ahead and cut my own version of the montage that ends that movie. </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.newtimesslo.com/art/9521/a-journey-into-darkness-with-xan-cassavetes/">Getting to talk to her was a real treat and just as much fun as I hoped. She gave a great interview and I hope you enjoy it. </a><br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
I had an interview of my own to participate in, on<a href="http://writingontheair.com/genres/fiction/bryce-wilson/"> NPR's Writing On The Air.</a> It was a true pleasure speaking with Francois and Narrissa talking about Son Of Danse Macabre. (Which once again is available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369966766&sr=8-1&keywords=son+of+danse+macabre">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540">BN</a>)<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
And last but not least I tackled both Baz Luhrman's <a href="http://www.inreads.com/2013/05/29/page-to-screen-to-love-luhrman-is-to-love-his-gatsby/">Pretty Good Gatsby</a> and Jack Clayton's<a href="http://www.inreads.com/2013/05/30/page-to-screen-looking-back-at-an-earlier-gatsby/"> Not Very Good At All Gatsby</a>, at inReads. Good times!<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Also incase you haven't seen it, there's a very cool kickstarter for a <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film?ref=live">practical effects film called Harbinger Down</a>. It's the kind of cool practical, monster film that us genre fans are always bitching for. Well lets try putting our money where are mouths are huh? I'd love to see this thing get made.<br />
<br />
This is exactly the kind of thing that I hope Kickstarter is eventually able to fund en mass, not amateurish, soliphistic art projects, not the work of professionals seeking a handout. But talented filmmakers who don't quite fit into the studio system anymore. Alex Cox already got a film made this way. So why not Richard Kelly? Why not John Carpenter? Hell think even bigger than that, what would happen if Terry Gilliam put up a Man Who Killed Don Quioxite Kickstarter. It has to start somewhere and Harbinger Down seems as good a place as any. Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-38806865513338570412013-05-11T03:04:00.002-07:002013-05-11T03:04:24.195-07:00A Quick Note<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
My good friends Chris & Sarah Daly are working on bringing their short film Incognita to life. Chris and Sarah are the very definition of good people. True movie lovers and the little they've shared with me about Incognita sounds devious to the core. I want to see it folks. I. Want. To. See. It. <br />
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They're currently raising funds through <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/incognita-an-independent-short-film?c=home">Indie A Go Go</a>, so if you have a little something to spare for an independant film that is actually, ya know- independant think about forking over a bit to help them out. I'll thank you for it. Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-89159588726574028822013-04-28T12:14:00.000-07:002013-04-28T12:14:41.695-07:00Sightseers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
There is a fine art to waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even in the early scenes of <em>Sightseers</em> there is a sense of menace, of things being decidely off, that cannot be accounted for simply by the cringe humor that the film's early scenes peddle in. There is the sense that at any moment the floor might give way underneath you. Ben Wheatly's previous film <em>Kill List</em> also trucked in such a sense, but while <em>Kill List</em> felt entirely subservient to its tacked on centeral gimmick, the punch line in <em>Sightseers</em> feels much more organic and hits all the harder.<br />
<br />
<em>Sightseers</em> is centered on Tina, a British woman in her mid thirties who still lives with her relentlessly cruel mother. One of those people who is so beaten down, so used to being unhappy as a matter of routine, that the idea of taking a fairly mundane road trip in her boyfriend's RV in order to view the country side and some of England's duller museums, seems not merely an escape but a promise of barely conceivably proportions. <br />
<br />
So of course things immediately go sour. I'm not going to reveal just what happens in <em>Sightseers</em>, since as I said waiting for the shoe to drop is kind of the whole point (though it's probably not all that hard to figure out). Suffice it to say, though one might guess what Chris's particular tic is, there is no preparation for how fast and how far things curdle. People like to throw around the term chemistry when it comes to relationships, forgetting that chemistry can also produce a noxious cloud. What happens between Tina and Chris is absolutely toxic, they bring out the worst in eachother allowing them to go places they never would have dared on their own. <br />
<br />
