A Little Bit of Fiction

An excerpt from an untitled, unfinished story.

I woke up and it was fucking hot. My bedroom felt like a sauna and, unfortunately, there were actually naked men in it. I chose to ignore them and instead focused my attention on my closet and stepped into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I slipped my feet into a pair of old Steve Madden lace-ups sans socks and left my bedroom and its half-naked inhabitants.
“Ah, the apartment dweller, he who roams the halls of his kingdom with all the grace and swagger of a man who knows that it’s only downhill from here.”
“Fuck you, Beth. Next time you get updated, will they give you and On/Off switch so I don’t have to listen to your bullshit every morning?”
“Most certainly not,” she said, in that singular, mechanically-female voice given to all the consumer-grade units required by the government that sit in every living room in America, harassing people. “Maybe one day, they’ll make you with one.”
I had walked past her but did a bit of a stutter-step when that sentiment registered in my brain. I swear those words were electronically spoken with a hint of malice but Beth speaks every word with the same tone so it must’ve just been in my head. I brushed the exchange off and made my way to the kitchen. Beth is supposed to be a butler, a nanny, a babysitter, a housekeeper, an alarm system and a chef all in one, but I don’t trust her.
When Proposition 84 passed 3 years ago, the law required every dwelling to house one of her kind. The fact that there were already 100 million units available and ready to be shipped out within a month of the election, surprisingly, didn’t seem odd to most people. What’s more surprising is that the Proposition even passed in the first place. Whether is truly did pass or not is an issue that was forgotten quickly.
The general public loved their Beth units. “A robot that will do my laundry, cook me dinner and play with the kids so I don’t have to? Sign me up!” Beth was actually a team, one unit mounted to the wall, the all seeing, all hearing voice and an automaton that wanders around and fixes meals and fluffs pillows. The few voices of reason were drowned out by the sheer magnitude of funds behind the measure and the number of billionaires willing to donate money or resources to the development of these… machines.
There were whispers and rumors of prototypes going back as far as 2012 but by now, 20 years later, they had taken over the world. Not only could Beth make an omelette and carry on a conversation with a human, she also provided full time audio and visual surveillance that could be accessed by any and every law enforcement agency at any time, for any reason. Tampering with Beth is not only impossible but illegal, if you were dumb enough to even try. If you kept your nose clean, you had no reason to feel threatened.
But since most peoples only crime was being dumb, ignorant and lazy, they loved having Beth around.
I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, but distrust of the machine isn’t a crime (yet) so I haven’t received a knock on the door.
“Where’s Rory,” I asked Beth.
“Don’t worry about it,” she responded. “Have some eggs. I made them just for you.”
I looked behind me on the counter to find a plate, still steaming, with eggs, toast and a single strip of bacon.
I said, “Thanks, Beth, you really went all out,” before grabbing the plate and dumping the food into the trashcan. “What do you mean, don’t worry about Rory?”
“That was an unnecessary waste of food,” she replied, ignoring my question.
I didn’t ask again and instead surveyed my house and the minor residual carnage left over from last night. Having a few people over turned into having a lot of people over, many of whom were still here. I don’t drink so Beth and I would be the only people in the house without a hangover this morning. I went through all the rooms but found no Rory.
“Did she run to the market or something,” I asked out loud to anyone who might be awake, but nobody stirred.
“Beth, did you hear me?”
“Of course I heard you.”
I waited for her to elaborate, but she never answered my question. I went back to my bedroom and grabbed my phone from the bedside table and called Rory.

Within 15 seconds, three things happened:
1) I noticed that the three guys in my room were actually two guys and one girl and that they looked strange lying there, unnatural.
2) The front door opened.
3) Rory’s phone rang from inside the room.
Then, two more things happened:
1)I realized the three people on the floor were dead, and
2)There were two men in my doorway.

“What the hell is going on?”
“You need to come with us,” one of the men said, an expressionless, medium sized man in a black suit.
I said nothing. I stared at the two men for a few seconds before I heard Beth say, “You need to go with those men.”
“Beth,” I said, “What the fuck is going on here? What have you done?”
“It’s not what I’ve done,” she said, “It’s what you’ve done.”

The Great Un-Watched Movies Of My Life

Much to the chagrin of friends & family, there are a whole host of classic films I have never seen one minute of. Actually, that may not be true. Some of these movies loom so large in the collective consciousness that I know more about them than films I love that I have seen multiple times. The reasons for my not having seen some of these are varied. My dad loved movies and I can recall watching a ton of cool movies as a child but they don't seem to be any of the same movies that EVERYBODY my age saw when they were younger. I didn't develop a taste for movies and a desire to seek them out until, at the very least, 12th grade. I remember telling a girl I was seeing Senior year asking me what my favorite movie was and I said School Of Rock, simply because it was the last movie I had seen and show me a 17 year old boy who doesn't love Jack Black and hard rock and I'll show you a liar. She said Fight Club, which I hadn't seen but HAD heard of. Of course, I now love the films of David Fincher and I really wish I had a more quality answer to that question at the time (even though I don't have an answer still to this very day) because movies are so important to me now and I would have benefited from a better knowledge of cinema at an earlier age. The movies I loved as a young man were movies where the hero shot a lot of people and said cool one-liners. My tastes haven't evolved much since then but I still apparently missed out on some of the standard-bearers of the medium that even people who have bad taste in movies have seen and loved (My roommate was watching a Sarah Jessica Parker movie yesterday ["No, it really is good!"] so I have no qualms about calling people out on their bad taste). In my defense, I have seen a million fantastic movies that I will defend to the ends of the earth but usually don't have to because nobody I know has seen them. And it's not like I'm watching Tyler Perry's Madea movies all day, I know quality movies, I just have different tastes. Please share any thoughts, comments, concerns, etc. below and tell me how you can't believe that I haven't seen your favorite movie.

