Writing How the West Was Zombed has made me realize I don’t know a lot about guns, be they from the past or the present. Kind of difficult as I’m not really a gun person. I’m clumsy and accident prone, thus fairly certain I’d shoot myself if I ever had one.
It dawned on me it might be worth a trip to a gun range for an afternoon some day if I’m going to persist in my attempts to become a novelist, seeing as how characters often end up shooting guns no matter what time period the novel is set in.
But I’m certain I would shoot myself in the foot so studying the subject from afar will have to do.
But I’ve seen something in many cowboy movies that I’d like to incorporate into the novel but I don’t understand it.
Below is a video of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral” scene from Tombstone starring Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp.
Tombstone – 1993 – Posted by Thell Reed, Gunman on Youtube
See around 1:40 where Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday slaps the back of his gun a bunch of times real fast? Clint Eastwood did that in his movies too.
Why did they slap the back of their guns so fast? I assume it was some kind of a trick to make the gun shoot faster. If you’re a gun person, please explain it to me.
I’ve searched the Interwebs and alas, there’s not much info about old West shooting.
Part of me wonders how much I need to learn, another part wonders if the reader cares to know much more than a zombie was shot.
By the way, this movie is badass. Can’t believe it is so old now I remember watching it when it came out like it was yesterday. This was probably one of Val’s best performances.
Rewatching it this year made me realize I needed to keep pressing on with writing Zombed. Westerns seemed like they were going out of style even in the 1990’s though movies like this one still managed to keep people interested.
So basically we have a new character, another young woman but unlike Rey, she has kind of a bad side. Been in a lot of trouble but shrugs it off with, “It’s a rebellion. I rebel.” Good line.
Apparently about a plot to steal Death Star plans.
Is this how Luke finds out about that unsecured vent he shot his proton torpedoes into?
Honestly, my two cents, it looks a little bit darker and it looks like it will be even better than The Force Awakens.
Interesting direction for Star Wars. This is the first time where they’ve branched off, or started going into side stories. It looks like the franchise is in good hands with Disney.
If only we could talk Mickey Mouse into buying the rights to shoot DC Comics based movies from Warner Brothers.
God, now that I think about it, I wrote a really sugarcoated review of Batman vs. Superman. That flick was a total stinker.
Don’t be too hard on her. I think I kind of know what she was trying to say but…it’s not something someone who looks like her should say.
Yes, yes we live in a country where there is freedom of speech but…come on.
I believe she’s making the argument that people shouldn’t be assumed to be dumb just because they’re pretty and ergo should be considered for roles for smart people but…I literally can’t count the number of times I’ve seen movies where geniuses, scientists, doctors, lawyers etc. were played by people who look like they spent more time in the gym than at school.
Is it fair that smart pretty people (i.e. those who were lucky enough to have beauty AND brains) are believed to be dumb?
No. But it’s about as fair as it is that I, as an ugly man, could invent a cure for cancer and people would still look at me like I belong living under a bridge.
Between being pretty and assumed dumb or being ugly and assumed a bridge troll, I’ll pick the former every time.
Being assumed to be a dumb pretty person is a problem I would love to have. Sure, I will be briefly sad for 3.5 seconds that everyone thinks I’m dumb and then I will cheer myself up by hanging out with one of the ten zillion people who won’t stop calling me with requests to hang out because I’m so dang pretty.
Sigh. And Charlize…I never thought you were dumb…until now. Now I’m concerned.
Lots of articles popping up on social media. Here’s one from wetpaint.com
EDIT: Oh God I made the mistake of reading more:
CHARLIZE: “How many roles are out there for the gorgeous, f—king gown-wearing, eight-foot model?”
Every role, Charlize. Like practically every movie every made has a hot blonde chick in it. Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure you’ll be ok.
CHARLIZE: “When meaty roles come through, I’ve been in the room, and pretty people get turned away first.”
Slaps my forehead. You won an Oscar for playing an ugly woman. They had to ugly you up with make-up and prosthetics and shit. Pretty people play pretty people and holy shit, pretty people even play ugly people because Hollywood is winking to the audience, “Don’t worry audience, this ugly character is really being played by a pretty person with ugly makeup on!”
Oh Hollywood. When will you ever learn that every time you put out another cheesy romantic movie, you’re causing the women in our lives to hold us up to ridiculously high standards?
Men, are your women way into romance flicks for YOUR own good?