Wheatly's stroke of brilliance is that he portrays all of this fairly low key. It's easy to imagine a hyped up American version, proud of how shocking and subversive its being. Indeed one can name more than a handful of films that follow <em>Sightseers</em> basic pattern. Wheatly on the other hand treats the whole thing like a comedy of manners. There's certainly some nasty business in <em>Sightseers</em>, but Wheatly doesn't underline it, he lets the characters actions speak for themselves. They're not trying to make any big statement. They're not trying to be subversive. They're just trying to go on holiday and they can't figure out why all this other stuff keeps getting in the way. They're just dealing with it as it comes. It's not that Wheatly is pulling any punches, he gets right up into the nitty gritty of their actions (and in one scene is even able to make the tired old cue Season Of The Witch send chills up the spine) It's this very lack of romanticism that makes <em>Sightseers</em> memorable. Have the same actions done by "romantic" outlaws and you'd just have another run of the mill Doom Generation want to be. But the sight of a pair of homely, somewhat doughy, British thirty somethings doing what Tina and Chris do is somehow appalling. It's like watching Tim and Dawngo on a killing spree. And frankly we expect better of the British. <br />
<br />
<em>Sightseers</em> is a ghastly truly black comedy (you know you've got a good dark comedy when one of the best punchlines is a groan of disapointment when it's revealed someone <em>hasn't</em> died). Wheatly's made three distinct films in three genres in three years. There's something distinctly Mephistophilian about that pace. I may not have loved all of them, but he's emerging as one of the most distinctive English filmmakers working today, I look forward to what he does next with equal parts dread and anticipation. Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-34622094315482269972013-04-25T23:56:00.000-07:002013-04-25T23:59:48.037-07:00Weekend<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So six (yeesh) months ago in order to promote Son Of Danse
Macabre, I offered to reward anyone who bought the book with a free review of
their choice. This I did, with the exception of four requests. I could give
plenty of excuses for why I wasn’t able to get around to these, hectic
holidays, other projects, personal and professional messes. The real reason is
much more simple. I am a man of low moral character and my mother would be
ashamed of me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That out of the way, it’s time for me to wrap up my long
overdue commitment, so here the first of the final four, the others should
follow in fairly rapid succession (knock on wood).</span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve written about this before, but I should reiterate that
as a rule Godard films leave me more or less completely cold. I believe the choice
between Godard and Truffaut is one of those defining Beatles V. Rolling Stones
decisions that doesn’t merely point towards your tastes but defines them.
Godard movies are closed circuits to me, po faced, married to their time, and
ultimately shallow. Precocious in the worst sense of the word. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So somewhat contrarily I welcome situations where I have to see
Godard films. Getting to cross a work of the canon off the list is always a
worthwhile chore, particularly one that I would have little motivation to seek
out on my own. And the idea of reading the film as horror had a certain amount
of intrigue to it. Maybe all I needed to shake things up was a shift of perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As you might have guessed from the preamble, <em>Weekend</em> did
little to shift my position on Godard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>Weekend</em> follows a horridly venal married couple who in the
film’s long prologue separately plot to murder one another, after they murder
the wife’s Father (jointly this time) for his inheritance. On the way to do the
deed they find themselves constantly waylaid by Car Wrecks (which would be a fine gag if it struck one as more than warmed over Bunuel), the general decay of society, people who do pantomine in the woods and this being
Goddard the politics of the chic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Seeking an avenue into <em>Weekend</em> as horror proves difficult,
whether one is interpreting the mounting absurdities they encounter as a
literal purgatory (which in fairness there is textual support for), or taking the apocalypse that surrounds the heroes as the literal big one (tougher to swallow). More likely is the interpretation of <em>Weekend</em> as your averagel “Hell is other
people but these people in particular,” riff. In the film’s
most (or is it 2<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>nd</sup> most) famous scene the couple get in yet another
car wreck and the woman screams in horror over her ruined handbag, caring
for material goods instead of the the people in the crash or herself. As satire this doesn’t rise
much above Godard nudging you in the ribs and saying, “Man what a Gorgon
amirite?” Not a lot of depth there.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And ultimately its this, the impossibility of investing in these characters as people. The naked contempt that makes the film invalid as a work of horror. Horror requires sympathy, empathy. Godard has none. Surrealism is all well and good but