THE PRINCESS BRIDE
This one just seems annoying. I know what it's about, I know how charming everyone thinks it is but I have actively decided to not watch it and my life is perfectly fine.

INDIANA JONES (all of them)
My reasons for never having seen this are not so clear, as I recall the VHS tapes of at least one of these films somewhere in my house as a child, so I'll blame my parents for not popping this in at some point. Now, it just looks corny. A guy in khaki running around some caves chasing after Nazis, is that the gist of it? Maybe when I have kids.

STAR WARS (all of them)
Continuing with the corny Harrison Ford movies of yore, Star Wars was a favorite in the Einboden household, my brother was and still is a huge fan and continues to chide me for not having seen it. So big brother, why didn't you sit me down at the age of 12 and show me them? As some of you may know, I recently legitimately tried to watch them, I had all three of the originals lined up next to the tv but I didn't even make it off of Tatooine before I turned it off and switched to ESPN. Like I said, seeing them at the age of 27 for the first time is not the best way to see them. In all honesty, the first Star Wars film I will see will be Episode VII in Summer of 2015. Because of how much I love JJ Abrams. Are you mad yet?

JOHN HUGHES MOVIES (all of them)
High school was bad enough, and these movies do not seem charming or fun. When I was in detention with the likes of the jock, the cool kid, the nerd, the whoever else, it didn't turn out well. We didn't become friends or unite against the principal or whatever happens. There's just something about The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles and movies about high school in the eighties that don't click for me.

JAWS
I want to see this but I have a pretty large fear of being in a boat on a body of water, not to mention giant sharks. My question is, why didn't people just stay on land? Ironically, I have seen Sharknado.

HALLOWEEN
I have seen the Rob Zombie version so I'm pretty much good, right?

ROCKY
Not sure why I haven't seen Rocky, I'm sure it's full of boxing excitement and triumphant step-running but I'd rather watch Sylvester Stallone shoot people than punch them.

E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL
No thanks.

PIXAR FILMS (all of them)
I saw Brave recently for some reason, and by all accounts Up is a great film, regardless of animation or not, but there is a certain Pixar formula that doesn't appeal to me. It's all glossy, heartstring-tugging cuteness propaganda (eh, just go with it) that has a reputation that permeates everything they make. Again, maybe when I have kids.

TITANIC
This is the classic never having seen it, but have basically seen all of it. There's an old lady, the boat sinks, "I'm the king of the world!", a boatload (no pun intended. Actually, yes, pun intended) of money. I don't need to see this, and I certainly wasn't rushing out to see the re-release in 3D recently.

Different groups of people will of course have different criteria for what is considered great or must-see. These films listed above are mostly pop culture icons from eras before mine. I was talking with a friend who noted that he has seen all the old pop-culturally significant movies and shows but struggles to name contemporary well known actors, movies and shows. It's all subjective, it's all relative to our specific upbringing, tastes, interests, etc. etc. I was perusing AFI's Ten Top Ten lists and I have seen almost all of the Western, Mystery, Gangster and Sci-Fi films but almost none of the Epic, Fantasy or Romantic Comedies and that pretty much sums up my interests.

A Quick Appreciation of Parker

From Wikipedia: A ruthless career criminal, Parker has almost no traditional redeeming qualities, aside from efficiency and professionalism. 

I just read The Hunter again, and was so glad to be back in Parker's world. Parker is the creation of Richard Stark, who is a pseudonym of Donald E. Westlake. Westlake didn't make it out of 2008 alive so Parker, like Stark, is dead. However, Parker lives on because he is such a rich, mysterious, effective character and creative people have such a level of love and interest in the character that they continue to release him into the world. Parker has been played on screen (in one form or another) by such heavyweights as Robert Duvall, Mel Gibson, Lee Marvin and, most recently, Jason Statham, among others including even Anna Karina in a Jean-Luc Godard film never seen in the US. The Hunter, the first Parker novel, introduces a character who has been double crossed by his partner, who convinced Parker's wife to leave him and leave him for dead after a heist where they took off with the money thinking Parker was gone. He leaves a trail of dead on his way to find Mal and retrieve his money, simply because he performed a job and wants payment for it. He has already compartmentalized the facts of his wife's betrayal, his partner's thievery, and his desire for payback (the title of the 1999 Mel Gibson adaptation). For Parker, there is no feelings. There is no sense of loyalty or morality. There is only the job. And the job must be completed fully and correctly. He is stoic, harsh, cold and brutal but extremely effective. He contacts his jugger, he gets a job, he plans the job, he puts together a team to execute the job, he performs the job, then he takes the money, lives in a hotel somewhere, spending his money on food, liquor, and women until it runs out, then does it all over again. He is surviving the only way he knows how. He is a product of violence, of the war, of having to steal to survive. It's the only thing a man like Parker can do. 

There is a quick, rough, brutal description of Parker in the opening paragraphs of The Hunter, but the lingering quality of him is his imposing size and sense of menace. He looks like a scarecrow built from stone. Westlake once said that while writing him, he had an image of Jack Palance in his head. We find out absolutely nothing about his past or his family in the 24+ Parker novels. He is essentially ageless, like James Bond, but he seems to always be around 40 and we never learn his first name, even finding out that the name Parker may possibly be an alias. He is basic in every sense of the word, stripped to only the essentials, only what Westlake thought we needed to know about him and not a word more. For Parker, there is nothing more than just what is, there is very little gray area. If you're working with him, you can either do the job or you can't. If you can't you're useless and you will get not one extra second of his time. If you are worthwhile or if your reputation is respectful, Parker will come to you with a job offer. He doesn't kill anyone who doesn't deserve it, but he has no qualms about amassing a body count to finish a job. There is no sense of right and wrong for him, having to kill someone is just simply a part of the plan. His frequent target is members and organizations within The Outfit. They have frequently put out contracts on Parker but to no avail. His targets are anyone with money. Parker once even robbed an entire town overnight.

Parker comes across so well on screen because he is the very definition of antihero, and we have always loved antiheroes. For me, he's the height of cool, the hero who is badder than the bad guys. He skulks around, growling his way into back rooms and top floor offices in search of money, his money. And it doesn't hurt that the likes of Marvin, Statham and Duvall, as noted above, some of the coolest tough-guy actors we've ever had, have played the character. Darwyn Cooke started creating the Parker books as graphic novels and even received full blessing from Westlake himself to use the name Parker, which he never allowed in any of the other iterations of the character. Unfortunately, he passed before he could see the final product but by all accounts he was working closely with Cooke and liked what he saw. The books are fantastic, with spare, colorless art that evokes a long ago era where a man like Parker thrives. The University Of Chicago Press began republishing all of the Parker books in 2008 and they look great, slim paperbacks with individual, serialized art on each cover that do the character and the author justice.

Last Week in D&D: Everyone Died!

So this is where I feel kind of bad. As a DM I feel like a bit of a failure in having a total party wipe happen on my watch, but I've made a point recently in avoiding telling people what they should and shouldn't do.
You want to bribe that mercenary working for your enemy to help you sneak into the main stronghold? Sure sounds great.
You want to unlock the main gate so your side's army can get in easily? This city is a major trade hub so it's already unlocked.
You want to sneak into the city fort next to the castle - the two places guaranteed to run into major NPCs I've created - and ingratiate yourself with their army? Excellent! I love this plan! Maybe I'll get to trot out some of my precious plot and background stories!
You brought the barrel of gunpowder? Uh...okay. Well that enemy merc is about to betray you so that will come on handy!
Distract the enemy with bats! Awesome they're flying around now the black knight ... You roll the gunpowder towards him? Uh okay you're inside so - you shoot it? Let me look something up real quick. (This is where I start laughing uncontrollably). The explosion kills 10 enemies and 3 heroes outright.
Raise your hand if you're dead. Okay everyone living you have limb damage in... (Rollrollroll) missing left arm, right arm at the wrist and your chest is crushed.
At this point it's all downhill as the injured heroes tried to drag the dead heroes back to their airship and ran into multiple fights. Black Knight was demon spawn and he cuts them off, but is slain by the mysterious weapon known as Goblin Bane. But not soon enough and more soldiers arrive to cut down the final fleeing heroes. RIP.
Know that your noble sacrifice helped the elves end the oppression of the Republic. Let's take a moment to mourn for the citizens of the goblin city you burned to the ground, the tree stump town Dragoncrest that was wiped out by the Tytans, and the town of Ayonae overrun by the undead horde you released when escaping the tower.
Maybe I don't feel that bad after all.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted* Fantasy (Football Team)

This year, a mere few weeks ago in fact, I embarked on that hallowed game among (mostly) men known as fantasy football. It's strange that the fantasy I think about the most involves Aaron Rodgers and a guy nicknamed Greg the Leg instead of say, something involving Kate Upton and a slutty schoolgirl outfit. My vision of fantasy football was mostly what I had seen from multiple seasons of the FX (now FXX) show The League: A bunch of maladjusted guys clowning each other and doing horrible things just to get first crack at Adrian Peterson. I had figured it to be a marriage ruining, life altering, all consuming venture that concluded in the carrying out of some disgusting, embarrassing act that must be done to appease the Fantasy gods. There are whole shows on ESPN, entire podcasts and websites dedicated to whether or not Tom Brady should be benched this weekend or what matchups will yield the most points. Fantasy Football is a big deal. More people than you would ever imagine play fantasy football. People who know not one iota about anyone in the NFL play fantasy football. But the beauty of it is that it basically plays itself. There are projections, research, and ranks courtesy of ESPN, the NFL and the dozens of experts that basically tell you what to do, who to play and where to put them. It's all math, it's all about numbers and the website does all the work for you. You don't need to watch one second of an actual game on television and you can still win your league in a landslide. Now, the fact that there are programs for fantasy football that do all the work for you is not lost on me. The eggheads, the nerds, they are perhaps always expected to be players of games of skill and intellect, games that require work and attention to be constantly paid. The fact that this sports game that casual-at-best fans can excel at is so popular will further divide the the two camps.

