Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The Best Words: February 2016

As a public service once a month, I share a few of my favorite things. These things are all quotes. If you also want to see what I think was funny on Twitter, here's the link. And here us goes!
“What a fantastic death abyss!”
-David Bowie, “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson”

“Art is advertising – just for important ideas and emotions.”
-Alain de Botton

“Millennials have been loaded with the “do what you love” mentality before we actually get a chance to do anything. So we’re all pulling out our hair trying to figure out what it is we love so that we can actually do it. So many of us in our culture are writhing in pain because we’re following our desires out of some distorted moral duty that says we have to be true to ourselves."
-Kyle Stiemsma

“As things fell apart, nobody paid much attention.”
-Talking Heads

“Being Loved: the feeling that another person properly recognizes and amply sympathizes with one’s buried distress.”
-Alain de Botton

“Remember, Grammar Nazis: It’s YOU’RE going to die alone.”
-Damien Fahey

"What are you doing?"
"Watching the new Rob Zombie movie. You a Rob Zombie fan?"
"I prefer his earlier, funnier movies."
-The West Wing

“What is the good of being an island, if you are not a volcanic island?”
-Wyndham Lewis

“If the school curriculum was shaped by contribution to future happiness, at least half would be on relationships.”
-Alain de Botton

“Ignorance is like sleep, your initial reaction is to be angry at the person who wakes you up.”
-Todd Marrone

"They police us. Spy on us. Tell us it makes us safer."
"Then do something about it, Mulder."
-The X-Files

Parenting is like being a juggler except all the balls are screaming.
-@KalvinMacleod

"What are you doing?"
"I'm making a joke."
"Oh, you don't have to do that. Relaxing makes me nervous, makes me feel like I'm missing something."
-The West Wing

 “[Millennials] want to wander the world, both in real life and in digital ways. They want to feel untethered. There is a trend among young adults of delaying the pressures of adult life as long as possible; they want to embrace a lifestyle of risk, exploration and unscripted moments...The generation has come to appreciate and take identity from a spiritual version of life on the road. In other words, it is a generation that is spiritually homeless.
Barna Research Group

“The quality of any creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge.”
-John Gruber

“The visionaries aren’t always the ones who have the ideas, they are the ones who can clearly communicate their ideas to others.”
-Simon Sinek

“I don’t believe he was in love with anybody, I think that it was however a sex-tumult of sorts.”
-Wyndham Lewis, Tarr

When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares are still walking. When we hold each other, we feel-- not safe, but better. "It's all right," we whisper. "I'm here. I love you." And we lie, "I'll never leave you." For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad. When we hold each other.
-Neil Gaiman, Midnight Days

“The number one thing to steal from your competitors: Wisdom.”
-Seth Godin

“That was an important rule of any game: always make it easy for people to give you money.”

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”

“Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar.”

“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”

“You might as well eat a dog-turd burger and wash it down with a jumbo cup of septic tank.”

“They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.”
-Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.”
-Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“The purpose of CNN's BREAKING NEWS posture (caps intentional) isn't to create a better-informed citizenry. It's to make money.

“The reason that tech sites, stock sites, scandal rags and others attract attention is because it's fun. It's emotionally engaging to be involved in a story when we don't know how it's going to turn out. When the story is unfolding, when it's breaking, we become emotionally connected to it.
“The news we consume changes us. Not just the news manufactured by CNN, but the news manufactured by our boss, our investors, our customers.
“Our choice, then, is to decide whether we want to engage in the hobby of living through other people's breaking news instead of focusing on what's actually important.”
-Seth Godin

Boss, at start of weekend meeting: "I know you would rather be at home right now, binge-watching media content-"
Employee: "Hey, I just started season two of Media Content. No spoilers!"
-Brooklyn Nine-Nine

“And how shall I think of you?" He considered a moment and then laughed. "Think of me with my nose in a book!”

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never would.”

 "[A gentleman] picks up a book and begins to read ... but he is not attending to what he reads and he has got to Page 22 before he discovers it is a novel – the sort of work which above all others he most despises – and he puts it down in disgust."

 "It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week."

“Dear God!” cried Fitzroy Somerset, “What language is that?”
“I believe it is one of the dialects of Hell,” said Strange.
“Is it indeed?” said Somerset. “Well, that is remarkable.”

“Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
 "Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.”

“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.”
-Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”
-John D. Rockefeller

“If you watch the wolf too hard, a mouse will bite you on the ankle”

“Two days' hunger made a fine sauce for anything.”

“The leaf lives its appointed time, and does not struggle against the wind that carries it away. The leaf does no harm, and finally falls to nourish new leaves. So it should be with all men and women.”

“Violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it. You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.”
― Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World

“The need to be liked by people you don’t know – or like – should be treated as an illness like any other.”
-Alain de Botton
"I fear parties. I never know quite where to stand."
-Zero Theorem

“Revenge is sour.”
-George Orwell

“It’s my annivorcary. Anniversary of my divorce.”
-The West Wing

“Be warned, that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly toward a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.”

-Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“Woke up screaming on the wrong side of the Zen.”
-Strapping Young Lad

“Stop raising awareness for things. We’re still not doing anything about the stuff we are aware of.”
-Gary Janetti


-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Literateur: All the Andy Deane

I've reviewed an author's entire bibliography before. (PROOF!) But this is the first time it's an author I personally know.

This means you have every right to to distrust my objectivity.

Well, allow me to defend my objectivity credentials. I brutally trashed this author's first book on Amazon when it first came out. (I've since retracted the review because it was unnecessarily harsh and it was mostly just me lashing out because I was frustrated with my personal and creative life at the time.)

Here's the kind of guy this author is: he responded to my reckless projectile pooping all over his first literary effort...by inviting me over to watch a horror film with him.
The Deane of Andy is a gentleman and a scholar and a musician and an author. He's best known as Bella Morte's singer/songwriter, but his new project, The Rain Within, is also superb. It sounds like the soundtrack to a love scene in an 80's action movie, and I mean that in the best way. If you like dark synthy pop or the Drive soundtrack or Public Image Ltd.'s "The Order of Death," this music is for you. Heck, he's a decent photographer, too- mostly of graveyards.

(He kind of embodies what I like about my town- briefly chat with anyone you pass on the street and they'll tell you about their painting, music they make on the side, book about living with HIV, custom rockware, photography business, movies they make on the side, chainmail jewelry store, radio station they jump-started, best-selling book, photography-innovation inventiongaming card art, or music studio. The creative energy is high around here.)

He wrote four books and got them all published. This joker contacted his first publisher via MySpace and got a publishing deal out of it. Good trick.

He told me about his new book in the works, which I'm stoked about. I can't publicly discuss it, but it's gross and funny. And if he continues the upward trajectory his work has followed so far, it should be an outstanding work of horror.
The Sticks 

Deane came out swinging with a Southern­-fried werewolf tale. It feels like an early Joe R. Lansdale story set in Virginia and this debut novel has its pros and cons.

Pros: the main character is well­-developed and likable. This is a huge plus, as most horror movies and novels suffer from UCS (Unlikeable Character Syndrome). Also, the setting is very well-established. The surreal street that the main character lives on with all his colorful neighbors­ has verisimilitude and other fancy words. The violence is vivid and well-written. Example: the werewolf rips into a dude's back, grabs his spine, and lifts him like a sixpack. Ouch. Haven't heard that one before. Deane has an eye for detail and he knows where the cool parts are.

Cons: some of the plot twists are forced. The inciting incident is when the main character gets ejected from a party and kicked out into the cold in an interaction that makes very little sense. It made the character feel too much like a piece being pushed onto a chessboard. The identity of the werewolf isn't milked for any mystery, either. It's just kind of abruptly revealed without any suspense. Also- like Joe R. Lansdale- this book is jam­-packed with similes. Too jam­-packed. The wise-ass descriptions are colorful and sometimes funny, but they interfere with the narrative flow.

All in all, it's okay for a first book. It could have been great with another pass on the revision.
The Third House

This is a shorter effort and short = sweet here.

This one's a (presumably autobiographical) tale of a band on tour taking a wrong turn and getting terrorized by a family with very special teeth.

This quick riff on Texas Chainsaw Massacre works well enough. Some of the prose problems from The Sticks are also present here, but Deane writes believably and vividly.

Good luck finding it, though. Far as I can tell, there are 52 copies of this thing in existence. You can buy one here for $59.
All the Darkness in the World 

This is a higher-quality piece of work. It captures the high school vibe well and does a good job yanking its main protagonist out of his normal life and into non-stop supernatural menace. The vampire is nasty and mean and not Twilight­-y at all.