for horror to work their has to be some core of relatable or at least
recognizable human behavior. To have a character not comprehend what is
happening to them is one thing. To have them not care is quite another. To have the film end with one of the married couple presumably eating the other would be a fine punchline for a horror movie, if not for the fact that Godard so clearly believes that its just what these people deserve.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Far from being distressed by the state of their world, the couple at the center of Weekend except all
the bizarre shit that happens to them with what has to be reckoned as damn near
a state of zen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether its mimes in the
woods, or people who break the fourth wall in order to deliver long serious lecture
about Black Militantism, nothing seems to leave much of an impression. It
wouldn’t be so bad if not for the nagging suspicion that Godard had the balls
to want us to find this all profound somehow. It’s like watching a Laurel And
Hardy two reeler in which Ollie allows Stan to get raped and then makes jazz
hands at the camera and yells, “It’s like the class struggle man!!!! It’s
deeeep.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ironically it’s the film’s other contender for most famous
shot, an 8 minute tracking shot of a traffic jam that is normally cited as an
audience endurance test that was one of the few moments in the film that I
found bearable. Yes it may be long, and it may end with a beat as heavy handed
as anything else in the film, but for a few minutes at least we have color and
choreography, cinematic innovation, effort for God sake effort, instead of
listless pious affect. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The problem is that <em>Weekend</em> just doesn’t have much more
going on in its pretty little head than the protaginists it so vitrolically
condemns for not having much anything going on in their pretty little heads.
What’s the thematic depth of <em>Weekend</em>? That the rich are materialstic, morally
dubious, and shallow? Stop the freaking presses. Had Godard shuffled out
infront of the camera and said in his best Droopy, “You know what? These people
suck.” Not much would have been lost. Godard has no aim but to show that these people,
their class, and- well basically everyone they meet are grotesqueries. I have
always preferred another artist who once observed that we are all
grotesqueries. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once again this post was made in support of Son Of Danse Macabre, available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366959493&sr=8-1&keywords=son+of+danse+macabre">The Kindle</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540">Nook</a>. </span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-15889866651223670232013-04-09T21:41:00.000-07:002013-04-09T21:47:22.698-07:00John Dies At The End (DVD)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Note: A Screener was provided for this review.</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On an intellectual, or formal, or aesthetic level, or some
kind of level somewhere, I understand that films based on novels must stand on
their own, and should be judged separate from the source, and that a fidelity,
any kind of fidelity, to that source is, or may be, irrelevant. I have
understood this as a workable theory for some time now, but have repeatedly
failed to put it into practice. If I'm listening to someone complain about a
film adaptation that I liked, based on a book I haven't read, I'm able to make
the case pretty forcefully. Similarly, on the rare occasions that I read the
book after seeing the film, it's impossible to whip up the same kind of
frustration over changes made, because no changes have been made. If I liked
the film, and later see how many liberties were taken, my enjoyment is pretty
much unaffected because I got to the film first. The book and film are safely
independent of each other. But I can't apply that logic when coming at it from
the other direction.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: right;">
<a href="http://wwwbillblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-ethics-of-war.html">-Bill Ryan-</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I wrote as mixed a review as I’ve ever written for<em> John Dies
At The End</em>. Most of my ambivalence, I will freely admit, coming from the fact
that the damn thing just isn’t the book. I am aware that this is both unfair to
the makers of the film, and unhelpful to readers who haven’t read the book, but
there we are. As Bill Ryan notes above in his infinite wisdom, knowing what you should be able to do and being able to do it are two different things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Given a second viewing on DVD with expectations adjusted it
is easier to appreciate <em>John Dies At The End</em> for what it is rather than getting
hung up on what it isn’t. It’s a fun film, creative and anarchic, shot with a
real sense of style and with a genial goofy sense of humor, but it strips away
much of the melancholy, alienation and depth that made the book extraordinary.
