Movie Musings for 2014

I'm writing what was originally going to be a posted response to Belated Media's top films of 2014 and I'm expanding on it. For their top 2014 (and other top film lists click this link. Also check out two (currently) really good videos they did about Star Wars Episodes I and II actually being good.

I have seen some films recently that made me think, ignited my sense of wonder, or I found all together good. So, I hope you enjoy my list and give me feedback on what you think or thought. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Edge of Tomorrow

  Let's kick things off with, possibly, my favorite film of the year. Sure it has some cliches, but, for the alien work and the technology (exoskeleton) work, I think EDGE OF TOMORROW deserves at least an honorable mention. I actually enjoyed it more than Guardians of the Galaxy (see below). Edge, at least put work into making aliens that were truly that: alien. The beings could not be understood nor humanized. Their movement was non-terrestrial and it did a very good job making them scary (although I did find some of the shots gratuitously placed for the 3D port, like a scene on the beach when an alien flails its appendages and it jumps out at you in the 3D version).

  I thought that watching Major Bill Cage progress from a coward to a hero was a decent human character development. I thought Emily Blunt did an excellent job in her first real action piece. And I give all the actors perks (Cruise included) for learning to act in those heavy suits. The film accomplished, at many points, the feel of a classic WWII film, yet did present something new. Yes, the ending did kind of fall back on some of the classic time-travel tropes, but at least it more or less worked for the story of the film.

  Sure it was GROUNDHOG DAY with guns and aliens. But, it was the only film of last year I bought--I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think it deserved to receive an honorable mention in many of the great films of last year.

• Guardians of the Galaxy

  This was the 300 pound elephant of the year, and I would be remiss to not mention one of the other films I caught last year. Guardians was a romp, both old and new, it fed us on many entertaining levels. It was a well-done film from Marvel using the updated, more Marvel-universe-centric characters than the ones from the comics I used to love reading as a kid. This had nothing to do with the 31st century team I remembered. But, it was a load of fun. While not as intellectually stimulating as Edge of Tomorrow, it still provided fun and a well-told story. People complain about the villain, but he did a good job making the heroes cool and look good, which is really what any antagonist is supposed to do.

  I liked the casting and the characterization. I like the fact that each time Vin Diesel said, "I am Groot." his script told him, on the other page, what his character was really saying and they pulled a Chewbacca/Han Solo relationship between Groot and Rocket. I find Zoe Saldana sexy and enjoyable as Gamora, though I also found Karen Gillan with a great bad-girl seductiveness that gave her sexy in her own right. (My son tells me I'll love her as Amy Pond, but I have to work my way to those episodes). I also thought that Dave Bautista did a great job as film acting was not his original field. Wrestlers do a pretty good job. Not being familiar with Parks and Rec I didn't know Chris Pratt, but I thought he did a great job. I particularly loved seeing Michael Rooker as Yondu (a hail back to the comics I did read as a kid). The whistle arrow was fun.

  Otherwise, I think I got a good chuckle out of the Honest Trailer for the film, which does hit on a few of my sticking points that I too had.

  On the whole, I look forward to buying this film.

• John Wick

  This film was actually fun. As my friend Evan put it, it's almost a live-action Cowboy BeBop film. It's the classic revenge story of once deadly man loses almost everything then the stupid world he walked away from comes calling and takes the rest of everything he had left. Now he's back and he's going to get his revenge. Despite the fact that I did enjoy this film, maybe my training in martial arts and firearms made some of the action sequences a little hard for me to suspend my disbelief. That being said, a simple revenge story can be one of the best.

• The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies

  I plan to write a full article on the almost-had-it film set of the Hobbit franchise. This one suffices me to say, I did not particularly enjoy the series from a story standpoint, to say nothing about the comparison to the wonderful novel from whence it sprang. "Based On" in the loosest sense...(see my Tolkien film review at this [future] link).

• Interstellar

  OK, I haven't seen this yet. (I'll wait for everyone's shock to wear off.) But I hope to find an IMAX showing of it this next week, if I can make it. If not, I'll see a regular showing and still try to enjoy it for its story sake and its comparison to 2001:Space Odyssey.