Deane does a good job painting his main character into a corner and his gift for writing likable characters and believable settings is on full display here. The main problem-­ again-­ is the torrent of similes. They stop the story cold almost every time. (Though yes­, many of them are funny.)
Learn to Study the Bible

This was a surprising departure from his previous horror novels. As bible study books go, it's okay. But I was just kind of surprised at the lack of spookiness.

I made it all the way to the end and I kept waiting for a twist ending or some big reveal- at least one ghoul or ghost or something. But nope- it's just a bible study book.

Just kidding, this is by some random other guy who happens to share the name Andy Deane.
No Turning Back 

This is where he really hits his stride. This is a siege story with our cabin-in-the-woods folks getting menaced by a tribe of werewolves. Something really unique here is that the werewolves sexually assault the males in the group. Deane takes the unfortunate misogynistic horror trope of rape-menace and inverts it, making the men the targets.

And it took four books, but Deane finally got his similes under control. I'm gonna take credit for that and say that he read my mean review of The Sticks on Amazon in 2009 and that made him decide to ease up on the figurative language. (Though in reality, he was probably just trying a different writing style.)

The end result:­ a great horror story with a lot of momentum. This is a consistently tense thriller, like a Jack Ketchum book with werewolves.

If I were you, I'd read this one first and check out his older books if you dig it.


-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Comical Books: "The Horror! The Horror!"

I read a lot of comics. Or graphic novels. Or picture books. Whatever you want to call them.

I don't review many of them because I mostly just like to enjoy them and move along.

Every now and then I hit one that merits a share.

This is the lengthily-titled The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You To Read.
It's the story of early 50's and 60's crime, horror, and sf comics and how overprotective parents tried to get them banned.

I don't have a lot of critical things to say about this one, I just wanted to say "Look at this! And this!" This thing has a lot of great images and covers that will surprise, shock, and/or delight you.

Here we go!

Covers first. Here are some of the best covers on display.

This one has a very Return of the Living Dead feel. (Also that title: Weird Tales of the Future? What's futuristic about this picture??)
This one's some nice gourmet cheese. (Wonder if it was the inspiration for Lucio Fulci's The Beyond...)
Pretty colors!
Nice angle. (Also I didn't know that the Grim Reaper brewed shrunken skulls.)
These two covers are interesting because they're both Mysterious Adventures issues, they look similar, and both give away the entire story and ending right there on the cover. (Also the story and ending appear to be the same!)
And sometimes you get some really fierce gore on the covers. Check the green shading on that clapper!
And this one's hardcore even by modern standards.
Sometimes they went too far and had to be censored, like this EC cover that showed a dripping severed neck and had to be cropped to comply with the newly-instituted comics code.
Now some choice panels.

This is one from the Tales from the Crypt offshoot, The Haunt of Fear, that pushed parents too far and made them institute the code, I was stoked to find it because I first read a description of this in Stephen King's Danse Macabre as a kid!
And here's a few gruesome goodies from the 50's and 60's to help you see the overprotective parents' POV on this issue!


And this is just delightful.
So check this book out for the story behind all these images.

It has a few short comic stories and covers, but it's mostly text. There are plenty of omnibus collections of old-school horror/sf comics out there if you want to read the actual comics.

EC dominated the market and they're what most people think of when they think of comics from this era. And they're all great: Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, Shock SuspenStories, Crime SuspenStories, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and Two-Fisted Tales.

But Warren Publishers' Creepy and Eerie have much better artwork and writing, though they're in black & white.

If you want to read a nice collection of non-EC, non-Warren horror comics from this era, I cannot recommend Four Color Fear high enough.

Enjoy, boys and ghouls!


-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Monday, February 8, 2016

Cinemasterworks: Popcorn and Jesus

I started watching Person of Interest the other day. Cool show. A friend called it "Batman meets Minority Report with computers instead of psychics." Fair enough.

But I didn't come here to talk about that.

I came to talk about Jesus.

This one, specifically:
Because this guy who played Jesus in Passion of the Christ, Jim Caviezel, is also the lead actor in Person of Interest.

Look, I connected them!

Anyhoo, I was working at a now-demolished movie theater in 2004 when Passion of the Christ came out.