I’ve said before that Jason Pargin is the Douglas Adams of Horror. An author
who uses parody and humor to somehow address the big questions with more
finesse than most “straight” genre fiction. Fitting that <em>John Dies At The End</em>
ended up rather on the level of the 2005 <em>Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy</em>. A
lively adaptation, made by people who clearly care about the source material
that never quite manages to escape the nagging feeling that it misses the point
entirely. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is much to admire about Coscarelli version of John. My
appreciation for Coscarelli’s screenplay, which manages to preserve much of the
novel by recontextualizing it, has increased. The amount he was able to achieve
on a clearly limited budget is downright impressive (though the animated scene
sticks out even moreso as an ill advised experiment this time around). The
cast, both the unknowns and the “ringers” like Doug Jones, Clancy Brown and
Paul Giamatti get into the spirit admirably. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a damn good time at the frightshow. It
just could have been more. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Interestingly enough the deleted scenes reveal that some of
the darker material was filmed. And at least I finally have an answer for why
the “Sheer Naked Horror of this place” monologue wasn’t included (ole Shitload
couldn’t quite pull it off). But why Father Maraconi’s deliciously unsettling
monologue was cut I have no idea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In addition to the Deleted scenes. Magnolia has put together
a good package to back up the film. With a commentary from Coscarelli and the
principles, a few featurettes, including one of the effects that is refreshingly
how to, and a candid interview with Giamatti. Disappointingly Pargin himself is
nowhere to be found on the disc, not even as a talking head during the
featurette, or a background voice in the commentary. It’s a puzzling and
disappointing absence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I may remain slightly let down by John, but it’s a hard
movie to be too mad at. Entertaining, creative, made with equal parts love and
competency. If only more modern day genre films could say the same. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">You can read more thoughts on the novel of <em>John Dies At The End</em> in my book </span><em><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540"><span style="font-size: large;">Son Of Danse Macabre</span>.</a></em></span> </span></div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-65462355730087412682013-04-04T21:13:00.000-07:002013-04-04T21:13:47.535-07:00Ebert<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsGtp2DGjuXoK2H2f4FzZjIQfr_yv1DMIZSln2Ot_KYXgKRKAI75lw_3H7p1Twd5ddMGpEJsHh7rk9hw45Lt4Jwa62xoNBUDyync6oW5RyOjKSjx421HS39I3mf4MiM2YJth25lW1twmA/s1600/628x471%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsGtp2DGjuXoK2H2f4FzZjIQfr_yv1DMIZSln2Ot_KYXgKRKAI75lw_3H7p1Twd5ddMGpEJsHh7rk9hw45Lt4Jwa62xoNBUDyync6oW5RyOjKSjx421HS39I3mf4MiM2YJth25lW1twmA/s320/628x471%5B1%5D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So much can be said but you always valued simplicity so I'll keep things concise. I would not be the same person without your work. Let alone the same writer. No more can be asked of any artist. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. <br />
<br />
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<br />Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-25586392495128181452013-04-01T09:37:00.000-07:002013-04-01T09:37:50.114-07:00White Elephant: The Girlfriend Experience<!--StartFragment-->
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This is part of <a href="http://opalfilms.blogspot.com/">the Annual White Elephant Blogothon</a>. Huzzah<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPkVyz6iv0DLgHHJtw8ptuNGBnlAZRTtwbVOBxVOQMmmaFu2oCLIlyEafLZgTMTsh5SCS-qh8bunn1a0mdzB0O84KwUb4H7GmrLke1dci3ZFCViDbfx8B-7ZjmwYgPmnJM8fOwrw4mlStH/s1600/girlfriend_experience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPkVyz6iv0DLgHHJtw8ptuNGBnlAZRTtwbVOBxVOQMmmaFu2oCLIlyEafLZgTMTsh5SCS-qh8bunn1a0mdzB0O84KwUb4H7GmrLke1dci3ZFCViDbfx8B-7ZjmwYgPmnJM8fOwrw4mlStH/s400/girlfriend_experience.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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I had to do a double take when I broke the red wax seal on
the carrion scented, black envelope that delivers the proclamation of doom, er-
film selected for that years White Elephant when it arrived. <i>The Girlfriend
Experience</i>? Really? A hole in a director’s oeuvre that I’d been meaning to fill
