Daily Archives: March 26, 2018

Mar 26 2018
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Movies

Movie Review – Tomb Raider (2018)

A tomb is raided and other surprises in this reboot of a movie series about a video game, which you think would mean it is destined to suck but surprisingly, it doesn’t.

BQB here with a review of “Tomb Raider.”

Egads.  I suppose we should have realized it would happen sooner or later.  Millenial Lara Croft.  While Angelina Jolie, Gen X Lara Croft, reveled in flashing around her family’s fortune that allowed her to live an adventurer lifestyle, waltzing around the world in her tight short pants, twin hand cannons strapped to her hip as she absconds with the treasures of indigenous peoples in the name of saving the world (which to her credit, she did save it a lot), today’s Lara is different.

Millennial Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) covers up and, gasp, wears full pants.  She prefers a bow and arrow (I won’t get into the hand cannons but it is addressed), and she laments her family’s wealth.  It really eats her up inside that her long lost father, Lord Richard(Dominic West) left her with fat stacks of cash.  Why should she enjoy such a hefty bank account when so many others inherit nothing?

Ergo, when our tale begins, we find that this Lara has shunned Croft manner in favor of the life of a lowly bicycle courier until she realizes her treasure hunting father might still be out there, and she’ll have to follow in his footsteps (and assume control of the Croft dynasty) in order to find him and, of course, save the world from a devastating fate that is sealed in, you guessed it, a tomb.

Walton Goggins, best known for playing caricatures of dopey, in-bred Southern redneck baddies, dials it back a notch and plays the best, most believable villain of his career, the overseer of an operation that is blasting and digging up a remote Japanese island in search of the above mentioned tomb.

The verdict?  You’ll have to forgive me.  I’m a Gen Xer, so I yearn for Jolie’s candy apple tushy stuffed into short shorts.  Her version of Croft was hot and intelligent.  Vikander is pretty and intelligent, but it’s made clear she’s here to save the world with her mind and athletic abilities and not hear to be your eye candy.

SIDENOTE:  It’s weird how things tend to come full circle.  The old folks of my day told women to cover up.  The young folks of my day said women should be able to let it all hang out to express themselves, be proud of themselves and that doesn’t mean they’re to be treated as playthings.  Now the pendulum has swung back and now the young people are calling for women to cover up, at least in movies now.  Oh well.  I’m just along for the ride at this point.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  I’ll give it to this film.  It’s better than I thought it would be, worth watching, though feel free to wait for it to come out as a rental.  It does have a bit more in the brain department than the originals, the plot is a better developed than the originals, though it’s also only developed as far as a movie about a video game will allow, which isn’t saying much.  Now is the time for common sense bow and arrow control.

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Mar 26 2018
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Daily Discussion with BQB

Daily Discussion with BQB – What’s the Best Way to Make a Living as a Writer?

Hey 3.5 readers.

I’m asking the above question, not as it applies to most people, but to me, your old pal, BQB.

I’ve been working on a novel about an alligator who eats people on the toilet for over a year now.  The first draft is done.  The second draft, I think, could be done within a month, two at the latest.  It will need a third draft, I can already tell.  Earliest I can get it to the editor will be May – June.

Then it’s a whole process to get it edited and ready for publication.  Basically, if it gets up by Christmas that will be a win.

In short, it’s taking a long time.  I’m not sure at this rate I’ll be able to make a living as a writer.  Perhaps if Toilet Gator rakes in a modest amount of dough, that will give me the incentive I need to work harder, crank out another book faster.  There are a lot of people in my life who impose on me to drop whatever I’m doing to help them with their mundane bullshit.  If I can point to a piece of paper that proves I’m not just screwing around on the computer but am engaging in a money making side business, they’ll figure out how to live their lives on their own and get off my ass.

Anyway, long story short, I am wondering if perhaps I need to move away from novel writing and into just general blogging and opinion writing.  Sometimes I feel I’m at my best when I rant on a subject.  Blogging is conducive to the limited free time I get.  It takes nearly 2 years to get a novel out there, but I can get a post daily.

The issue would be is that I’d probably have to stop talking about pop culture and, sigh, news and politics.  Rant and rave about things going on in the world.  Actually pick a side and sigh, lose 50% of you because that’s what happens when someone expresses a political opinion.  I’m not saying that politics were ever peaceful, but I do feel up until like 2005, people were able to agree to disagree.  Now social media allows people to retreat into their bubbles and point fingers at, “the other.”

Eh.  I don’t really want a bunch of people to hate me.  I’m too adorable for that.  I might split the difference and try to rant about general life topics that you’d think everyone could get behind.  One of my heroes has long been Dave Barry, the humor columnist who is basically the Godfather of humor opinion piece writing.

He wrote humorous thoughts about everything from home improvement, to love, to just generally crappy little things that drive us all crazy.  I could probably do that, though the only thing I worry about is Dave found success during a more innocent time, whereas I could write something like, “Men, don’t you hate it when your wife yells at you when you forget to put the toilet seat down?” and end up getting a twitter campaign to label me a vile male chauvinist pig or something.

To express any kind of opinion these days, even a seemingly safe one like, “My word, what lovely weather to day,” is to risk offending someone so…I don’t know.

I think I’ll keep plugging away.  The first part (roughly 40,000 words) of the Last Driver is in the editing process now, and I’ve come too far on Toilet Gator to quit now.  So, I’ll see if Toilet Gator gets me anywhere and see where I am next year.

Just saying, at some point, I’ll need to turn a profit or quit, realize this is a young man’s game and it’s not my fault the world didn’t invent the gatekeeper bypass technology until I was an old bastard (people seem to be declared old bastards earlier and earlier now) and just go smell the roses and lie down in the grass and wait for the moss to grow over me.

Thanks for listening to my rant 3.5 readers.  If you wanted the short version its, do I a) keep novel writing b) change gears to write opinions and try to monetize the blog or c) just give up and smell roses.  Why does everyone smell roses?

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