I was two years out of college and scooping popcorn for minimum wage. It happens.

And the only reason the theater hired me was because they needed extra help due to surprisingly high ticket sales for Passion. (Theaters normally don't hire a lot of staff during the non-blockbuster-y month of March.)

First things first: I saw the movie and didn't care for it. Not because it was rated R (Again- this). But because it took so many liberties with the story, it was less "story of Jesus" and more "Bible fan fiction."

Now there's nothing wrong with putting your own artistic spin on the life of Jesus- Last Temptation of Christ did a great job with that- but if you're presenting it as the true story of Christ, the barometer for honesty is a little higher.

Behold, this nonsense is presented as part of the story:
-A serpent crawls through the Garden of Gethsemane and bothers Jesus while he's busy with his agony in there. (Satan appears there and chit-chats with him, too.)
-Judas is attacked by a gaggle of morphing demon-faced boys who beat and kick him.
-Mary Magdalene is presented as the prostitute in Jesus' "He who is without sin throw the first stone" scene.
-A raven pecks out the eye of one of the thieves getting crucified next to Jesus.
-Satan (a bald-headed albino woman, btw) is holding a demon-baby that giggles at Jesus while he's being scourged.

So it wasn't my jam. (I dug Pasolini's Gospel According to St. Matthew, for the record.)

But I tell you what- our theater patrons sure liked it!

Sellout crowds on weekends AND weekdays. Church screenings. Non-church screenings. Youth groups. Adult groups.

And there I was at the concession counter, popping popcorn and jockeying the register as they walked in.

Customers couldn't QUITE evade the concession counter on the way in, whether they were heading to the theaters on the left or right side of the building. (Passion was playing on both sides.)

And like a good retail salesbot, I got their attention and asked if they wanted anything.

They always did.

And like they teach ya in concessionist training- I upsold. (You order a medium, I tell you it's only 25 cents more to make it a large.)

And also in accordance with my training- I did suggestive selling. (You order a popcorn and soda, I ask if you want a candy, too.)

The most valuable tool in the suggestive/up-selling toolbox was the combo. You get the large popcorn, large soda, and candy, and it's about $4 cheaper than if you bought them separately.

Good deal, right?

Well, it's not- the $6 popcorn cost the theater about 11 cents, the $5 soda cost about 6 cents, and the candy was likewise a few bucks cheaper for the theater to buy. (But concession sales are where theaters make all their money, so give 'em a break!)

The end result was that thanks to me, a whole lotta people walked into that movie armed with a popcorn/candy/soda combo (I set a record for combo sales, getting me promoted to the God-like $6.50/hour Assistant Manager position within weeks).

And then the movie started.
While my position was behind the counter, I still helped clean the theaters. So I saw the floors after the movie was over. And what did I see?

All the food I sold the customers.

Every large bucket of popcorn was almost full. And every soda had only a sip or two taken out of it. The box of candy was usually gone, but I'm guessing people just took it home.

I worked at a couple movie theaters before this one, mostly as an usher- taking tickets and cleaning theaters. And I'd never seen that much unfinished food on the floor before. Not even at Amistad or House of 1000 Corpses.

I'd always had pretty good luck finding coins and bills on the theater floor- more bills than you might guess- but Passion was the first movie where I saw people on the floor as the credits rolled.

On their knees. Praying fervently. Often in tears.

The cynic in me wondered if they were just gut-punched by the raw brutality of Passion and felt guilted into gratitude for Jesus' sacrifice. Did they experience the same kind of conversion people had when they saw Super Size Me and decided never to eat fast food again...and then ate it again a week later? Or the people who saw Requiem for a Dream and swore off all substance abuse forever...until the next time they were offered a drink?

I don't know. Maybe Passion did affect people on a deeper level. It sure killed their appetites.

Passion of the Christ was good for popcorn sales, maybe not so good for popcorn consumption.


-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Friday, February 5, 2016

TV Casualty: All the Shows

I shattered my leg and ankle last summer. I put the photo of my x-ray on the cover of Fast Breaks. I'm still recovering from it.

So while debilitated, I watched a lot of stuff. Probably more stuff than usual.

Also I watch stuff while I do my homework. Or while I do freelance work. Or while I'm lazy.