From BQB HQ in fabulous East Randomtown, here are the top ten warning signs your girlfriend might be a romance movie fanatic:
10. She watched Serendipity then erased her number from your phone and wrote it down in a copy of the book, Love in the Time of Cholera. She sold the book to a used book store and then informed you that you will never talk to her again unless fate sees that the book with her number in it makes its way to you. You call her the next day and you are all like “Seriously babe I remember your number because we’ve been dating for years” and she’s like “Why do you ruin everything?”
9. Whenever she watches Sleepless in Seattle, she demands that you meet her at the top of the Empire State Building. After doing this once or twice, you sit her down for a talk in which you explain that while you do love her very much, you’re going to end up in the poor house if you have to take time off of work, fly to New York City and then stand around on top of the Empire State Building like a jackass every time Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are on TV. She laments your total lack of Tom Hanks in his prime charm.
8. Ever since she saw Notting Hill she greets you with “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.” It seems sweet at first, but then she starts demanding you speak with a Hugh Grant-esque British accent. You could do it to keep the peace if you wanted to. It’s mostly just going “um um um uh” a lot but you refuse to demean yourself. You’re an American, dammit and she can take your regular voice or leave it. (Psst…she’ll probably leave it.)
7. My Best Friend’s Wedding leaves her disappointed if get togethers involving your family don’t break out in a spontaneous song and dance rendition of I Say A Little Prayer For You. You try your best to make it happen but your Aunt Edna can’t hit the high notes.
6. Her love of Say Anything requires you to stand outside her window in a trench coat whilst holding a boom box in the air. She won’t make any reasonable concessions about this. You still have to wear the trench coat in August and no matter how heavy the boom box gets, she won’t let you hold up your iPhone with Pandora blaring on it instead.
5. Chasing Amy has led her to believe your relationship would improve if a) she were to become a lesbian and b) you tried to look more like Ben Affleck. The lesbian thing is doable but the Ben Affleck thing is unlikely.
4. Ever since you two watched The Notebook, she asks if you’d spend a large chunk of your life in a depressed funk if she were to ever leave you. You realize it’s for your own good to say yes but deep inside, you know there are other fish in the sea. Most won’t require you to climb up the side of a ferris wheel like a dumb ass either.
3. She has long dreamed that you’d become more like Patrick Swayze in Ghost and sensually work a pottery wheel with her in perfect time with her hands. You try your best but the apartment just ends up covered with sticky gobs of clay. Part of you just wants to give her five bucks to go buy a damn ash tray, flower pot or whatever she’s always trying to make with that thing.
2. She made you watch Love Story. You’ve been on anti-depressants ever since.
She’s a big fan of Titanic, so much so that you often find her butt naked on the couch, breathlessly urging you to “draw me like one of your French girls.” You grab a paper and pencil and do your best to sketch a stick figure with circle boobs but she invariably just puts her robe back on and storms off in a huff. Seriously dude, take an art class.
BQB here with a review of the Oscar nominated sadness fest that is Room.
SPOILER ALERT – That it will make you sad is just one of the many spoilers ahead.
I may be a movie buff but that doesn’t mean I watch everything.
I have a general rule about movies. My life is already depressing enough that I don’t need to add to it with a story about other people being sad. Ergo, I gravitate toward movies that are fun, action packed, adventurous, funny…situations that I can imagine myself in to escape the hum drum nature of my own existence.
But then again, movies like this one remind me and maybe all of us that as bad as we think we might have it…there’s always someone who has it way worse.
Rejoice and be happy with what you have.
Room, an Irish/Canadian film, stars Brie Larson as “Ma.” Literally, that’s the only name you get for her character in the entire movie. That’s the only name her five year old son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), knows her by.
At the start of the film, Ma is a young woman who has obviously been kidnapped and held captive in a room for a long, long time. It has been so long, in fact, that she has even given birth to Jack, a son she has with her captor, and has been raising him inside the room for years.
“Old Nick” (Sean Bridgers) aka the captor, enters room once in awhile, drops off some food, demands acknowledgement from Ma about how lucky she is to have him (which sadly, she’s learned over the years to feign in order to avoid a beating).
Without giving too much away, the first half of the film surrounds an escape attempt and the second half deals with…well, the aftermath. If I tell you much more you might as well not watch it.
Jack has never known life outside of the room so needless to say, he’s had a less than usual upbringing. Inanimate objects i.e. “plant” and “chair” and “lamp” are his friends. He gets to watch TV but he thinks its magic. He doesn’t believe Ma’s stories about life outside of the place he calls “room.”
There are a lot of themes. Mother’s love triumphs over all, life is short so when shitty tragedies derail our plans it totally sucks, as bad as you think you have it, there’s someone else who has it worse so appreciate what you have.
Oh and then it obviously sheds light on the plight of people who have been kidnapped and held hostage. A shitty situation to be in for sure. Viewers might watch it and instantly be reminded of the terrible Cleveland kidnapping case in which a man held three women hostage for years. It is actually based on a novel by the same name written by Emma Donoghue.
Not sure what else to say. Brie Larson earned her best actress win in this one for convincing me as a viewer that it really sucked to live in that room. It’s not a feel good flick by any means and you’ll end up feeling depressed. Here’s where someone will tell me that I shouldn’t feel depressed about it, that it is a story about how a person stuck in a hopeless situation found hope or whatever but yeah, it made me sad.
Maybe I’m just a glass half empty kind of guy. I’m not knocking it of course. It is an emotional premise and it punches you in the gut.
I guess I just prefer movies with CGI and crude humor because I prefer my gut to remain unscathed.
I walk away from my magic bookshelf for 3.5 seconds and this happens:
Enough you two! Settle your differences and get down to the important business of punching Lex Luthor in the face.
Is there a battle on your bookshelf? Tweet the photographic evidence to @bookshelfbattle #bookshelfbattle and I might just share it with my 3.5 readers.
BQB here with a review of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
SUPER SPOILERS AHEAD.
Have you seen this yet, 3.5 readers?
I want to avoid spoiling too much but this movie has brought to my mind a number ideas about comic movies, Marvel vs. DC, the direction DC is taking, etc. So I’ll probably come back in a week or two (once people have had a chance to see it) and get all spoilery.
For now, let me say this: I don’t think the critics and I saw the same movie.
The critics are up this movie’s butt. It’s too long. It’s got too much going on. It’s too confusing.
I’ll agree there is a lot going on and at times it was confusing…but come on, a lot of movies are. Half the time I go to movies and I’m like “I…uh…wait what just happened? I don’t know. Me shove popcorn into face now and enjoy pretty colors.”
The most efficient thing to do is to respond to the criticisms one by one:
THE PLOT ISN’T THAT HARD TO BELIEVE
We’re humans. We’re suspicious bastards who screw things up early and often due to our paranoia. It isn’t that far fetched to think that if someone like Superman showed up to save us, that we’d immediately suspect he was up to some shit and ruin everything by looking the ultimate gift horse in the mouth.
BEN AFFLECK AS BATMAN
He was a worthy Batman. He’s an older, world weary, tired of the bullshit Batman in this one. Affleck allowed himself to be shown with a little touch of gray. That’s commitment for any pretty boy actor.
JESSE EISENBERG SUCKS
Jesse Eisenberg did not suck. He played the part he was hired to play and he did it well. His character was just incredibly annoying, so much so that you wonder why Batman or Superman don’t just bitch slap him into next Tuesday and be done with it.
Sadly, Hollywood has never been able to provide us with a good Lex Luthor. The comics do. In the comics, he’s big, strong, menacing his power comes from his cunning and cruelty.
Here, they basically just had Eisenberg take a spritz of the Mark Zuckerberg role that made him famous and then kick it up a notch. At times his voice is screechy and almost Joker-like, which is a bad idea, as this world already has a Joker.
IT IS TOO DARK
DC Comics are dark. Because…Batman, damn it. To paraphrase Ben Affleck from that other movie he was in (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), Batman is one “morose motherf&*ker.”
Clearly, DC has seen the success that Marvel has had with The Avengers. There is an obvious market for movies in which beloved superheroes work together. Thus, DC is working its way toward making Justice League movies.
But this path has always been an uphill climb for DC. DC has been making comic book movies for a lot longer. The public knows their characters better. Marvel, on the other hand, had the opportunity to introduce each individual member of the Avengers to the public with their own movies, building up to the Avengers movie.
But we don’t really need another Batman origin movie. We get it. He saw his parents get shot in front of him and became a vigilante. (Hollywood finally gets that here…well, sort of…some suit still decided there needed to be a quick Wayne family massacre scene just in case there happened to be one jackass in the movie theater who didn’t understand why Batman became Batman.)
WONDER WOMAN WAS CROWBARRED IN
She really wasn’t. I found her to be a good addition to the movie and am looking forward to her movie.
TOO MANY TEASERS FOR UPCOMING DC MOVIES
What should they do instead? Make everyone wait until after the credits for a thirty second scene in which Nick Fury recruits someone new?
Although in keeping with my, “DC has the harder path than Marvel” argument…they’ve got a very big challenge in getting people to give a shit about Aqua Man.