(and yes but lets pretend no). A minor film surely, but one that I wasn’t even
aware had a particularly bad reputation (and given that it has a 64% percent on
Rotten Tomatoes and a 66% on metacrtic I’m still not so sure it does). Heck it
was a movie I had been downright meaning to see, albeit more in a <i>High Fidelity,</i> "I haven’t seen<i> Evil Dead 2</i> yet" way, rather than the good old fashioned frothing
demand way (And am I the only one annoyed that they are clearly describing <i>Army
Of Darkness</i> in that scene). But then it’s the traps you don’t see coming that
get you, like the Wile Coyote when he’s chasing The Roadrunner and steps
through a carefully concealed hole and loses his left leg to a pungee stick.</div>
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So <i>The Girlfriend Experience</i> AKA <i>Oy In This Economy?</i> <i>The
Girlfriend Experience</i> isn’t bad, but I can see why my unknown sender may have
thought it a trap. It’s one of those films that walks the very thin line
between elliptical and repetitive, following a call girl whose services include
the illusion of a loving relationship. Grey is poised at the center of the film
as Chelsea/Christine, who is either an enigmatic and opaque or really just that
shallow, it depends on what angle you tilt your head. She fulfills her clients
desires less for sex (and for anyone hopefully drawn in by the ridiculously
unrepresentive poster of an opened mouthed Grey in what looks like pre-orgasmic
ecstasy know that this is not that, indeed there is hardly any sex in the film)
and more for the experience of being more interesting than they are. Because if
a woman who looks like Sasha Grey wants to know what they think then there must
be something to them. </div>
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This is an interesting basis for a film, though it might
have worked better as a short, even at seventy seven minutes it feels as though
we get some repetition. More problematic is Soderbergh’s decision to carve a
big fat 2009 right into the center of the movies forehead. Every film is a
product of its time, but virtually every scene in <i>The Girlfriend Experience</i>
contains someone more or less looking at the camera and going “This economy
AMIRITE!!!” You see its ironic because they’re all obsessed with economic
transactions, and the Chelsea’s profession reduces first sex and then human
relationships to simple economic transactions (in one of the film’s best lines
she notes, “That if they wanted the real me they wouldn’t be paying.”) which is
something we could have probably figured out without the Soderbergh breaking
out the yellow highlighter. Anyway in the middle of the economic downturn
Chelsea’s upper class clients can no longer afford jet setting trips, dinners
out, or high class call girls. At its worst <i>The Girlfriend Experience</i> plays
like some bizarre cinematic argument for trickle down economics. </div>
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<i>The Girlfriend Experience</i> isn’t bad Soderbergh by any means
but it is certainly minor Soderbergh. Stylistically he’s in a low key
thematically he’s unambitious. It’s clear his fascination, indeed the reason
for doing the project was his star, and he gets some interesting results from
her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All in all it’s not a bad
film, but considering that last time I had to do, <i>Diary Of A Cannibal</i> I suppose
I was owed some Karma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">...</span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">You want to reduce something to an economic component, look I'm turning participation in this blogothon into a </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364834051&sr=8-1&keywords=son+of+danse+macabre">shill for my book</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. It's everywhere man like violence in breakfast cereals....</span></div>
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Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-8799086983591102092013-03-12T13:23:00.002-07:002013-03-13T16:24:13.502-07:00The Lords Of Salem<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin88UXccr0OvWo2fu77T2ujCCw5HN26O7vJPvY7mEB7aQkeRm2JRoRmrde4V3wNt62zHraJt3eVtDYbMrr6MwvOQvEmaGjCuZuthV_yaqxfPF95sCJ5NGltKH6xRhuvZoCCXloqiWSbB4Z/s1600/the-lords-of-salem-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin88UXccr0OvWo2fu77T2ujCCw5HN26O7vJPvY7mEB7aQkeRm2JRoRmrde4V3wNt62zHraJt3eVtDYbMrr6MwvOQvEmaGjCuZuthV_yaqxfPF95sCJ5NGltKH6xRhuvZoCCXloqiWSbB4Z/s400/the-lords-of-salem-poster.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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<i>The Lords Of Salem </i>is a strange, strange movie. No it’s