On the whole, I still saw more movies last year (or just after the year began) than I did the year before. I'm hoping to start posting more book and movie reviews this year and really engage with the site, so you know me better by the time you start seeing my friend R. P. Goodfellow's books start coming out. Thanks for those who have read my blog so far, and I hope to help you think and have some fun in the coming year.

Sorry for the Delay, She's OK

Sorry this comes almost two weeks since the release. But, Kori was only kept in the MICU for one night (right next door to her room from the first time in the MICU). The next day they "downgraded" her to a regular floor room in Acute Internal Medicine-B. She stayed Thursday and Friday (we got to see all the best fireworks shows from her hospital window; the kids and I also stayed the night) and then she was released on Friday 5 July 2014.

Thank you all for your prayers and faith. I know they helped her heal in record time.

Wow! This Update Came Fast!

Fast Turn-Around

When Kori started showing symptoms of illness on Tuesday and then slipped into the point where I called 911 yesterday, I was not expecting a turn-around to happen this quickly. Last night, through a fast application of fluids (which did not have to be forced into her this time just to keep her blood pressure up) and antibiotics, she seems to have come almost all the way back.

So, the doctors and nurses in the MICU are saying that, probably later this afternoon or early evening, she can transfer to a step-down floor where she will probably only stay a day or two more before returning home.

As a side note, she will probably finish losing her left pinky toe in the next few days. Of all her necrotic toes, this seems to be the only one that will fully auto-amputate. The rest of the toes' necrotic flesh seems only to be serving as cocoons for the new toe growth. With this being the case, she hopes to start walking again by the end of the year or beginning of next.

Your prayers and faith are appreciated and felt. Thank you all.

Back in MICU

As many of you know, my lovely wife was admitted to the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at the University of Utah Hospital last October with severe septic shock. Well, she is back here again, with similar symptoms. It does not look like the shock is as bad. And they're letting me stay the night this time around. I am grateful that she is still here with us. And, provided all goes well, she won't be staying as long this time in the MICU and will be able to get to rehab where they can work to help her get her leg strength back. Please keep her in your prayers and you can ping me tomorrow for details. Love to you all.

My SF Story (Part 3)

It Runs in the Family

Let me explain how David Farland is my uncle. My dad had moved our family back to Utah in 1980 after he resigned from the U. S. Army. He was a tank driver/gunner/commander stationed up at Ft. Lewis, Washington when I was born in 1976. And I, his namesake (just the Junior), am exactly 23 years and a week younger than him. Dad moved back because his family had stayed down here when he joined the Army. I need to explain what family means to my dad and by example to me. Dad's family that he was born to, the Emersons, had been through trial and misfortune over many years, the most recent was a trailer roll-over up American Fork canyon in which my dad's step father was killed in the accident. Soon after that, my grandma decided to move the family up to Salt Lake City.
Dad, already enrolled for his senior year of high school at Pleasant Grove High School, did not want to move up to the "big city." So he arranged with my grandma to move in with "Grandma" Herbert. Grandma Herbert let Dad stay with her until he graduated from high school. Afterword he moved in with Grandma Herbert's daughter, Barbara, and her husband, Sid Hagman as a foster son until he left to serve as a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the South.
Dad grew to love the Hagmans and the Herberts. In a lot of ways, the Herberts and Hagmans became my dad's real family. They reinforced his love of hunting, shooting, and the outdoors. When he returned from his mission, he returned to their home before joining the Army. And he set in place the fact that still holds true today: that we each have two families in this world, the one we're born into, and the one we choose. In my opinion, the chosen family is of more value than the birth family.
One of Dad's foster sisters in the Hagman home (they continued to foster, both through arrangement and state programs) was a young lady who later married David Farland. In 1989 he furthered the changes that Orson Scott Card started in me four years before. On my 13th birthday, Thanksgiving Day that year, David gave me a signed copy of his first novel.I read it in a very short time. Then I read it again. And, according to some papers I found, despite my earlier efforts, efforts began in earnest from that time on to tell stories.
I also, in my 14th year, got introduced to comic books and role playing games. I read primarily X-Men and a few other Marvel Comics titles. (More about comics, RPGs, other authors, and movies in later posts.) I can find a few papers, here and there proving that I started writing more during that time. Many of the stories were copies of comic and adventure stories I read. Some are original. But, almost all of them, to me, stink. But, I was a young writer just stretching his wings and testing his claws.
David next provided a deep direct influence later, after my LDS Mission (another story for another time). At the time I had been working after having to drop out after just one semester of college in Spring 1997 at UVSC and had gone to work at Techserv in Orem, Utah to pay off my short-term student loan. After paying it off, I stayed working in the technical support industry. I worked briefly in a call-back survey team in the latter part of 1999 and then in January 2000, at the suggestion of my boss, I took the larger paycheck and moved down the hill to another of the old WordPerfect buildings to work in Hell—I mean for Convergys. (Incidentally, if I royally screw up in this life and get to the judgment bar, God will look at the fact that I did time at Convergys and lived in the Tree streets in Provo and pronounce, "Time Served!" and let me go.) I did tech support there, then found myself later unemployed that summer. I had started, before leaving Convergys, to work with David on a project, which sadly, never came to fruition. I had even spent some time that summer trying to drum up a scholarship to get myself back into school with the theater department at Utah Valley State College (UVSC). They had offered me a half-tuition scholarship, but, as summer wound to a close, I had to realize that I would have to turn down the scholarship, there was no way I could make enough money to pay my back-rent and get into school. A benefactor helped change that circumstance, and David gave me advice on a direction to go.

He pointed me to use the money from my benefactor, take the scholarship, and get some student loans and get back into school full-time. He told me that as he got his degree in English and Editing he used student loans and did not regret taking ten years to pay them back. (I'm coming up on my ten-year mark and still haven't done that well for myself, but I'm doing well enough.)

I took his advice and started back to school using the theater scholarship with the thought in mind to use it to quickly get my Associates of Science. Then I planned to move up to the University of Utah to major in Physics with an emphasis in pre-med courses.

Part way through that, I realized that I was not supposed to go to med school, so I changed my emphasis to just pure physics, thinking I might like to go into particle astrophysics later. But, during this time, I met my lovely wife, who helped me realize I might not make it in physics, but I did have skills as a writer. She prompted me to also take a reality check: I was three years away from a Bachelors in physics, following which I would immediately have to go onto a Ph.D. program. Or I could look at the fact that I'd taken enough literature and writing courses to get a degree in English at UVSC in just three semesters. ...It wasn't that hard of a choice.

I transferred back and ended up getting my BS in English in 2004. I had some great courses and some great times in college. I'll mention some of the SF accomplishments I had and some of the other foundational things in my SF life later on.

Ultimately, David was there all along, as he is still there through his Daily Kick emails (which are the best free writing and writing life emails anyone could ask for). We see him a lot. And I try to not talk writing with him. He's just a person, like everyone else. People like to talk about movies and music and books and life; though we do discuss story, a pet topic we both enjoy discussing (stories in movies and books). Most people don't like to endlessly discuss work (unless you pay them for it). But, on the times where he initiates the topic and decides to discuss writing, I try to absorb every word. I listen with focused attention. I hope that, some day, I can not only find some of the successes he found, find ways to write myself out of the financial holes I encounter in life, but I hope to be able to give back to a new, aspiring author and give love to someone else the way David loves me.

I kid not when I say he is my favorite uncle. And, if you're still with me, I do want to plug his novel Nightengale not only as one of the best young adult novels I've read in a long time (I read it in three days, a feat I haven't had the time or the novel to accomplish in years) but also because the sales of his novel are helping him to write his way out of a bit of a hole he recently found himself in after his 16-year-old son, my cousin Ben, fell off his long-board back in March. If any of my readers care to do so, or could donate at helpwolverton.com I would be most grateful. It would be the least I could do to ever even try to pay him back for the influence and love he has provided for me.

Thank you, Uncle Dave, for providing me with a hope and guidance in this world. Thank you for helping me to find hope of my own. I wish you much luck with your next story and overcoming the current hiccup in life.

And a special thank you to my 10 readers who have found me and actually have liked me well enough to come back for a third installment. The next one is on my favorite media influences.

My SF Story (Part 2)

Before I can get to David Farland, I need to touch on anothe life-changing literary event. Mrs. Cassidy read "A Sound of Thunder" to my class from a collected volume of science fiction stories called Wide Angle Lens, edited by Phyllis R. Fenner. (Read my earlier review of the book here.) I waited until Mrs. Cassidy was done reading the book to all the other classes and was the first student to check out the book. I got it, re-read "A Sound of Thunder" and every other story in the book. I was in love. Worlds near and far had been shown to me, and the magnificent book, the vehicle to get me there, had been opened to me. I read everything I could get my hands on. And the next major book I discovered became the next, major milestone in my literary reading career.

I believe in about early 1986, when I was nine, I discovered a really cool-looking paperback book my dad brought home, called Ender's Game.

I read the book from cover to cover and fell in absolute love with the book. It was the first time I read the book. Indeed, I believe my second time was not long after. I have read the book, as of this writing, 22 times; I used to read it annually. And to add to this, my son recently repeated my nine-year-old feat and read the book for his first time. One day, when he was in the next-to-last chapter, I went outside to find him on our porch in September, as the summer heat was waning for the year, deep into that chapter. When I came out on the porch to tell him his half-hour of required daily reading was finished, he told me to go away, he wanted to read.

I re-read the book now in the hopes of figuring out how to write a story with a similar technique. And without fail, every time I get going in the book, the story wraps me back in and engulfs me in the magic of the tale.

I even went to Ender Con in 2002, where I actually got to meet Orson Scott Card. (I congratulate myself on keeping my stuff together; it helped that I was friends with one of his dear college friends and with his bibliographer.)

As for seeing the movie on 1 November 2013, I wrote the following review. (I took my nine-year-old son to see this movie opening day.)

The Good Points:

I liked the tweak to the exterior of the Battle Room, showing stars and the earthscape out the window. I liked some of the portrayal of the interiors of the physical school itself, although I wish it had felt more curved. I liked a lot of the look and feel elements of the show. I think Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin did good jobs portraying the children at a specific range of the lives (a hard feat when you look at the book and the time period it covers). Even more controversial casting choices worked for me: Harrison Ford as Graff and casting Viola Davis as Anderson worked. I especially thought that Moisés Arias NAILED the little-man that Card described in the book as Bonzo (except that he was supposed to be physically bigger than Ender, but the portrayal was spot on). I also thought it an interesting choice to turn Bernard into a friend/acolyte in the end. I also liked the near-weightlessness they achieved for the battle room. Using some of Card's dialogue directly from the novel, that was good too. I applaud Hood for not Michael Baying the film, no fart jokes or other potty humor, no humping animals (or peeing or other bodily functions), no skin on the teenage girls, no foul-mouthed teen on the team, and no fart jokes. The film actually made the audience think.

Also, I applaud Hood for giving the sense of pseudo-military realism and for taking many of Card's ideas to fruition. I really liked the theme that Hood brought out: it's not the winning, it's how you win that counts. There was good wisdom that actually required the audience to pay attention.

The Compromise Points:

I understand some of the timing decisions, though I didn't agree with putting Dink in Salamander. But, almost all the major points of the story are there. I understand why, with the exception of the lake scene, Peter and Valentine were written almost completely out of the story, though Ender leaving without Valentine at the end of the movie was kind of a bummer. And eliminating Locke and Demosthenes was an understandable decision. Combining Eros and the unnamed colony planet at the end of the film was understandable, but still probably not the best we could hope for. I understand removal of the idea that SOME of our ships would be newer and at newer battle sites where as older, slower ships would be the ones arriving at the planet.

The Cringe Things:

Only one bugger attack? That's all it took to unify humanity (to the degree it unifies in the book and film) and develop all the scientific technologies and military ideologies that are portrayed in the film? Nothing moves THAT fast in this world, especially not governments. AND incorporating all that technology in 50 years? Never would happen. That's one place where no pacing of the film would have been lost if we had mentioned that Mazer beat the buggers out in space. I didn't like reducing the Little Doctor to one gunship that could get from battle one to the final battle, it implies that the buggers weren't far off from the human race, in distance, as implied in the book. That would have given us the time to develop as a race and technological advancements off captured bugger equipment.