“Hi we’re the Justice League. We’ve got an all powerful god man, a Bat ninja, a warrior princess and oh yeah….this shit head who can control fish.”
Holy Shit you suck, Aqua Man. If Jason Mamoa can make Aqua Man watchable he deserves an Oscar.
BATMAN AS PART OF A TEAM
He’s a loner, that’s for sure. And he’s always been out of place in the Justice League world.
We love Batman because out of all the superheroes, he is the most plausible. True, a mega rich buff dude who fights a crazy clown isn’t very realistic…but if you let your mind wander…it is easier to pretend to be Batman, whereas it is not as easy to pretend to be Superman, because being Superman is just totally impossible. If you’re not from Krypton, then you should just stop pretending to be Superman. You’ll never be Superman.
You’ll never be Batman either…but at least there’s a .00000001% chance that you could become Batman.
The Justice League fights aliens and monsters and other supernatural stuff. Batman’s forte as a “realistic” hero is fighting gangsters, mobsters, and psychopaths. That’s why we loved Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, right? Nolan did his best to provide a Batman that was plausible (again, as plausible as a story about a Bat vigilante can get.
But the comics have always addressed that by having Batman being suspicious of his super powered friends. He works with them, but he usually makes back up plans in case they get out of line.
You have to compartmentalize. There’s on his own Batman who uses his training, skills, and money to fight crime…and then there’s Justice League Batman who helps other heroes fight aliens and shit.
BATMAN SHOOTS GUNS
Yes. That was unfortunate. Batman isn’t a shooter. Although it has always been acceptable for him to blow the shit out of people with rockets and guns attached to the Batmobile, Batman has never packed a piece. Technically he doesn’t in this one either….but well, then at one point he does but…ahh just watch the movie.
THE PLOT TURNS TOO MUCH ON UH…TWO PEOPLE KNOWING THE SAME NAME
Shut up, stupid critics. That part was touching as shit.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It wasn’t perfect. But I did enjoy it. And I think it is the start of a promising line of Justice League movies. I can’t wait for Suicide Squad.
It’s here. It’s finally here. The fight we’ve all been waiting for. The Dark Knight vs. The Man of Steel.
Who will win? No really, who do you think will win?
(As you can see, there is a “bookshelf battle” in the header of this fine blog in honor of this film. Batman can take a punch like a champ.)
You have to root for Batman, right? He’s the undercard in this bout. Superman is an immortal quasi-God figure whereas Batman is a guy with good training and a lot of money. (An endless supply of money being the closest thing to a super power in reality).
I can’t wait to see it this weekend. It will mark the beginning of DC’s attempt to recreate Marvel’s success with its Avengers movies.
Here’s a thought. This is a big, summer blockbuster style movie and here it is, out so early…in March.
What does that mean for the future of movies?
Here’s what I think as a movie nerd. Movie theaters are facing increasing competition from the Internet. With the economy being down and ticket/popcorn prices high, a lot of people just decide to stay home and watch Netflix.
I can see that movie theaters are constantly coming up with new ways to get butts in seats. 3-D is one. I’m seeing more theaters build stadium seating and put in extra comfy reclining chairs. Beer and alcohol (watch Batman drunk!) and so on.
These big movies coming out earlier and earlier is just another way for movie theaters to stay competitive. After all, if you love Batman and Superman, you’ll make the trip to see them on the big screen, right?
So this seems like a good thing. Big movies earlier in the year because there just isn’t enough time to fit them all in during the summer.
Have you ever gone to the movies in January and wondered, “Holy Shit. January movies are godawful. This must be the time of year they release all the films that got the green light because someone had incriminating photos of a movie producer in a compromising position.”
I always wonder that. Further, I always wonder, why can’t every movie be awesome? Of course, I realize awesome is in the eye of the beholder. What I find awesome and another finds awesome are two different things. There’s enough room in the entertainment world for everyone.
Long story short, I think it will mean that eventually…bad ass movies will be shown in January.
Batman or Superman – who do you pick? Leave your pick in the comments.
SPOILERS – Batman is Bruce Wayne and he became a vigilante to cope with seeing his parents gunned down outside a theater as a child. Also, Superman is really Clark Kent of the Metropolis Daily Planet. His space pod crashed on a farm when he was a kid and a nice farm couple took him in and raised him.
A woman is either John Goodman’s guest or hostage.
That’s pretty much it.
End of review.
Crap. That’s only 16 words?
Let’s talk some more then. BQB here with a review of 10 Cloverfield Lane.
SPOILER WARNING!
So here’s the deal, 3.5 readers.
Our tale begins with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) getting into a car accident. When she wakes up, she’s locked away in an underground bunker.
Her host or captor as the case may be is Howard (John Goodman.) He informs her that while she was knocked out, a major attack occurred up above. It might have been nuclear or chemical, he isn’t sure, but he’s sure that the world above ground is no longer habitable and she needs to stay in the bunker with him. She’s informed that if she tries to leave the bunker, she’ll let in poison gas that will kill everyone.
OK. Show of hands, ladies. How many men have tried the old “the world above ground is uninhabitable due to a chemical weapons attack and you have to stay in this bunker with me until it is safe” trick? Happens to you like every Saturday night, right?
Yup. I understand. It isn’t easy being a woman.
Ah, but here’s the rub. Howard might be telling the truth.
Thus, the major question of the movie unfolds. Is Howard a psychotic wack job who built a bunker to hold people captive in, or is he an eccentric conspiracy theorist/doomsday prepper whose crazy desire to build a fallout shelter of his very own paid off when an attack actually happened?
In other words, is he Michelle’s captor or savior?
To add to the confusion, there’s another inhabitant. Emmett (John Gallagher) is about Michelle’s age. He’s convinced Howard’s right and there was an attack, but he’s also dumb and gullible so that doesn’t help much when it comes to answering the question.
On top of all that, there are other strange doings afoot, but I don’t want to ruin it for you anymore than I already have.
I loved this movie and I highly recommend it. It is definitely something for aspiring writers to check out. It has a Hitchcockian ability to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and J.J. Abrams produced it so you know it’s good.
The writers of this film toss out breadcrumbs and red herrings throughout. As the movie unfolds clues to support the “this is just a trick to hold people hostage” theory as well as “he’s right and there really was an attack” theory are presented, leaving the viewer to wonder what the hell is going on until the very end.
It’s definitely a “less is more” film. Most of it takes place inside the bunker itself.
Go see it. John Goodman’s best work. Our favorite big guy is getting up there in age, so if the Academy wanted to toss him an award for this, it is a worthy performance.
But they probably won’t because he’s fat and you know…#OscarsSoPretty.
NOTE: This is not a sequel to the 2008 film Cloverfield. Remember that movie? It was one of those “people run away from a monster while taping shaky amateur footage because the Blair Witch Project did it successfully in the late 1990s so everyone else wanted to see if they could recreate it” movies.
I thought it was a sequel myself when the trailer came out. Mary Elizabeth looks a little bit like one of the actresses in that film (Lizzy Caplan) so maybe that’s why.
And I foresee this could be Mary Elizabeth’s breakout film.
It was on TV this afternoon and I ended up watching it. Dan Akroyd. Eddie Murphy. Jamie Lee Curtis as a hooker with a heart of gold.
It was on all the time when I was a kid so it took me on a stroll down memory lane.
If you’ve never seen it, it asks the “nature vs. nurture” question that plagues us today. Do people possess an innate ability to thrive or fail or is it possible to pluck anyone out of a bad environment, put them in a good one and see them succeed?
To that end, the Duke Brothers, a pair of elderly Wall Street tycoons frame their firm’s manager Winthorp (Dan Akroyd) to see if he thrives or fails when he hits the skids. Meanwhile, they appoint Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy) as the firm’s manager and give him a lot of money to see whether he thrives or fails when thrust into success.
Also, there are a lot of boobs. Many gratuitous 1980s boobs belonging to women who are either dead or very old now. Depressing.
Questions for my 3.5 readers
QUESTION 1:
Do you think environment matters when it comes to a person’s success or failure? Are people in tough situations bound to fail or are there people who can make the best out of any situation?
QUESTION 2:
Why aren’t there any boobs in movies anymore? Movies used to have boobs all the time. Now I barely see any. What gives?
Meanwhile, movies are more violent than ever with people getting shot, hacked up, eaten by CGI movies but put one pair of boobs on the screen and to quote the Joker, “everyone loses their minds!”
NOTE: Downside – there is a blackface scene in which Dan Akroyd goes undercover as a Jamaican while wearing blackface and fake dreads. Even by 1983 standards that was a little bit off. So there’s that but overall despite that one scene, the movie does have a good message about not automatically disparaging someone who doesn’t come from a perfect background, that had you lacked opportunity you might struggle too.
Oh Hollywood. When will you ever learn that every time you put out another cheesy romantic movie, you’re causing the women in our lives to hold us up to ridiculously high standards?
Bookshelf Battle 