Read all about it!
Jane the Virgin

Hilarious and delightful goof on Mexican telenovelas that functions perfectly well as a telenovela itself. Inciting incident: at a gynecological checkup, Jane (a virgin) is accidentally artificially inseminated. And gets pregnant. With the child of someone she happened to love years ago. Creating a love triangle with him and her current lover! Plots within plots unravel from there! Bonus: the thick, booming narrator's goofy voice as he comments on all the madness as we go along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This series has already had infinite scholarly articles and books written on it so I have nothing original or new to add. Just this: solid, funny stuff. Love all the social commentary on high school and college life. Some episodes are genuinely scary. Especially the one with the silence demons. But the verbal banter is the real star here. The last couple seasons are a bit scatterbrained, but I don't regret a minute I spent watching this silly show.

Angel

The flipside of Buffy. Ironically, I hated the Angel character on Buffy (Soulful, brooding vampires are not my jam). But in this setting, he works perfectly and this series explores the darkness of life in L.A. both directly and allegorically. Buffy is a show about growing up. This is a show about being an adult and facing difficult adult responsibilities and decisions. Dark stuff, too. Some laughs, but mostly hard-hitting. Also very creative and unpredictable.

In fairness- gotta ding it for the Surprise Pregnancy in season three. And then they used the Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome trick to immediately turn the baby into an adolescent and shoe-horn him into the narrative (the same way Buffy awkwardly shoe-horned Dawn in there). Proving that even quality shows are vulnerable to Cousin Oliver Syndrome.

Dollhouse

Wild stuff! Basic concept: people go to a secret organization to rent out their bodies- as "dolls"- for a couple years. The dolls are programmable to be anything and know anything, so clients can use them for missions or to solve crimes or for pleasure. One doll goes super-rogue and another doll breaks the system. The show explores the abuses and ultimate nightmarish implications from this technology. They could have done a pretty lazy show with the premise with a mission-of-the-week, but they went bonkers and epic with it.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

The first HBO show I've ever seen that your mom can watch. It could air uncut on network TV. Also it's a really good adaptation of the Alexander McCall Smith book series. Pleasant characters, well-written scripts, beautiful Botswana scenery, and lots of gentle laughs.

The West Wing

Aaron Sorkin's masterpiece. Almost every episode has enough material and concepts to sustain a film. And every character is interesting. Sorkin left after season four- having written an astonishing 85 of the 88 episodes- but his absence isn't really palpable until season seven. That one misfires in the first half when it focuses on new characters who just aren't as interesting as the ones we know and love. It recovers and closes strong, though.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I like a lot of Andy Samberg's digital shorts, but never thought much of him as an actor. And the pilot for this show did NOT grab me when it first aired. Seeing it now, though, in a world where we no longer have new episodes of Parks & Recreation...it's a pretty solid ensemble comedy! It takes a few episodes to get its groove- a qualification that normally kills my interest- but once it's going, every episode is laugh-out-loud funny. Even when it misses the mark, it does so cheerfully and moves on to the next gag.

House

He's bitter. But he's brilliant. But just so bitter. Still...so brilliant! I was in a lot of pain post-surgery while I watched this show, so House's anger and extreme leg pain made perfect sense. While in my right mind, however, I don't think I could roll with it.
Galavant

I don't like singing and I'm not crazy about fairy tale shows. This is a fairy tale show with non-stop singing. And it's MAGNIFICENT! Unapologetically goofy and dumb, with fantastic guest stars including Weird Al, John Stamos, and the dad from Downton Abbey. Two seasons of hilarious non-stop joy. They hold nothing back- every episode swings for the fences.

The Newsroom


Aaron Sorkin unleashed. Lots of people yelling at each other. Lots of cussing. Lots and lots of political/ social commentary, all very much in your face. The best scene in the entire series was when Jeff Bridges' character goes too far in interrogating a gay African-American Republican. What could have been played as a partisan political cheap shot came across as savagely emotional and honest. This here is the scene. Overall, not a bad show. I miss The West Wing.

Scream

It's less a slasher satire and more the kind of straightforward slasher that Scream was satirizing.(And heck, if you'd like an edgy slasher satire show, the bizarre, delirious, and NASTY show Scream Queens is probably more to your taste. Scream Queens is what I was expecting this show to be.) Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson made a similar mistake when he scripted the generic slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer right after scripting a movie that made fun of generic slashers. This show is a teen drama about cyberbullying where someone gets stabbed now and then. There's a clever line here and there, but the tone is mostly morose.