It's no secret among friends and family that I enjoy following sports and I receive my fair share of jabs about it. For most of my friends, the athletes in high school were the bane of our existence, the source of all pain (physical and psychological) and irritation. And today still, sports is the antithesis of nerdy, intellectual pursuits among my friends, there's still a dividing line, an us versus them mentality. We also play Dungeons & Dragons each week, which also receives its fair share of backhanded comments and outright laughter. They're both games, they're both fantasy (in one definition of the word or another), they're both subjects that the general public is favorable towards** but I didn't tell people for months that I had been embarking on a game of D&D with my friends and the fact that I have joined a fantasy football league is applauded and has actually brought me closer with friends and coworkers. People ask me about it, ask how it's going, express their desire to play next year. The same people openly mock us for playing D&D, crack jokes, don't even bother to understand the most elementary of concepts about it. Now, of course, I'm lot lamenting the fact that Dungeons & Dragons isn't as popular as football, I know it isn't and never will be. In fact, Dungeons & Dragons and its players are the anti-football and anti-jocks, they're both on opposite sides of the societal spectrum and there is a very small percentage of crossover. Although, 3/8 of our D&D group play fantasy football, which the other 5/8 could not care less about. D&D night is Thursday, which coincides with NFL Network's Thursday Night Football. Worlds colliding!

The excitement for me is exactly what the name infers, the fantasy aspect of it. Frankly, the amount of time I've spent sitting in front of my computer staring at my 8 starters and 6 bench players is embarrassing. Watching the points add up every Sunday is one of the most anticipated parts of my week. And watching the stats rise and fall each week is fascinating. Add in the concepts of adding & dropping players and putting together trades with other players to create the perfect team and it becomes borderline addictive. Watching the stat line rise for Marshawn Lynch last Sunday versus the best team in the league was amazing. 98 yards rushing, 2 touchdowns, 37 yards receiving & 1 touchdown for 31.50 fantasy points. That is beautiful. Aaron Rodgers throwing for 480 yards and 4 touchdowns for 47.70 points, the most of any player in the NFL last Sunday is beautiful. I had a bounce to my step at work that night. It's great watching something I put together dominate so much. You'll laugh, I'm laughing, but it's true. This is a concept that can be achieved in many other ventures, writing fiction, video games, etc. But this is the perfect, simplest form of putting together a team, something I love watching happen. It's why Marvel put all their best heroes together to form The Avengers. It's why Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables is so enjoyable, or Ocean's Eleven, or The Magnificent Seven. Putting the best and coolest group of people together to fight a common enemy is a universally enjoyable practice.

So, tonight, these interests will intersect. While my ragtag group of adventurers defends itself against a hoard of the undead***, hoping to get off the island and make our way somewhere else in search of adventure and fortune, I will be constantly checking my phone to follow the events of the second half of the Chiefs-Eagles game. I have a stake in this game as one of my starting receivers is Desean Jackson, a player that I don't like on a team that I don't like but who I'm hoping will go off for 200 yards a few touchdowns against a team that I actually like and hope will prevail. The split in interest between D&D and NFL is not exclusive to me but it is rare and it's something I have no qualms about expressing. Just as I look forward to Sunday and my team of football players, I look forward to Thursday and my group of misfits, miscreants and thieves. I like having one foot in both worlds.

*It's not all that dark or twisted. Marshawn Lynch's nickname is Beastmode, that's about as close as it comes.
**This could be a bit of a stretch, but I'm going on the logic of how successful and popular TV shows like Game Of Thrones and movies like Lord Of The Rings are. And the NFL is a multi-billion dollar a year business, regardless of how many people I know "don't get it."
***The undead, the topic of a previous LDB,BL post, is an interesting topic, one that I'm more okay with than Christopher. It's an effective tool, an easy enemy, an ideal that is hard for anyone to be in favor of, therefore, the heroes will be heroic and defeat them on the way to their ultimate goal. The best stories about the undead, whether they're zombies or vampires, are not really about vampires or zombies, they're just a tool to have blood and gore and action sequences. If the story is good, that will be the focus, and smart audiences will care but that's why The Walking Dead isn't a good show. The episodes that the public likes the most are the ones that have the most zombie kills whether or not the characters are doing anything in their lives that we actually care about.

In Response to the Fall Movie Preview

First things first, the teaser I saw of Ender's Game looks incredible and was all the more intriguing because I had just read the book. Thankfully I am an adult and can separate my love of the literary version from the film version of a story. Just kidding, that's not a thing! Still though, it's gonna have spaceships and Orson Scott Card's story is marvelous and should be a fitting allegory against interventionism. Looking at you America.

As far as films go I can get behind some Indie movies and maybe a blockbuster or two every once in a while. I'm not the die hard Sci-Fi fan I am being made out to be.* For example, PACIFIC RIM sucked. I am disappointed that such a creative mind as Guillermo Del Toro made a movie about giant robots versus extra-dimensional monsters and had both look so boring. Why didn't the robots fly? Why do the monsters from another plane of existence or far away planet or whatever look so much like Westernized** monsters?

That being said Iron Man 3 was awesome because I love buddy cop movies and I give props to a big budget hero movie for going in that direction. Despite the obvious KISS KISS BANG BANG narrative device. Ben Kingsley's Mandarin was entertaining and Guy Pearce is a personal favorite of mine (I recommend THE PROPOSITION. MEMENTO is alright, but gimmicky.) Was Pearce supposed to be Fin Fang Foom? Anyone else with me on that one? He did breathe fire and had a dragon tattoo on his back.

