Monthly Archives: January 2016

Jan 16 2016
4 Comments
Movies

Movie Review – The Revenant (2015)

The Old West. Beautiful landscapes. Bitter cold. Dangerous animals…

…and men wearing various hollowed out animal carcasses as hats and coats.

BQB here with a view of the Oscar frontrunner, The Revenant.

Be forewarned there are SPOILERS ahead, so don’t come after me for revenge if you read on and the movie’s ruined for you.

You know, 3.5 readers, I’m not sure the average person grasps the concept of time.

To think, two hundred years ago, men were trudging through the frozen wilderness, fighting for their lives just to skin some beasts and sell their fur for a few measly bucks.

You’ve got it pretty good today in comparison now, don’t you?  Yeah. Think about that the next time you start yelling at Siri for giving one of her bullshit answers to your clearly pronounced question.

Our story begins with a band of fur traders.  Domhnall Gleeson plays their boss, Captain Andrew Henry.  Leonardo DiCaprio is the company’s scout, Hugh Glass and Tom Hardy? He’s Fitzgerald, the villainous douche of the film.

Tom may be stuck playing villainous douches forever because he plays them so well, just as he did with Batman’s Baine.  Oh wait, then again, he did play Mad Max, so I stand corrected.

I won’t spoil the details so….yadda yadda yadda…long story short, Glass has the ever loving shit mauled out of him by a bear, Fitzgerald, villainous douche that he is, leaves Glass behind and Glass hauls his horribly wounded body across the wilderness to seek his revenge.

There’s a bit more to it than that, but I don’t want to spoil it, even though I warned you about spoilers.

Great use of a CGI bear. I’ve had mixed feelings about CGI for awhile now.  It can provide amazing effects, or it can make a movie look cartoonish and silly, depending on how it was use.

Here, it was used in such a way that I really believed that a damn Grizzly bear was beating the shit out of a Hollywood leading man.

Great performances all around.  Hardy, as Fitzgerald, is a douche, but you’re also left with an understanding of how horrible the frontier was.  Would you have done the things that Fitzgerald did to survive or is there a limit to the depravity you’d take part in just to save your skin?  Fitzgerald didn’t have a limit and none of us will ever really know unless we’re put in a life or death situation.  Let’s hope we’re never put in one.

Domhnall Gleeson had a banner 2015. Ex Machina.  Brooklyn.  Shit, he’s even friggin General Hux in Star Wars.  And now The Revenant.  And before all this he was what?  Ronald Weasley’s brother in those Harry Potter movies???

Holy Crap, someone get me that guy’s agent.

Finally, let me just say as an avid movie buff, it’s been a pleasure to see Leonardo DiCaprio grow up on screen over the years.  He was the extra add on cute kid in the Growing Pains when all the other Seaver children started getting older.  Then he was Jack in Titanic.  Then his career could of gone anywhere but he put on some muscle, started getting movies like Blood Diamond and so on.

I think the best role he ever had was as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.  That scene where he takes too many drugs and his body ends up like a pile of useless jello but he tries to move around at the same time…hilarious and horribly tragic at the same time.

He deserved an Oscar for that but that wasn’t his year.  Hopefully, this one will be.

I mean, not that his life is lacking or anything.  He probably sticks his head out the front door every morning and gets mauled by a hundred hot chicks but still.  He’s overdue for an award.

A thumbs up from BQB and consider seeing it on the big screen, just so you can get a full view of the mountains and scenery and nature and shit.

The movie itself is also worthy of winning Best Picture.  It’ll be great to see a deserving film take home the prize after that pile of crap Birdman walked away with it.

STATUS: Shelf worthy.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Jan 15 2016
10 Comments
Movies

RIP Alan Rickman

Sad day, 3.5 readers.

As you know, I’m a big Die Hard fan.  Every Christmas, I put it on while everyone else is watching It’s a Wonderful Life or some such nonsense.

Hans Gruber.  It was Rickman’s first role.  If you ask me, he could have stopped there and been on top had he wanted to.

The 1980’s gave us amazing action films.  Schwarzenegger. Stallone.  Big ass bad ass muscle dudes who could eviscerate 20 bad guys with a pinky finger.

Then late in the decade, Die Hard changed the game.  Bruce Willis as a New York cop who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sure, he’s a cop.  He’s collared some bad guys.  But your average cop isn’t prepared to take on a group of highly trained terrorists on his own, thus providing the Average Joes in the audience what it would be like to be stuck in a situation where everything is riding on them.

Arnie and Sly?  Awesome but not relatable.  Bruce?  Awesome AND relatable.