The weight of teens dying is heavy on the characters. Which is good, really. It's honest. Hundreds of teens get wasted on Buffy and it never registers- school and the characters keep going on as normal. So I guess you can credit this show with taking a dean teenager story seriously.

It's okay, I guess. Bogs down in the middle. Would have made a better movie. And nice touch-they dedicated the final episode to Wes Craven, director of the film Scream and countless fantastic horror films, since he died right before the show aired.

Walking Dead, Season 5

It took five years, but this has finally become a halfway decent show. Started strong with season 1 and has been fumbling ever since. This bodes well for future seasons.

Supernatural, Season 10

Season 9 was just...okay. So I didn't bother with this season as it aired. Too many mediocre seasons in a row left me cold. Well, this one isn't bad! Or it could be that this show just works better when binged. Mucho monsters, mucho mayhem, mucho brotherly love. A great meta-episode, "Fan Fiction." Some of the gore and the violent opening scenes are just nasty. But it's a horror show, so hey.
Making a Murderer

Messed up. I saw Paradise Lost back when it first came on HBO in 1994 and have read a lot of true crime over the years, so I figured out pretty quick that our justice system is way scarier than any of the accused criminals it prosecutes.

Sad to say, nothing in this series surprised me. The state wasn't even pretending they had anything other than a coerced, inconsistent confession from a mentally-challenged minor elicited without a lawyer present, along with some blatantly planted evidence put there by people with a strong motive to frame the defendant. Also- at no point did I hear any believable reason for the defendant or his nephew to hurt the woman they were accused of murdering.

There's a series of depositions where the people that framed the defendant back in the 80's are answering for their crimes. And in one of them, this evil-looking curly-haired lady is just flat-out smug and condescending. It could not be more clear that she's gleefully lying and unrepentant about railroading the defendant. She's proud of herself and she's giving that attitude ON-CAMERA. You can only imagine what these people do and say when there's NOT a camera on them.

SPOILER, but the missing piece in the defense was that they never presented a believable alternative killer. Avery killing the woman made no sense, but no one else had motive to kill her, either. I absolutely 100% believe the cops planted evidence at Avery's place. But I don't think even I am far enough gone to believe that the cops murdered that woman with the intention of setting Avery up. That's the only alternative I see, but that's dark even by my standards. They mentioned the woman's roommate briefly as a possible suspect- he was fishy, but that aspect wasn't explored. No motive for him to kill her was ever presented. Though this isn't really about finding the truth, it's about exploring how Avery's right to a fair trial was abused.

Narcos

I was totally on board for this Netflix show. The first episode was totally compelling, with great performances, intense action, lots of twists, and- amazingly- NO GRATUITOUS SEX! I was like "Wow! An adult Netflix drama that isn't trying to out-sex HBO!" So I settled in for episode two. Aaaaand there's four gratuitous sex scenes in a row. Peace out. I'm not the target audience here. Really lame of Netflix to wait until the second episode to let you know the show's actually cheap smut. Thanks, Obama.

Z Nation

It's okay. It's made by the schlockmeisters behind most of SyFy's giant monster movies, so it's a miracle that it's even watchable. It's basically a low-budget fast zombie movie with above average production values, stretched out over several episodes.

The Simpsons

I stopped watching Simpsons around 1997. Then a couple years ago, when we started using Hulu, I noticed the show was still on the air. WHA?!? So I started watching it and was surprised by how sharp and well-written it was. I understand it's fashionable to hate it now (If you're REALLY cool, you have to say it stopped being good in season four or something) but I really believe a lot of that comes from just taking the show for granted. It's been around so long, people don't appreciate how consistently solid it is. Coming at it after a 15-year hiatus the way I did, I was shocked by how good it was. Most recent episodes have been solid, too.
Helix

First season was a cool, messed-up The Thing-esque Arctic body horror thing. Second season just dropped on Netflix and hoo boy, there's some sick stuff here. It's got a wonderfully messed-up sense of humor. They're really embracing it now, probably because they knew they were getting canceled. I guess they figured they wanted to get some solid gross-out stuff in and some really cruel funny-music-playing-over-disturbing-scene gags. And the editing is so jagged and the tone shifts are so brutal. Neat show. SyFy is getting better at making stuff. Also- something happens at the halfway point in this season that's just jaw-droppingly horrifying and makes you wonder how this show made it on the air.


-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

This is a Thing: VidAngel

This is a new segment for my blog called "This is a Thing." This ongoing series will cover...things.

This week's thing is VidAngel.


VidAngel is an online movie service that offers the option of filtering your movies.
Irony: their logo looks like an adult film company's,
Isn't This Censorship?

Yep. But it's voluntary. You can get movies from VidAngel and watch them totally uncut if you like. Or if you want to only delete the word "balls" and leave it uncut otherwise, you can do that, too. (But only if you have no balls.)

Companies in Utah have been trying to crack this market for years. Most notoriously, CleanFlicks was a video rental store that edited the movies themselves and re-burned them onto DVDs and rented them out to customers.

Problem: that was illegal duplication AND profiting off a product they weren't licensed to distribute AND the specific way they were editing was ruled illegal. For this and other reasons, CleanFlicks and the rest of the edited-video stores were wiped off the map under a deluge of lawsuits. (Video stores died shortly thereafter, so they probably would have disappeared, anyway.)

The whole saga was chronicled in the documentary Cleanflix, which took a dark third-act twist that I'm totally not gonna spoil here. But it's a doozy.

So How's It Work?

You start an account and set your filters to whatever you like. You want nudity gone? Click, gone. You want graphic violence gone? Click, gone. Then pick from a buffet of pottymouth and decide what words you don't want to hear.

Then you can use the website (or an app on your Roku/smart TV) to order whatever movie or show you like.

It will cost $20, as you're technically "buying" it.

Once you bought it, VidAngel will apply the filters you want and you can watch it on your computer or app or wherever.

And the next day you "sell it back" to VidAngel for $19. (You get $18 if it was an HD file.)

So the end result is: you paid $1 (SD) or $2 (HD) on a one-day movie rental. (Oh, and you can set it to automatically "sell back" the movie the next day so you don't have to worry about that step.)

This Can't Be Legal

It is. (Or not? See update at bottom of article.)

Now it seems like if you own a video file- in any format- you are free to manipulate it, remix it, censor it, do whatever you want to it. Kinda true, but it won't hold up in court. So this site doesn't manually edit films. It just "tags" parts of the movie that you can choose to have dropped after you buy it. It's an automatic process. Loophole!

End result: it's as legal as watching a DVD and hitting the "Mute" button when a character starts cussing. Or fast-forwarding through a sex scene.

Now- it would be illegal if you resold the movie with modified filters. Or duplicated it. But with VidAngel, you're not re-selling it or duplicating it. Just watching it.

It would also be illegal, probably, if the video company modified the movie while in their possession and sold it to you in a modified form. That's not happening here, though. The movie you "buy" comes to you complete and uncut. It's not modified by the filters you choose until after you already own it.

And they even found a way around being a rental service. The "buy/sellback" gag keeps them in seller terrain.

It's airtight. These guys found all the loopholes.

C'mon- This Is At Least a Spirit of the Law Violation

Yep.

They're totally renting movies to you under the guise of selling them and buying them back. No doubt, no diggity.

This loophole is like if a conservative Christian couple went to Las Vegas and got married, had lotsa sex, then got the marriage annulled to avoid any accusations of premarital sex.

But it's still legal.

How Are They Pulling This Off?

Good question, and I don't have the answer to that.

The filtering process is simple enough- they have a crowd-sourced army of folks that manually tag the movies for parts that you can choose to have removed.

But as far as getting the rights to the movies- I'm mystified.

This service sells Game of Thrones episodes. HBO doesn't even sell Game of Thrones episodes. You have to buy HBO- or HBO GO- to watch that show. (Consequently, it's the most pirated show in the world.)

But you can "buy/sellback" each episode here for $1 a pop. ($2 if you want HD.)

Hopefully VidAngel has the licensing rights to do this. If they don't, they're gonna get shut down faster than you can say "winter is coming."

But considering how legally savvy this company's been with finding the copyright and editing loopholes, it's extremely unlikely that they'd be dumb enough not to license the content they "sell."

But I haven't seen their business paperwork, so I can't confirm or deny.

Alright, Fine. How'd It Work for You?

Pretty good. We rented The Martian and the Game of Thrones pilot.