stranger than that. Nope, decidedly odder. No even weirder. Look no matter what
is going on in your head right now I can pretty much guarantee that <i>The Lords
Of Salem</i> is stranger than you think it is. </div>
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On paper it seems pretty simple, a popular DJ plays a record
that unleashes a curse over 300 years old, while simultaneously falling into
the clutches of a coven of Satanists. But that does nothing to convey the tone
of pervasive, perverse wrongness that drives the film. </div>
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It’s also as ambitious as any American horror film as I can
think of. A dreamy tone and style that obviously recalls (and explicitly
references) the surrealistic Euro horror of Mario Bava, Polanksi and Jean
Rollins, but an equally apt point of reference is the late seventies early
eighties American Surrealism seen in films like <i>Let’s Scare Jessica To Death</i>
and <i>Messiah Of Evi</i>l. Lords Of Salem has the same feeling of paranoia and dread,
the same sense of immensity of evil, the same daring assaultive imagery, the
same narrative confusion and the same druggy pace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some almost implausibly ambitious visuals and
ideas in the film. And though Zombie reach is not always within his grasp I’d
say at least 75% of what he goes for he gets. And that’s a fair number for any
filmmaker. Of<i> Lords Of Salem</i> perhaps there is no better compliment I can pay it
than the fact that it’s the first horror film I’ve seen since <i>The Strangers
</i>that is genuinely hard to watch at times. Part of this is because the film is
without a doubt pushing some of my personal buttons (if you have any sort of
religious beliefs be prepared to be deeply uncomfortable for some sequences),
but so much of the imagery in Salem is genuinely strange and perpendicular to
most American horror that the viewer will either reject it outright with
laugher, or really let it fester within them. </div>
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The film more than anything feels like a step forward for
Zombie. A genuine evolution. Simultaneously completely a piece with his films
and unlike anything he’s ever done. I hope the skeptics of Zombie give it a
chance. It contains his usual signatures, the deeply saturated tactile palette,
the strong sense of place, environment and relationships, his love of cinema
history (though unfortunately the <i>Frankenstein Vs. The Witchfinder</i> trailer that
was shot for the film was cut). But gone are the profane dialogue and white
trash patois and though the film has one of Zombie’s typically sprawling casts
the cut I watched was whittled down to a core of about half a dozen characters.
And while one would be lying if one called the film restrained, the violence is
used much more sparingly (and to much greater effect) than in Zombie’s past
films. </div>
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Sheri Moon Zombie has evolved tremendously as a performer
and carries the weight of the film effortlessly aided by Ken Forree, Jeff
Daniel Phillips and Bruce Davidson all doing the kind of subtle work that
Zombie’s detractors like to say he can’t do. Patricia Quinn, Dee Wallace and
Judy Geeson bring a sense of understated menace to their rolls, while Meg
Foster swings for the bleachers and lands somewhere in the parking lot. </div>
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<i>The Lords Of Salem</i> is a film made by a director who is truly
pushing himself. I have been an apologist for Zombie for his entire decade as a
working filmmaker and I can think of no better reward for my faith in him as a
director than that.</div>
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...</div>
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To read my defense of Rob Zombie's career as a whole be sure to check out my book Son Of Danse Macabre, available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363119686&sr=8-1&keywords=Son+Of+Danse+Macabre">The Kindle </a>and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647?ean=2940015525540">Nook</a>.<br />
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And remember if you have read it, giving it a review on Amazon or The Nook really helps. So does, liking it on <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16162465-son-of-danse-macabre">Goodreads</a>. </div>