To top it all off, the villain.  Hans Gruber.  Rickman provided us with a memorable character.  A charming German gent, intelligent, sophisticated, you’d probably enjoy getting a beer with him and talking about world affairs if he hadn’t been a cunning murderer/criminal mastermind.

Gruber wasn’t the typical muscle bound martial arts trained baddie from the 1980’s.  His main weapon was his brain.

The part where he pretends to be an American, “Bill Clay.”  The part where he very calmly shoots Takagi in the head for a perceived lack of cooperation.  Gruber was in control of his emotions.  He didn’t do things out of rage or anger but rather, out of a carefully thought out plan.  There was money to be had.  He wanted it.  He went through whoever he needed to to get it.  You never got the sense that he enjoyed killing anyone but rather, that any resulting deaths were just losses in an overall business plan.

Maybe that’s why he was so scary.  Take emotion out of the picture and a bad guy is capable of anything and worse, there’s never a warning sign as to what’s about to come or what’s on his mind.

Yes, he was also Professor Snape.  Yes, he was also that funny vulcan caricature in that Star Trek parody movie whose name escapes me now.

But before all that, he was Gruber.  Hans Gruber.

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 14 2016
10 Comments
Writing

The Middle Class Writer

Hey 3.5 readers.

Writers.  It seems like they’re even Bohemian coffee shop dwellers, jotting their stories down and never making a cent, or fabulously wealthy bestseller slingers who could write a grocery list on the back of a toilet paper roll and rake in the dough.

In other words, they’re either really poor and their parents are pissed off by their life choices, or they’re rich and the toast of the town.

Will tech make more middle class writers?  Writers who aren’t raking in James Pattersonian/Steven Kingian levels of dough, but aren’t unwashed and destitute either.

Thanks to self publishing, social media, blogging etc they’ve created a fan base and are able to sell enough to live a decent life style.  House.  Bills paid.  Needs met.  Kids and family taken care of.  Parents feel no need to be embarrassed.

Will tech make more and more middle class writers?  Has it already?

Discuss.

 

 

 

 

 

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 13 2016
3 Comments
Tomfoolery

BQB Plays Powerball

Dearest 3.5 Readers,

I’ve caved to the excitement and purchased some Powerball tickets.

And you know what? I’m actually feeling pretty good about my chances.

Why?

BQB’s KARMA BALANCING THEORY

Your life is and/or will be 50% bullshit and 50% great.  Most people experience the bullshit and greatness and separate, equal doses so as to not get too bogged down with depression or glee, depending on whether the shit or the greatness came most recently.

My life, on the other hand, has been totally shit so far so really, the only way I can see for karma to balance my existence out with the greatness I’m due is to hand me a billion dollar plus lotto win.

BUT BQB, WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR STICKY CASH?

A great question, 3.5 readers.  Here’s a breakdown:

THE PLAYBOY MANSION – It’s for sale and I’m going to make it my new BQB HQ.  Now, Hef requires the new owner give him a life estate, meaning that Hef gets to live there until he croaks.

Listen, I would actually DEMAND that Hef keep living there. He’s the one the Playboy bunnies are showing up for, right?

Wait.  This just in. Video Game Rack Fighter will not allow me to have wild, outrageous naked celebrity hot chick parties in the Playboy Mansion Grotto.

You know VGRF…seriously…what a party pooper.  Oh well, gotta keep my better half happy.  I’ll still buy it but apparently all the bunnies will be required to wear turtlenecks and burkas.

PRESIDENT BATTLER – Yes, I will run for president because I too wish to be a wealthy person so rich that I feel no inhibitions and am able to shoot my mouth off and speak freely.  Only, I’ll try to do it a lot nicer.

Also, I will make it a law that whatever movies, songs, digital stuff you buy on one device made by one company be transferable to another company’s device. This is America, dammit, and when I was a kid I never had to ask Sony’s permission to put a Sony videotape into a Daewoo VCR.

PURCHASE EAST RANDOMTOWN – Yep.  And I’ll kick all the losers out, so it will end up empty.  What?  I’m still the mayor and all those people are constituents and I should be careful what I say because I haven’t won yet?

I was talking about other losers.  Not you, East Randomtownsfolk.  You losers are great.

WU TANG CLAN – I will purchase that super expensive one of a kind Wu Tang Clan album, you know, the one in which the Wu Tang Clan has secured a legal right to steal it back through a carefully planned heist as long as they bring Bill Murray along.

I’m not even kidding check out this Billboard article.

REALITY TV – I will pay off reality tv stars to stay home…or at least not go to work…or at least just go shopping and do dumb stuff.  OK, so they can do all the useless crap they do but I’ll pay them to do it OFF camera because the Mighty Potentate hates reality TV.