Pros:
-The HD image quality is perfect. This looks as good as anything on Netflix, if not better.
-Even SD image quality looks okay. Good choice if you wanna save $1, are watching on a small screen, or your vision is blurry anyway.
-The verbal filtering was mostly smooth, with audio dissolves and sometimes ambient sound left to cover the gap of silence.
-Decent selection. They have a bunch of brand new movies and a handful of classics. Lots of movies that aren't available on Netflix or Amazon.
-The VidAngel app on the Roku is great. Easy to navigate, really nice and smooth-looking.
-It has a "Inspiring" meter, which rates how inspiring the movie is on a scale of 1 to 100.
-It gives you a visual preview of how much you'll miss, audio-wise and video-wise, with your filters set on a movie, along with how much shorter the movie will be. Helpful for deciding if it's worth it.
Looks like the audio is more off than on for this one.
-GREAT PRICE. Even if you watch the movies unfiltered, $2 for an HD movie or $1 for an SD movie is a really good deal. Cheaper than Redbox.

Cons:
-When the verbal filtering didn't work, it was jarring and took you out of the movie. Sometimes they delete a whole sentence just to get rid of a word and that can be disorienting and annoying.
-The nudity filter is confusing. We set it on "Both Men and Women," thinking that would cover all nudity. Nope. That only filters out scenes where BOTH men and woman are naked. If it's just a woman or just Matt Damon's butt strolling through the scene, it leaves them in there. You have to manually click "Men" and "Women" if you want both gone.
-It offers a "Disturbing Images" filter. Who decides what's disturbing? And sometimes a scene being disturbing is the point.

Here's another review with more thoughts about the service, if you're interested. It's almost a year old, so most of the glitches mentioned in there have been fixed.

This is Troubling. What About Respecting the Filmmakers' Artistic Vision?

You have a point. Also VidAngel is a funny thing for me to review because I watch some pretty toxic stuff. (I don't hide it- I discuss this junk right here on this blog!) I became a horror junkie at a very young age and I have an encyclopedic knowledge of horror and weird cinema. I drift in and out of enthusiasm for the genre- I'm mighty sick of the jump-scare and torture-porn subgenres- but it's remained something I love throughout life.

And I also belong to a religion that conditions its youth to believe that a movie magically becomes immoral when the arbitrary label of "R" is applied to it. I joined this religion as an adult, so I probably see more gray than black and white on this issue. And I admit- my opinion on this issue may be wrong. Ask me next month or next year and my opinion might change. But the last word on this religion vs. ratings argument was dropped here. I can't say it any better. (Though I will say that the morality of Amazing Spider-Man 2 is way more troubling than anything in Shawshank Redemption.)

I mean- from a business perspective, this thing is great. I've been saying for years that Hollywood is stupidly leaving money on the table by not offering an online video rental service that lets you filter movies/shows however you like. They could expand their movies' audiences drastically if they let people watch their movies with the nastiest stuff gone. And VidAngel pulled it off.

But if you care about film- is an edited movie even worth watching? Is it better for people to look at a damaged work of art or to not look at that work of art at all?

It really depends. If integrity and vision are really important to you, this service is not for you (Unless- again- you'd like to ignore the filters and use it to rent movies on the cheap).

There's a longer debate to be had about censorship and respecting a filmmaker's intention. But the Cleanflix documentary already nailed this question pretty well. (Angry as the Hollywood directors in that documentary got about the notion of Cleanflicks editing their movies, I've never heard any of them complain about their movies getting censored and shown on airplanes or network TV or basic cable. What's the difference?)

But if movies are just a diversion for you and you don't think about them too deeply, this is a perfectly legit way for you to watch movies without getting hit with objectionable content that makes it harder for you to enjoy the experience.

(Update 6/30/16: They got sued. Hard. Comes at an awkward time, as they just recently announced they're opening up for investments. I read the lawsuit paperwork and there's an awful lot of grey area in there. But the part that interests me: the studios claim Vidangel is illegally ripping movies from discs and using those as the files that they (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) "sell." I think VidAngel has a pretty solid defense on a lot of fronts, but I'm curious to see how they defend the illegal disc-ripping allegation. That smells like a "Gotcha.")


-Phony McFakename

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Legal disclaimer: Me am on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and even Pinterest if that's your thing. And me books am on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.