I also didn't like the omission of Petra's breakdown. It made her less real and more cut-out. It was a very human moment in the story. (Also, there was a bit of a teenage love interest between Petra and Dink that could have been added in without loss of timing.) I also, despite my love of Sir Ben Kingsly as Mazer Rackham (a choice I agree with, on the whole) I think it would have made the story better for him to explain to Ender that he got accelerated to relativistic speed and brought back (this would solve my first problem about the difference in time jumping from F-35 jets to hyperspace technology in 50 years instead of possibly hundreds). I did not like that Hood was afraid to have Ender outright, and inadvertently (I might emphasize) kill the two boys he kills in the book. Not saying I'm a warmonger or want children killing each other, but I don't want . But, seeing the way Ender later reacts when he finds out that he accidentally It made the moral burden on Ender for the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo the more powerful and shadows of his upcoming war with the buggers. And I liked that Ender found the hidden queen egg on a new colony planet. I think his becoming Speaker for the Dead is a very important part of how he views his own redemption, if you will. AND one of my biggest let-downs was the lack of characterization with Bean. Having him be a younger than Ender and just as smart and less empathetic was kind of important for the story. (At least they did not deny the farewell of Alai from the launch group, though it almost felt superficial and trite.) I wish we could have seen Bean point out why Bonzo lost (not in the battle of two armies) which would have fueled Bonzo's murderous rage.

But...

These things being said, I enjoyed the film well-enough to give it four out of five stars. I will purchase it. I will hold it up there as a well-told story, on the whole. My son, loved the film. And I keep reminding myself to look at it as a film, not a book. It is a film INSPIRED by and BASED on Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, not a line-by-line faithful recreation in visual format. I agree with Scott Card when he said that, in his opinion, the best way in which this book could be presented is the audio book format. Films are not the end-all-be-all of entertainment, many Americans just think they are. But, part of what makes Card's book so great is the richness of the language and dialogue he uses. Ender's Game becomes better with the addition of Ender's Shadow. The two, together make a great whole.

The movie was good. I will pay to see it again in the theaters. And, ultimately, the moral quandary presented through Ender to us as viewers is still there. Get this movie. Watch it. Watch it with your kids. Help them understand that more than one side exists for every story. This film does what every good SF film (and story) does: it leaves you with just enough answers for some satisfaction but not enough to leave a person with no questions. In short, it makes the receiver of the story think for their own self, which is something I've loved about SF all along.

On the whole, well done Hood, Card, Orci, Kurtzman and team.

My SF Story (Part 1)

Getting Started

If you don't know yet, I have a very special love of Science Fiction (SF). My first exposure came as a babe in arms, when in 1977 my parents took me to see Star Wars. My dad always had a copy of Edgar Rice Burrows' Princess of Mars with the classic Michael Whelan's classic 1979 cover with John Carter carrying Dejah Thoris draped across his arms and green, four-armed aliens claw at his heels as they lie there dying (of course it sat on the back of the toilet for years). Then, of course my parents showed wisdom taking me and my little four-year-old sister (whom I remember having R2-D2 underoos around this time) to The Empire Strikes Back in 1981.

But it was either late 1982 or early 1983 that my second grade class (under Sra. Garcia) went to the library to listen to Mrs. Cassidy read a story to us. I sat with my Spanish Immersion class in the library somewhere near Mrs. Cassidy's youngest son, Eddy who was in my class as we listened to her read us a story in English. The story she chose was Ray Bradburry's "Sound of Thunder." Over two or three weeks she read the story of time travel to hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I remember seeing with my second-grade mind the impact that one foolish decision could have moving forward. My world changed, it opened up and literature became real.

Many years later, in 2000, I saw Mrs. Cassidy again, while I was in college. I described to her how much the story changed my life and set me forward on the path of literature and storytelling. I told her how much I blamed her for my love of the words. She told me that she remembered reading that story to my class. She said, "...When I finished reading the story, I remember looking over your class and most of them had the glassy-eyed stare that most kids get at the end of storytime. But, you were on fire. I could see it in your eyes."

She really lit that fire, and my uncle, David Farland fanned that flame into a roaring inferno. More on him, next post.

*Names are changed, of course.