What will you do if you win Powerball, 3.5 readers?

 

 

 

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Jan 12 2016
Leave a comment
#31ZombieAuthors

#31ZombieAuthors Remix

shutterstock_142238470 copy
I’m thinking about inviting the 31 Zombie Authors back in October for another round of interviews, but this time, not in response to a zombie apocalypse in East Randomtown, but to help promote a book about zombies authored by yours truly.

Oh, that would mean I’d also have to write a book about zombies.

I enjoyed last October – it was a helluvalot of work but people enjoyed it.  It might be less work this time around since I’ve found 31 zombie authors willing to talk to me now.  (Assuming they’d still want to talk to me.  They might be too busy fending off their own zombies.)

Then I thought about writing a book about vampires instead and doing a vampire author interview promo.  It’d be a month of vampire interviews to promote a vampire book and the host would be Count Krakovich, Asshat Vampire. 

(By the way, I’m thinking Count Krakovich should be an A-Hole Vampire instead of an Asshat Vampire.  Fell free to weigh in on this very important matter.)

I like Halloween and Halloween related blog activities I suppose, but the big thing is I’d have to write a book…about either vampires or zombies.

And also I have Pop Culture Mysteries to think of.  The big lesson I learned last year was to stop spreading myself so thin, that I need to have FEWER projects in the works and to spend MORE time on them to develop higher quality.

Less is more, as they say.

What say you, 3.5 readers?

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Jan 12 2016
23 Comments
Writing

Do You Write Sitting or Lying Down?

I tend to be a lier downer.  I plop into bed, get comfy, put the laptop on my stomach (I know you’re getting excited thinking about this 3.5 readers but stop, lets keep this professional) and then start writing.

I wonder if I’d get more done sitting up at a desk but then I also think if I’m comfortable I write more.  But lying down too much is bad for your health though.

Sometimes I split the difference and sit in a comfortable easy chair.

How do you write, 3.5 readers?

Tagged , ,
Jan 12 2016
Leave a comment
Uncategorized

Happy Tuesday 

Have a good one 3.5 readers.

Jan 11 2016
2 Comments
Movies

Movie Review – Ridiculous 6 (2015)

Times they are a changin’ and thus here I am with my first review of a movie released straight to Netflix.

They had these when I was a kid, 3.5 readers.  They were called straight to video and they almost always involved bad action.

Anyway, this one’s a Western comedy starring Adam Sandler and here’s the OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING.

You know kids, there was a time when hearing “Adam Sandler” meant a guarantee the movie was going to be hilarious.

These days, I’m a little torn on the “Adam Sandler sucks” argument.  I’m not sure if he, per se “sucks” or if the world has just changed a lot since his hey day in the 1990s and things people found funny back then aren’t what people find funny now.

After all, he’s never really deviated too far from the comedy formula that people used to love.

This one wasn’t his worst.

Sandler is sort of the straight man in this one.  He’s Tommy/White Knife.  Abandoned by his father (Frank Stockton played by Nick Nolte) and orphaned when his mother is gunned down, a young Tommy is taken in and raised by kindly Native Americans.  There, he becomes fast with a blade, earning him his second name.

Long story short, Frank comes to visit and we learn that he’s in trouble with some desperadoes.  He owes them $50,000.  They’re going to kill him if they don’t get it.

So our hero sets on a mission to rob only other bad people to raise the money and along the way, is joined by five men, each one, as it turns out, the product of Frank’s illicit affairs across the West.

I’ll let you watch and find out who the brothers are and who plays them.  Half the movie involves him meeting his brothers along the way.

I will say to my surprise, Taylor Lautner of Twilight fame steals the show as Lil’ Pete, the simpleton who was just on his way to the ice cream store when he ends up joining with Sandler.  He does a pretty great goofy voice which provides most of the laughs in the film.

There are a lot of cameos.  Steve Buscemi plays a barber who fixes every wound with a liberal dose of shaving cream.

Vanilla Ice plays Mark Twain, donning full Twain garb but still speaking like a rapper.  Seemed odd, though I wonder if the joke is that Twain was the rapper of his day, or rappers are the Twain of our day.  Either way, every generation has its share of writers pushing the envelope with their writing, though its done in different ways.

So let me put it this way.  Probably not one you want to trip over yourself to stream, but if you don’t have much else to do, it’s worth checking out.

 

Tagged , , , , , ,
Jan 10 2016
12 Comments
Discussions

Let’s Talk Making a Murderer

Thanks Netflix.  Thanks a lot.

Got no work done this weekend, ended up binging on Making a Murderer instead.

SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!

Don’t read on if you haven’t watched it yet.  This post is meant to be a discussion for people who want to talk about the series…WHO HAVE ALREADY WATCHED IT!!!

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I have no idea if any of the crap I am about to say is accurate.  I am just opining on the show.

So here we go.  BQB’s thoughts:

 The First Case – Penny Beernsten

So it’s clear Steven Avery is innocent here.  Testing that occurred years after his conviction due to advances in DNA testing methods indicated that the culprit was in fact Gregory Allen, a guy in the area who physically looked like Avery (same hair color, body type).

Allen, according to the documentary, had been known to local law enforcement, so much so that they kept him under surveillance.

Did the police act with malice?  (i.e. did they intentionally try to put Avery behind bars because they didn’t like him?)

There was the argument that one of the deputies was friends with a woman that Avery had run off the road and so on.

Personally, I think the issue might have been more about negligence – i.e. they found a suspect, they made it stick, and it was just too much of a pain in the ass hassle to go after someone else.

Is negligence better?  Well, it’s not great, and it thoroughly sucks that someone was wrongfully convicted.

At any rate, its impossible to deny the wrongful conviction.  The court set the conviction aside, Avery was released, even the victim acknowledged the mistake.

The Second Case – Teresa Halbach

A tougher case.

First, as the documentary starts to get into it, your gut begins to tell you maybe something’s up.  What are the odds of a guy wrongfully convicted of a crime being accused of another major crime?

  • Avery had become a public hero and a symbol for a justice reform.
  • The state legislature had been in the process of working on a bill that would compensate him $450,000.
  • A civil case was underway that’d likely have gotten him millions.

BUT…as much as the wrongful conviction sucks…people who have had sucky things happen to them don’t get a free pass or an excuse to commit a terrible crime.

In other words, your gut, or at least mine, began to tell me to keep an open mind on both sides:

  • Yes, it is odd a wrongfully convicted person got convicted again but…
  • It isn’t impossible for someone to be not guilty of a first crime and then be guilty of a second crime.

The Frame Defense

Hmmm.  This was a tough one.

This is where some may disagree with me but…

I don’t believe the officers framed Steven Avery.

Why?

  •  You see a hole in Avery’s blood vial from his first case.  You, like Buting, start to think, “Oh well, maybe that could have been used to put Avery’s blood in Teresa’s RAV4.”
  • OK…BUT – what about the fire pit with all the bone fragments?  And the barrels with all the bone fragments?

Someone tell me if I’m wrong but for the police to have framed Avery, they would have had to…

  • Dig into Avery’s life until they discovered that a photographer for Auto Trader was coming to the Avery property on a regular basis to take car photos.
  • Kill her.
  • Plant Avery’s blood in the car
  • Dump her car on the Avery property without the Averys noticing.
  • Burn her body somewhere else but then scatter bone fragments in a pit and in barrels on the Avery property, AGAIN without the Averys noticing.
  • Plant Avery’s DNA on the car key and plant it in Avery’s room.

BUT – Could someone else have killed Teresa and the police just took advantage to railroad a guy they didn’t like?

In my opinion, where the “Frame Defense” gets weak is the bone fragments.

Did the police have access to Avery’s blood? Yes. However, the FBI did run a test that showed some of the blood in the car did not have the testing chemical that would have been in the stored blood sample.

But ok.  Say you still think they planted the blood in the car.

How did the bone fragments get onto the property then???

I think if you accuse the cops of planting the blood, then you practically have to accuse them of planting the bone fragments too because if Avery didn’t do it then how else would the bone fragments have gotten there?

You could argue well some mysterious other murderer did it, then dumped the car and the fragments on the Avery property and then the cops were like “Yahoo!  We hate Avery so lets plant some shit to make this stick” but between accusations of cops planting a RAV4, putting blood in the RAV4 and then ANOTHER party dumping bones and making it look like a burning took place in the back yard…

…well, with all that happening I have to feel like the Averys might have noticed.

Was there a civil case?  Yes?   Were two cops deposed?  Yes?  Does that mean they’d go to the lengths of framing a guy?  I find that doubtful.  Cops, public officials, office holders, etc are sued all the time.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t envision cops being worried about a lawsuit enough that they’d frame a guy, plant evidence and somehow manage to either sprinkle the victims bones on the Avery property or benefit from some mysterious evildoer who did so.

So what the hell happened?

What made us all agree Avery was off the hook in the first case was the identification of another perpetrator.

Here, no other alternate suspect was found.