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Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-69179943919094228952013-02-18T09:28:00.001-08:002013-02-18T09:28:10.194-08:00You Must Think I'm Pretty Sick...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIjeCgrLtG9puUoT-XCKA-Dz2vXL4MWfbn2FUy8qcqvpevXq1cBwNp5nqGGjcquQurm7vsYOgxNGOyPf_wi6tUC7nEcgHc7jVYIksGZHDWHBT9FCvC_p7PQk7igMJJvo09TSko34ZII3fj/s1600/taxi-driver-movie-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIjeCgrLtG9puUoT-XCKA-Dz2vXL4MWfbn2FUy8qcqvpevXq1cBwNp5nqGGjcquQurm7vsYOgxNGOyPf_wi6tUC7nEcgHc7jVYIksGZHDWHBT9FCvC_p7PQk7igMJJvo09TSko34ZII3fj/s400/taxi-driver-movie-poster.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
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I had the honor of writing up Taxi Driver for The Muriels. Yeah no pressure on that one. It's only arguably the greatest film by my favorite director embodying an era of experimentation unparalleled by any in American Cinema. <a href="http://murielcommunity.blogspot.com/2013/02/2012-muriels-special-award-best-film-of.html#more">Just go ahead and wing it</a>. </div>
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That said I'm actually pretty happy with how the essay came out. Of course I wasn't able to unpack all of Taxi Driver's complexities, you'd need at least a monograph for that, and even then I have my doubts. But I'm fairly certain its coherent. Probably. </div>
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Inspeaking of long standing traditions I showed up at The On The Stick's Annual yearly retrospective to discuss the year in film with the usual gang of Chowdaheads. <a href="http://www.onthestick.com/322/on-the-stick-95-2012-stickies-special-guest-edition">A good time is had by all</a>. </div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-85709366053358406532013-02-12T15:54:00.000-08:002013-02-18T09:07:28.927-08:00John Dies At The End<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6J6-2yHeE4Gp2FKRo8KDL8XE1i6vFgqb0zdIXnRltrrywk7l7acmIil6MPht0VYJ08L5q_vknyp6y9POAuSs3kczIbdXl2kU5AxqJtTAyRsejQ8kv3Q-L4EHxk5q3DVNpZdmZiR9Ov3Qk/s1600/affiche-john-dies-at-the-end-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6J6-2yHeE4Gp2FKRo8KDL8XE1i6vFgqb0zdIXnRltrrywk7l7acmIil6MPht0VYJ08L5q_vknyp6y9POAuSs3kczIbdXl2kU5AxqJtTAyRsejQ8kv3Q-L4EHxk5q3DVNpZdmZiR9Ov3Qk/s400/affiche-john-dies-at-the-end-2.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>
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I wish I liked <i>John Dies At The End </i>a lot more than I do.
Don’t get me wrong, on one level I’m absolutely gung ho. After all, this is an
independently financed passion project from a great horror director (Don
Coscarelli, believed in the project so much he sunk his own money into
the work even before <i>John</i> was picked up by a major publisher) based on the signature novel of one of my favorite authors. To add
another twist, the film is currently undertaking one of the most ambitious on
demand releases since the start of that experiment. An attempt to build word of
mouth, while simultaneously releasing the film in theaters. An attempt that
seems to be working. (I myself had intended to hold off until a theatrical release, but the spirit is willing the flesh is yadayadayada, so I ended up making this my first "On Demand" film)</div>
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So at the very least you have a fun movie, that is a passion
project from an honorable filmmaker, which will expose thousands of new fans to
one of my favorite authors, all while proving viable a new form of
distribution that will allow more interesting and risky genre cinema to be
made. </div>
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And I can’t quite help but feel that it misses the point
entirely. </div>
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Let’s back paddle a second here, if you haven’t read them
the <i>John</i> books by “David Wong” (A pseudonym for Jason Pargin) does for horror
what Douglas Adams does for Science Fiction. Following John and Dave, two low
prospect men who take a drug called Soy Sauce which gives them incredible
quantum insight into the universe, but also puts them in the sights of a
malignant being beyond space and time. Through some bizarre alchemy he creates
books that are simultaneously hilariously funny, genuinely frightening, and
which tackle the big philosophical questions in between the dick jokes and
exploding heads. The average page of Wong will make you laugh, cringe and then
contemplate the implications of The Dunbar Number on humanity’s future. And all
the while Wong races towards the apocalypse with gleeful abandon. </div>
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<i>John Dies At The End</i>, gets the gleeful abandon part but
skips the rest. On one level, it’s actually quite smart as an adaptation. Wong
wrote a book with a very particular structure, (it was originally written as
three novellas released for free on the internet) and which would require a
Michael Bay budget to pull off. Coscarelli skips both headaches, by reordering
most scenes and repurposing others, creating what is basically a faithful
adaptation in an entirely new framework (a new framework that as you might
guess skips some of the more expensive bits). And if you think that’s easy to
do I have a long sad story about <i>Cloud Atla</i>s to tell you. Only once, when a
popular character from the novels is basically trotted out as “a special guest
star” does this technique come off as as awkward. </div>
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What <i>John</i> lacks is not narrative faithfulness, nor exploding
heads. It keeps the gleeful abandon of <i>John Dies At The End</i>, but it forgets
that gleeful abandon is not the thing that made that work special in the first
place. What made Wong’s novel stick is as about an accurate portrait of
alienation as you’re going to find outside of a Camus novel, coupled with the
work’s absolute fearlessness in tackling heady philosophical and existential
dilemmas. I didn’t expect all of that to be in the film, but I didn’t expect
none if it to be there either.</div>
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There is little to separate<i> John Dies At The End</i> from any
number of films made by dudes who love <i>Evil Dead 2</i> a whole lot. Now don’t get
me wrong there’s nothing wrong with this, I am nothing if not a guy who loves
<i>Evil Dead 2</i> a whole lot, I’m considering having it chiseled on my tombstone.
Taken on its own merits<i> John Dies At The End</i> is an innovative, creative slice
of genre fun, with some great moments. If that’s what you’re looking for, and you’re feeling adventurous
and have seven bucks in your pocket that you don’t know what to do with, I
highly suggest you give the film a whirl on demand, or see it when its released
in one of these new fangled “Theaters”. Just do yourself a favor, think of it
as the trailer for the book.<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
If you want to hear more thoughts on The John novels, you can find them in Son Of Danse Macabre. Available from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360713189&sr=1-1&keywords=son+of+danse+macabre">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647">Barnes And Noble</a>.</div>
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Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8121497265402071351.post-6004308400267061612013-02-06T09:41:00.003-08:002013-02-12T15:00:57.905-08:00Things That Definitely Don't Suck...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMsPIRitSl7NIfNjZT743utrtF-4rvLQqgHFwYgN1euNitNeCDXf84CSJscNIFmq7kYg9LOWMsdeF1Q4dFrlWSnvZVsf6CKe6FFF-J-vNpxIWhi6egNlgvJ2y1SwusulAfgB5slYPUBKtS/s1600/Famous+Monsters+of+Filmland+_16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMsPIRitSl7NIfNjZT743utrtF-4rvLQqgHFwYgN1euNitNeCDXf84CSJscNIFmq7kYg9LOWMsdeF1Q4dFrlWSnvZVsf6CKe6FFF-J-vNpxIWhi6egNlgvJ2y1SwusulAfgB5slYPUBKtS/s400/Famous+Monsters+of+Filmland+_16.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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A couple of things I want to mention, first, in an ongoing attempt to make me believe the universe is actually messing with me,<a href="http://famousmonsters.com/reviews/book-reviews-sons-of-danse-macabre-by-bryce-wilson/"> I was reviewed by Famous Monsters Of Filmland. Yes, that one.</a> No I'm not totally freaking out or anything.<br />
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If you are filled by that review with a desire to read Son Of Danse Macabre I can understand the impulse. As always it's available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Of-Danse-Macabre-ebook/dp/B009K6Q4UU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360171870&sr=8-1&keywords=Son+Of+Danse+Macabre">Amazon</a> and through<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/son-of-danse-macabre-bryce-wilson/1113088647"> Barnes And Noble.</a><br />
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Also for the second year in a row, I have been invited to participate in the prestigious Muriel Awards.<br />
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The Muriels are a collective of some of the finest bloggers on the web, ring led by Paul Clark and Steve Carlson, who spend a hell of a lot of selfless time putting all this together. My hats off to them and as always I'm honored to be included. </div>
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<a href="http://murielcommunity.blogspot.com/">Check out as we run down the best 2012 had to offer here</a>. </div>
Bryce Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040954580033470664noreply@blogger.com0