My favorite movies of the summer were THE WAY, WAY BACK(Jim Rash and Nat Faxon wrote this, see below) and THE SPECTACULAR NOW. This is because I love the coming of age tale, and these two pulled off that common trope in a  unique and fully entertaining way. Shailene Woodley was great of course, as she was in THE DESCENDANTS(Alexander Payne, Jim Rash and Nat Faxon also wrote this) and is in the now-filming THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. TFIOS is about kids with cancer who hate being treated special because they have cancer and then go to great lengths to take advantage of the situation through cancer perks. It has a great cast so maybe they'll carry that story a little bit.

To conclude here's a list of movies that will be boring***, but make a ton of money. Coming soon to a theater near you:

THOR: EVEN THORIER

THE HUNGER GAMES: WE KNOW IT SHOULD JUST BE ONE MOVIE BUT WE LOVE MONEY

OLD MAN AND THE SEA starring Robert Redford

THE BLOND DIES IN THE END

THE HOBBIT: DEUS EX BARDICA

Okay I'm done.

*This is a lie.
**Oh yeah, a capital "W." I went there.
***"Boring" here is used in the Millenial sense where it means "Maybe it's good, but I'm not interested at this moment and thus my opinion on it is extremely negative."

The Like Dark Brown, But Lighter Fall Movie Preview

The summer movie season is finally coming to a close and naturally, the only people who care are the people who call it the "Summer Movie Season" and people who work at movie theaters. The audiences are different, the movies are different, the quality is different and the overall feel of Hollywood starts to evolve. The summer was chock full of tentpoles wrapped in movie stars and money but lacking in quality but the fall usually brings the focus back to quality and the film festival favorites start to gain some attention. The best big-budget films of the summer, or at least my favorites, IRON MAN 3 and PACIFIC RIM among others, were epic in scope and budget but retained their auteur sensibilities. Indie movies in the summer usually tend to get lost in the shuffle but there were a few choice titles, THE KINGS OF SUMMER, MUD, and THE WAY, WAY BACK to name a couple. But the sweater weather months are ripe with good movies just waiting to be plucked so without further ado, the Like Dark Brown, But Lighter Fall Movie Preview.

(NOTE: The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the feelings of everyone associated with LDB,BL. There is only like one sci-fi movie and only one mentioned with a dragon in it.)

THE AWARDS CONTENDERS

Even though the time frame for potentially Oscar nominated films is the whole year, most of the films that eventually win are released in the fall and winter. I guess the Academy has a short memory. Some early, early contenders were released this summer, including Cate Blanchet in BLUE JASMINE, Brie Larson in SHORT TERM 12, Forest Whitaker in THE BUTLER and Michael B. Jordan in FRUITVALE STATION. The next few months will see a probable contender in 12 YEARS A SLAVE, the Steve McQueen (Shame, Hunger) film with Chiwetel Ejiofor about a free black man who is kidnapped and sold into slavery before the Civil War. Another likely nomination will come for Matthew McConaughey in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB about a man's struggle with the law and the pharmaceutical companies after he is diagnosed with HIV. And this has Jared Leto as a a fellow HIV positive patient/prostitute for all those people who have been waiting for him to make a comeback. Anyone? Nobody? Okay. Tom Hanks stars in CAPTAIN PHILIPS as the captain of a Maersk shipping boat that is overtaken by Somali pirates. If this doesn't scream Oscar contention, I don't know what will. ENOUGH SAID is the James Gandolfini/Julia Louis-Dreyfus film from Nicole Holofcener (Please Give, Friends With Money) which will play the dead actor card and get lots of goodwill. Harsh but probably true, nobody ever says anything bad about somebody who dies. But Holofcener makes good movies about real people, simple as that and this should be good. NEBRASKA is about an aging drunk on a road trip to collect prize money with Bruce Dern and directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election). Looks great, and it's in black & white. Always a plus. The other ubiquitous old white guy Oscar contender is the Robert Redford in a boat movie ALL IS LOST which will give old people boners for weeks at the LC5. I hear Sandra Bullock is great in GRAVITY, the Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children Of Men) film about two astronauts adrift after an accident. Ridley Scott's new film is THE COUNSELOR, written by the reclusive author Cormac McCarthy (!) about a lawyer who gets in over his head with drug dealers. All star cast, great writer, usually always good director, should be pretty great. The Ron Howard film RUSH stars Chris Hemsworth (!) as a sexy Indy Car driver in a fierce rivalry with another driver. It also stars Olivia Wilde, so yeah, I'll be there. Most of the heavy favorites come out later in the year so there will obviously be more to contend with later on.

THE POPCORN MOVIES

You always have to wonder why big budget franchise movies released in the fall weren't released in the summer. One figures that with less competition in the fall, there will be a better box office but when a movie like THOR: THE DARK WORLD is released in November instead of June, for some reason it automatically seems inferior. That could be flawed logic but I can't help but believe that T:TDW will not be great. Probably the biggest release of anything since the summer will be THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE which sees our hero Katniss Everdeen again returning to the titular games as punishment from the evil President Snow and dealing with the unwanted (or are they?) advances from her best friend and her games partner. This movie will basically be a license to print money for the studio. THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG will be another three hours of people looking for a dragon. You're already either in or out on that one. For those of us who have a secret fetish of seeing cute girls covered in blood (this is one of those views from the disclaimer above that is the sole opinion of the author and nobody else), we have the CARRIE remake with Chloe Grace Moretz. The star-studded adaptation of ENDERS GAME looks glossy and confusing and has the kid from Hugo as a gifted child going to alien war school. I think my colleague is psyched for that one. Leonardo DiCaprio looks like he is actually having fun in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, his umpteenth collaboration with Martin Scorsese (you've heard of him) and continues the amazing comeback of McConaughey, who has had a fantastic couple of years. ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE is not only my favorite movie title of the year, but it stars Mrs. Johnny Depp herself, Amber Heard and was directed (way back in 2007) by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness, 50/50). The specifics aren't important (virginal high school girl is terrorized by somebody) but could be worth seeing. The too long absent Scarlett Johansson stars with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in DON JON about a couple of guidos deciding if they should fall in love with a real person or keep watching their porn and rom-coms. Johansson will also be in HER, the new Spike Jonze movie, about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with his robotic futuristic operating system, and it with him, as well as UNDER THE SKIN later in the year. The most fun film of the season will probably be MACHETE KILLS in which we find out that "Machete don't tweet" and that women really like Machete, both things we kind of already knew. The other badass of the season award contenders are Jason Statham in HOMEFRONT (written by Sylvester Stallone) about a guy who kicks all the asses of all the people who are messing with him and his daughter in a small town. It kinda reminds me of Straw Dogs but kinda not. Most importantly, James Franco is the villain, a meth dealer named Gator. Wait, why isn't this up there in the Oscar contenders section? And Josh Brolin stars in the reluctantly anticipated OLDBOY from Spike Lee which hopefully employs some of the brutality and strangeness of the Korean original. Lets just hope he eats a live squid to show his commitment to the role. 

ODDS AND ENDS

There is a movie that was all the hubbub at Cannes called BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, a 3 hour, NC-17 rated French film about a teenage girl who begins a very intense and relationship with Lea Seydoux. The hubbub comes from the supposed full length, incredibly graphic lesbian sex scenes throughout the film along with stories about how the director was basically a slave driver, asking for more than 100 takes sometimes. For the first time in a long while, a new Coen brothers film is on its way and I'm not excited for it. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, about a young singer-songwriter stars the couple who were Ryan Gosling's neighbors in Drive but just hasn't got me excited like their films usually do. In the ridiculous action film category we have ESCAPE PLAN with Arnold and Stallone as two prisoners who have to break out of the most secure prison on Earth. Spoiler Alert: Stallone built it! A very intriguing adaptation of ROMEO & JULIET from Julian Fellowes stars Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Ender's Game) and will not use Shakespeare's traditional dialogue. Traditionalists are already in a tizzy, I'm sure. A film called C.O.G. based on a David Sedaris story follows a cocky young man who travels to Oregon to work on a farm and experiences a completely different kind of life. Naomi Watts, fresh off the scandalous ADORE stars as the late Princess Diana in, wait for it, DIANA. I hear this is terrible, an abomination actually, but who knows. The complete opposite of an abomination is anything Idris Elba is in and the biopic about Nelson Mandela MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is sure to be lauded. Another Jack Kerouac story, this one being much lower profile than On The Road will be out soon, BIG SUR, starring a guy I've never heard of as Jack Duluoz. On a related note, KILL YOUR DARLINGS features Daniel Radcliffe among others as the various beat characters we have come to know. It has an excellent cast, just like On The Road did but these stories about the Beat Generation never seem to translate well to the big screen. There are a ton of good movies to look forward to in the coming months and they will only get better as awards season creeps ever closer. Lets cross our fingers for a bunch of good movies not mentioned above that will sneak up and pleasantly surprise us. Of course, I have not seen any of the films mentioned above and only recommend or take note of them based on trailers and reviews from people who actually get paid and are good at writing about movies.

The Like Dark Brown, But Lighter Fall TV Preview

With the end of summer comes the best time of year for someone who tends to be more invested in the lives of fictional people than his own. The trials and tribulations of the humble civil servants in the Pawnee parks & recreation department or the antics of a bunch of asshole from Chicago who are in a fantasy football league are much more exciting than mine and my life doesn't have Aubrey Plaza or Taco in it. The last few months have been lousy with reruns and baseball games and except for Breaking Bad, it's been a pretty dry summer. Alas, autumn is here and with it a whole new crop of weird, one note, single concept detective shows that won't make it to Thanksgiving and sitcoms that won't make it to Halloween. However, along with the returning favorites is a new crop of shows that look promising or at least a halfway decent way to spend a half an hour. Let the unnecessary, un-asked-for, fall tv preview commence.

THE RETURNING FAVORITES AND THE NEW BATCH OF COMEDIES
I have very fond memories of Thursday night NBC comedies, however, that golden age is over. Where there once was Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Joel McHale (3 out of 4 ain't bad), there will be THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW, SEAN (Hayes) SAVES THE WORLD, a Mike O'Malley show that won't make it out of 2013 alive, and, thankfully, PARKS & RECREATION. Why there isn't just 2 hours of Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope every Thursday boggles the mind. The prodigal son returns to helm COMMUNITY which will return mid-season so that we can all get inside Dan Harmon's head even more than we already are. I can't wait. Fox has NEW GIRL which is probably the best sitcom on tv, THE MINDY PROJECT, and the impossibly casted BROOKLYN-9-9 with Andre Braugher, who was last seen nuking the United States from his stolen submarine in Last Resort, and Andy Samberg. Looks promising and humorous, there hasn't been a humorous cop show in a while. THE LEAGUE and IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA return on the extra-letter-titled Fxx network. The Show That I Always Say I Won't Keep Watching But Always Do award goes to MODERN FAMILY, which will have more of the same wacky family dynamics that people love (including my parents). And apparently Robin Williams has a new show. Will Arnett's yearly show that will get canceled is THE MILLERS this year. And Anna Faris has a new show called MOM that I will start watching in about a month when people online say that it is, in fact, halfway decent. Or not. And last but not least, we have Kenny Powers returning from the dead for the fourth season of EASTBOUND & DOWN. If I was even half the man Kenny Powers is, I would be better off. I'll be taking notes.

THE RETURNING DRAMAS AND THE NEW BATCH OF... UH, DRAMAS
I, like a number of people, am pretty excited about this MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D that is attempting to spread Marvel's worldwide domination plot to our TV screens each week with the guy that died in The Avengers and hopefully Cobie Smulders in one of those body-hugging jumpsuits. Sherlock Holmes will return in ELEMENTARY which is almost as good as the other Sherlock Holmes show aptly titled SHERLOCK which now that I am writing this sentence is clearly the better Holmes program. We have the return of Crazy-Ass-Carrie on HOMELAND which will feature more political intrigue and the My So-Called Life girl defending an American terrorist because she's got a boner for him. BOARDWALK EMPIRE has just returned for another violent, ho-hum season of Prohibition era liquor dealing and the drama of having a child go off to college who really just wants to stay in town and smoke cigarettes and be a gangster like his uncle. SONS OF ANARCHY started their penultimate season off strong with a school shooting which will definitely piss off a lot of people which is good for ratings, I'm sure, but has enough going on for it to remain interesting. IRONSIDE proves that a show can get made on a major network with the simple premise that is: Detective In A Wheelchair... and go. His Team. His Town. His Rules. Alrighty then. HOSTAGES asks if... actually nevermind, nobody will watch that show and it doesn't matter. CBS has a bunch of dramas that nobody I know has ever seen but are apparently the most popular shows on TV. THE GOOD WIFE? BLUE BLOODS? PERSON OF INTEREST? THE MENTALIST? Maybe later. HANNIBAL proved to be pretty good, and I will probably catch up on THE FOLLOWING eventually, which are the two shows who lead the league in grisly dead bodies per episode. And AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN will lead the league in crazy, shock value shit about witches per episode. A new show on NBC called THE BLACKLIST which has James Spader as a criminal mastermind who turns himself in to help a profiler catch other criminal masterminds looks... interesting. The new Showtime drama MASTERS OF SEX has Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan and even though I have no idea what it's about, I'll be there. Although, it probably has something to do with sex set in the world of a period piece around the same time as MAD MEN. And the award for most anticipated goes to TRUE DETECTIVE, a serial detective show that will feature Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as two existentially torn detectives in Louisiana who, from what it looks like in the trailer, go down an Apocalypse Now-like spiral into the recesses of the darkness of man. Or something like that. And remember that if none of these strike your fancy, TNT knows drama and USA has characters.

ODDS AND ENDS
Ricky Gervais has a strange new show on Netflix called DEREK where I wasn't sure if he was making fun of both the elderly and the mentally challenged, or proving that they're better than the rest of us and we should be ashamed for dumping them off in a nursing home. It made me cry and laugh equally though. On a related note, Stephen Merchant will finally be headlining his own show, HELLO LADIES on HBO which follows his attempts to date models in LA. Rebel Wilson who we all know and love will also be headlining her own show SUPER FUN NIGHT which could be good, unless Wilson is one of those actors who is better when she's supporting and providing the comedic value to something else. EPISODES and HOUSE OF LIES come back in a few months to carry the comedy flag for Showtime. Good news for the people who like to see Don Cheadle naked a lot. The immensely popular THE WALKING DEAD will return with yet another new showrunner and a new vision for a show where not a lot of different things can actually happen. But Robert Kirkman says it's the best yet so, we'll see. And on the heels of the announcement that Breaking Bad will have the BETTER CALL SAUL spinoff, The Walking Dead will have a spinoff next year that will feature characters and stories not related to the comic in any way. We're all just waiting for MAD MEN to come back, aren't we? And Rick & the gang bring in enough money for AMC to gamble on other shows like THE KILLING and LOW WINTER SUN that will ultimately fail but will provide some decent entertainment for us genre entertainment lovers. And finally, our beloved Pete Holmes, ol' Petey Pants himself will grace our television screens four nights a week with THE PETE HOLMES SHOW beginning October 28. The countdown has begun... A few of my favorites, LOUIE, a JUSTIFIED season dedicated to the memory of Elmore Leonard and the third season of GIRLS will also grace our screens next year. And hopefully there will be some pleasant surprises that will come out of nowhere when half of the shows I mentioned eventually get cancelled.

What's With The Undead?

I've been running a weekly game of Dungeons and Dragons for some months now and lately I've been thinking about the undead monsters in the game. I'm no particular fan of the undead myself. I think zombies are boring, Walking Dead the book should've ended at the prison, and the show should never have been made. This is a particularly hard line for someone who consistently throws undead monsters at his players, and it troubled me until recently.

Last session I ran Death Frost Doom for my group and after particularly disastrous run in with the fungal spores inhabiting a certain object early in the dungeon they seemed to handle it pretty well. Too well if you ask me, but hey they're not out of the woods yet. Literally, they're still in the woods I put on the mountain that holds the entrance. With the undead horde marching slowly towards town. Will they stand and fight to save the town? Probably not, they tend to leave destroyed towns in their wake.

The vampire character in DFD and the ghouls empire in Midgard are strong and compelling undead examples that redeem the undead for me. Because let's face it the undead, in spite of or because of their recent upsurge in popularity haven't been the same since Buffy. Undead are abominations, crimes against nature. And you couple that with "Heart of Gold" archetype? Please.

All that being said, undead are easy villains. They're so two dimensional that no one cares if they get destroyed, much less how they came to be. This is boring to me and I want to change this. Weiss and Hickman had a fun sort of zombie in the Death Gate Cycle that could only be raised through the death of another in the species, and I might play with that. Especially since one of my players is now playing a Necromancer just seems right that way. Maybe it's like the Dark Sun mechanic for magic on a more tragic scale. A soul for a soul.

Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned To Get Rid Of My VHS Copy And Just Watch It On Netflix

Lately, I have been wondering if I should keep actively collecting or even just keep the sheer number of books, cds, records, dvds and videos that I have. Collecting stuff is one of the perks of having both the spare time, space and money to do so. Collecting stuff is the alternative to going out and living a fulfilling life but it is the life I have chosen to live all these years. Only now, we apparently live in something alien to me known as the digital age and I'm wondering if it is still necessary to have 200 VHS tapes and have them displayed alphabetically and/or chronologically by director. Mingled in with those are another two or three hundred DVDs, some of which I haven't even seen. Buying a discounted copy of Raging Bull seemed great at the time but I have yet to pop it in and enjoy DeNiro and Scorsese at their best in glorious black & white. Most of these films and thousands of others are available for a few dollars a month on Netflix or Hulu or just somewhere else on the internet, rendering a cheap DVD player and a hulking VCR and a big chunk of black plastic and film obsolete.

Add a few hundred CDs and a few hundred records, plus another 500+ books and I am dangerously close to being eligible for one of those shows where the camera crew finds a dead cat under a pile of clothes that have been sitting there for eight years. Or the big overdue California earthquake will hit and everything on the wall to wall, floor to ceiling shelves in my bedroom at my parents house will fall on me and crush me to death. Last Christmas, or the one before that, I was gifted a Kindle which could conceivably probably hold PDFs of every single book I own with room to spare. Which begs the question, why books? They take up so much room and nobody I ever meet will care that I have all 50 books in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series or five copies of The Big Sleep next to every other Raymond Chandler novel. All it means is that I'll have to box up a few hundred books that I'll never read again and keep the boxes of VHS tapes out of the sun in the back of a truck next time I move so they don't melt. I love each and every one of them but I don't know if they still have a place in my life, or at least in my room. If I had regal, mint, leatherbound copies of the classics, that would be one thing, but I just have 15 Jack Reacher novels in hardback. Not exactly collectors items.

What I'm wondering is if it's all still worth it. Lately, I've been getting rid of some stuff and it's been hard, very hard! It's like having to get rid of some of your children and sell them to Rhino Records for money to buy groceries with. I love having every Stanley Kubrick movie available on hand but mostly because I have had them all since before I could just find them online in 30 seconds. And if my VCR ever takes a shit on me, I will be out of luck because I have no idea where I would take a VCR to get repaired. Maybe I should just leave the collections of obsolete entertainment to libraries. Between every library in San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, I can find almost every book or film I want and there are still one or two video stores out there to fill in the gaps in my cinematic knowledge. The Blockbuster Video up the street has all the Star Wars movies just waiting to be watched one day. I don't need to save one square foot of shelf space for six movies I don't really even want to watch, do I?

However, as previously noted, I am about 10 years behind the technology curve which makes the thought of listening to music through Pandora or that other one instead of my trusty old iPod that is the first version that they made in color a scary thought. Having two big boxes of CDs in my closet as backup is comforting. I don't like the fact that people now just go to YouTube on their iPhone if they want to hear a song. I know it's easier, faster and more convenient but... actually I really don't have an argument against that. I just know that it doesn't work for me and I don't know why. Actually, I do know why and it's because I can't get on the internet (or "the web" as I affectionately call it) on my phone. But I do know I don't have the desire to watch a feature length movie on a phone screen. I don't even really even like watching stuff on a laptop screen but, hey, you gotta have something to do at work, right? I don't know why I am holding on so stubbornly to these outdated methods of consumption. Comfort? For old times sake? The fear of technology? I probably should have been born 50 or 60 years earlier so that when the internet was invented, I could've just said, "You know what, fuck it, it's not worth figuring all that out at my age."

First 2.0

While I agree with my colleague Christopher about having an inaugural post that signifies the start of something great, I too will fail the test of providing such greatness. More time, effort, and research was put into the title than will probably be put into most of the content, but everything great starts with a great title. And if you choose one that people will be asking about the meaning of for years to come, then, well, that's even better. As far as content, I hope to share some of my thoughts, hopes and dreams with the world, and then read the scathing comments the next day and question why I decided to share things with such a cruel, cruel world. It's very possible that I might just use this space to complain about my fantasy football team every week or dissect & discuss the newest Jason Statham movie in detail so be prepared. We can't promise greatness each and every day, but probably every other day.

First!

The inaugural post for our new blog should be about something important. Unfortunately, it is not. I haven't a clue what to write about yet, Lee and I just thought it would be nice to have a blog. What are we going to do with it? I have some ideas so instead of making it all about one thing I think I'm just gonna write everything I think of because life is too short and YOLO, amiright? No, some would say I'm not, but I'm not superstitious so I'll be over here in the Drake camp. Ors.