Brendan Dassey

Well, here’s where the case gets really complicated.  There’s another suspect and I suppose that means there’s room for theories that a) Avery did it and the nephew’s just a sap that got roped into it b) They did it together as the state alleged or c) maybe the nephew did it and Steven didn’t and well…while never Steven or Brendan came across as rocket scientists, I’m not sure Brendan could have pulled this all off on his lonesome.

The confessions are troubling.  Perhaps there should be a rule that kinds under 18 should always have a lawyer present during police questioning no matter what.

As a cautionary tale, if you’re a parent and your kid gets charged with something, insist you be there for any interviews and insist a lawyer is there too.

As for – is Brendan innocent?  I mean, he made statements he did it, and that he didn’t do it. He was clearly, for lack of a better description, not the brightest bulb, so yeah, he was probably manipulated into confessing and certainly the part where his own lawyer’s investigator is badgering him into confessing is troubling.

From the documentary itself, just as a pure question of whether or not he did it, I can’t tell.  What makes it hard for me is at one point he tells his mom something like he had to because Steven was stronger than him and then at another point he tells his mom basically that he just said what the cops wanted him to say.

In other words, in a very cloudy mind, his statements to his mother seem to provide the most insight into his head, and he made conflicting statements to his mother.

So who did it?

I think the bones on the property is the piece of info I can’t get away from.    The RAV4 on the property, the key in the room, the bullet in the garage, explain them all away but I just fail to see how the bones could have gotten there otherwise.

Does the documentary reveal a lot of things that law enforcement can do better? Yes.

But…absent evidence that someone carted a bunch of bones and spread them around Avery’s backyard, my gut tells me he did it.

Anyway, keep in mind I’m no expert and I’m just shooting my mouth off on a series.  Don’t take anything I wrote above to be accurate or correct.  Watch it yourself.

What are your thoughts?

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 09 2016
Leave a comment
Technology

Tech Review – Amazon’s $50 Fire Tablet

Happy Saturday, 3.5 readers.

BQB here. So I did it. Due to the exceptionally low $49.99 price, I caved and got myself this bad boy:

(*cough cough* SHAMELESS PLUG! Follow me on twitter @bookshelfbattle)

OBSERVATIONS

  • It’s cheap. Can’t go wrong for the price. Now even people without much scratch can waste as much time mindlessly streaming media as the one percent do.
  • For $50, it does have a pretty good display.  Obviously, it’s not as good as a suped up top of the line iPad but its decent for the price just the same.
  • It is good for watching Netflix and/or other movie apps.  I watched a few minutes of Brick Mansions, Paul Walker’s second to last film (RIP Paul, you are missed) and it came through crisp and clear.
  • It’s got a camera, so that means you have yet another camera in your life to take pictures of your lunch and post it on social media.
  • Obviously, it is set up so that you’ll make the most of it if you sign up for Amazon’s services like Amazon Prime.  Click on music and it’ll try to sign you up for Amazon’s music service.  Books will take you to Amazon’s infamous book service (and ask if you want to sign up for it.  Videos takes you to Prime and wants to know if you want Prime.
  • But then again, what tablet doesn’t try to sell you on the tablet company’s media? iPad wants you to buy stuff through iTunes, Android tablets want you to buy stuff through Google, etc.
  • I am debating whether or not to drop a hundred bucks on Amazon Prime.  Access to a lending library, more TV shows, free shipping all sound like they’d be nice.  Then again, it could just be Jeff Bezos’ ploy to grab me by my ankles, turn me upside down and shake all the spare change out of my pockets.
  • BUT if you don’t sign up and/or pay for any stuff, its still a great little spare tablet to have in a pinch.  I can tell you, my house is full of people who feel the constant need to borrow my computer, my tablet, my whatever device I’m working on and it doesn’t matter what I’m doing with it at the time.  I could be two seconds away from coming up with a solution for world peace or a cure for cancer and some jerkface will bellow in my ear that he needs to play Candy Crush and there goes my device.
  • So in theory, this is a good spare.  But in a day, I’ve noticed that means its a spare for me.  No one else around me wants to learn how to use an Amazon tablet so they steal all my shit and leave me to use the Amazon tab.  But at least it’s a spare someone’s using, even if it’s me, while everyone else uses my shit.
  • Please, the Yeti, stop swiping my laptop.  I’m trying to write a novel so the Mighty Potentate won’t conquer the planet.  Here, use this $50 Fire tablet instead.
  • Finally, its up to you really.  Do you need this?  Probably not. The low price is Amazon’s main selling point.  “You were never interested in Amazon’s stuff before?  Well what if we made the delivery system cheap…you know you nerds will throw your money away just for a chance to check out a new piece of tech…”

 

 

 

Tagged , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →