Weekend Lounge ~ The Cost of Flops

Welcome to the weekend!

We've gone over slop enough recently, so lets talk a bit about what happens when you rely on it for so long that it destroys the very industry you operate in. The above video from Red Letter Media decides to wade into the obvious reality that Hollywood is dying. Their conclusions might be different than some, but it is still very obvious as to what is happening.

The "success" of the Minecraft movie is a very telling one, and also depressing to think about for those who enjoy the artform. It is essentially a Snakes on a Plane, but successful. In other words, it's a movie that has made money due to the death of the medium.

for those who don't remember, Snakes on a Plane was a bad movie that had no marketing budget except to try to reel in folks with how bad it was. The entire marketing campaign was a meme before memes. You didn't want to see the movie to enjoy a quality product or have a good time at the cinema. They wanted you to watch something bad and give them the privilege of handing them money for it. It was an "intentionally bad" movie before that trend got kicked off. In essence, it was ahead of its time in a lot of ways.

However, it bombed. The mainstream audience still wanted good movies. They still wanted quality and effort put behind it. It was a sign the industry still had life in it because the audience still had expectations for the industry. They no longer do.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Minecraft Movie is only popular because it's a meme that people want to laugh at. They're going to the theater to trash it, to run roughshod over the place, and to cackle ironically at the product made to entertain them. I am not even discussing the quality of the movie itself: as RLM above shows, this is who is seeing the movie and this is the reason they are going to the theater. This is a sign of a dead medium.

As we've also discussed before, there is a lot of issues internally, as well. Sound design is a mess. The masters are retiring and dying off without sharing their secrets. CG is decaying despite requiring more people than ever before (to also work even longer hours). The overreliance on ancient IP is wearing out its welcome, even though nothing new is being made that can seem to connect with audiences. All of this is a sign of an industry that has lost the plot and has no idea how to move forward. That's without going into how those inside the industry appear to have no connection of understanding of their audience at all anymore.

It's all just a giant cluster of confusion.

On top of it, as they also report, the other movies on the highest grossing films of 2025 (so far) list, are all bombs. None made their budget back, and considering how much they spent to be made, breaking even wouldn't even be enough. All of this is the clearest pattern of a dead industry on the way out. It could have been avoided, but we are past that point now.

No one is going to the theaters for "Hollywood Magic" anymore. They are either going to laugh at it, or not at all. They are attending IP farm entries less and less, and walking away at increasing rates. Not even the overseas market is interested like they once were. It is a sign of the times and another market that the 20th century is over. We aren't going back to where we once were ever again. All we have is what lies ahead. And we have no idea what that is.

And for those who keep pointing excitedly to their own TVs in the comfort of their own homes: There's still no money in streaming. No one has yet to figure out what a hit is or how to even measure it. They will continue to strike over this issue, but the bigger problem is that there isn't any feedback on the level of the box office or Nielsen ratings for streaming. Especially not in the online space where bots and paid agents clutter social media space. These are glorified ads more likely to annoy potential audiences than anything else.

All of this is also without going into the loss of shared culture. There is no reason to watch something you aren't sure if you're going to like if there's no one to talk about it with. What's the point? Water cooler talk has changed.

In fact, everything has changed. That is how the passage of time works. While the world we grew in is long gone, so is the world of even a decade ago. Old systems are falling away and will eventually leave the field clear for new ways going forward.

We're going to have to explore it ourselves, it seems. That's fine. There are plenty of excited creatives in indie spaces willing to do what they can to entertain you instead. until we figure out how to rebuild again, this is our best bet going forward.

Personally, I have the Psycho Mission serial currently ongoing at the blog (with a just-released podcast episode about it here!) as well as other projects on the way. But I'm also just one of many working as much as we can in a landscape with no real direction forward. There are plenty of others, including one below I'd like to end today's post on.

I would once again like to thank you for reading. It's been a long ride so far with no clear destination ahead. I appreciate you joining me as we figure out our path through the wasteland. Hopefully one day we'll find the way out.

Until next time!

For something new, check out the 365 Infantry project! Wolves, motorcycles, guns, robots, and the apocalypse! There's nothing quite like it!

Blast From the Future Past

Here is a funny story.

What do you get when you make a movie in 1984, shelve it before production is finished, let it sit for 35 years, only to have it finally completed and released in the year 2021?

The answer to that would be the movie known as New York Ninja. This is an unreleased 1980s action movie that was completed and put out today.

The reason I wanted to talk about this is because of how absurdly rare something like this is to happen. Imagine getting the chance to release a long lost project from a bygone age in contemporary times. That doesn't happen very often.

And yet this is what boutique label Vinegar Syndrome actually did with the release of New York Ninja. You can see the trailer for yourself here:

What happened was that Vinegar Syndrome acquired the rights to long shuttered film production company 21st Century Entertainment and went through their archives. They soon found tons of footage for an unreleased movie named New York Ninja. There was no sound and the film was completely unedited, but there was something there.

Eventually one of the staff took this on as a project in his spare time. He went through the footage, edited it into a coherent movie, then Vinegar Syndrome helped him by getting a new score done and finding voiceovers for the dialogue.

You see, the lack of any sort of sound meant that this glaring flaw needed effort to overcome. They hired b-movie greats like Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Cynthia Rothrock, among others, to play the main characters. Because even though they discovered who the main actor was (the reclusive John Liu who disappeared from sight not long after this was shot) they knew nothing about the shooting, the rest of the cast, or anything about the history surrounding this film's creation. They were essentially going in blind.

And yet, they did it. The project was completed, and a movie was made. They did their best to take what they had a create a 93 minute action movie out of it. All their efforts made this a 1984 movie completed in 2021--not something that happens too often.

In fact it was so uncommon and bizarre that we talked about it on Cannon Cruisers. You can find the special episode here. Though I can also post it below for easier access. Listen to it wherever you would prefer. Just keep in mind that it is nearly half an hour long!

What is interesting about this project, to me, is the sincerity. They treated the material, as silly and goofy as it can be, as seriously as they could. They tried to match the lip flaps and follow the obvious plot through line than John Liu intended it to have, and the actors all do a decent job of taking you back to 1984 by way of 2021.

It is a very surreal experience to watch, but it never feels like the people making it are taking the experience anything less than seriously. And that benefits the final product tremendously. The last thing we needed was another purposefully bad movie trying to wink and nod with the irony crew that almost ruined b-movies for the rest of us.

What the movie does is take you back to a time when a movie could just be a fun night out with the guys. You never expect to see something on the level of Heat with low budget action flicks like this. That isn't the point. It is to feel good seeing a man take revenge on those that did him wrong, and set it right.

And in the process, make it as outlandish as possible. That is what makes movies like this so fun to watch and enjoy. They don't make them like this anymore, so it is nice to see someone got out of their way to fix one back when they were still being made.

I'll just end this shorter post by saying that if you enjoy low budget b-movies or general action movies from a time when they were as crazy as all get out and unafraid of being judged by small-souled bugmen then you should see this movie. Even if you think you've seen it all, you definitely haven't seen this one before.

It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face, and that is definitely worth your time. I guarantee it. We need more of that in the 21st century.

Sorry for the shorter posts this week. It just shook out that way! I'll see you next time for something brand new.

For more outlandish stories of good and evil, be sure to grab Brutal Dreams! A story of action, horror, and the light in the darkness!

Skin for the Game

Over the last few days, I've been witness to some discussions that solidified a few thoughts I've had floating at the back of my head. At Wasteland & Sky we discuss art a lot, because it is both more important and less important than some believe. It is more important because it shares ephemeral ideas and notions we all need to experience over and over, it is less important because it is not a god for a cult to worship. Art is connection, not the end goal. Recent discussions have made this clearer than before.

That recent series of events have proven to me that investment matters more to the audience than any other area of craft. While craft matters a lot (you can't create art without it) it is secondary to the end goal. As stated before, it is connection. Audience investment is what will truly make the difference between good art and memorable art.

After looking over author Brian Niemeier's review of the two Gremlins movies, I thought about one thing he mentioned in regards to the first.

It was the following:

"On the flip side, sometimes flicks that shouldn't work by any accepted metric defy the conventional wisdom and strike a chord with people. I recently re-watched Gremlins, and it struck me as a perfect example of David Stewart's IP explosion phase. Shot on a shoestring budget from B movie material not even the director believed in, it became the fourth biggest film of 1984.

"What's even more amazing is that according to the rules, there's no way Gremlins should have been a hit. The film makers somehow managed to cram nearly every screenwriting mistake in the book into the first act. The magic system is infamously illogical and arbitrary. It takes forever for the first gremlin in a movie called Gremlins to show up. Entire subplots and characters are introduced, only to be forgotten by act two. It takes until act three for a clear protagonist with a concrete goal to emerge. Same goes for the main antagonist. The horror often clashes; not just with the comedy, but with other kinds of horror.

"And despite all those demerits that would have turned a lesser movie into cringeworthy schlock fest, Gremlins quickly achieves an intoxicating level of fun that it maintains all the way to the end."

 

How did it manage to achieve classic status despite all its objective faults? We will get to that, but this is not the only recent discussion that spurned the creation of this post.

Another discussion was one on social media wherein a fanfic writer (of some notorious NSFW pornography) went on about "Rules for Writing" that included "rules" that were nothing but the writer turning their pop cult orthodoxy into dogma. This is the opposite side of "investment" where the consumer of art turns it into an idol.

Their "rules" included such gems as characters not being redeemable if they've killed more than 10,000 people (999 is okay), how the sitcom Friends is a good example of writing to be emulated, and how writers need to keep away from "bigoted story decisions" if they want to succeed. Those are just three points in a 100 point thread that has since been deleted due to being quickly turned into a punching bag. However, it was quite funny to look over as a writer and see the supposed advice get progressively crazier, more obsessive, and incorrect as it went.

Just for clarity's sake, before we continue let us talk about why those three points are wrong and written by someone who doesn't understand storytelling. It will roll into the topic later on, so please bear with me. Pop cultists know what they obsess over: they do not understand why normal people like the things they do. This list proves why you should never cater to fanatics. They are always fanatical about the exact wrong thing, and sometimes it's a thing that doesn't even exist.

But I digress. Here are three things that a pop cultist believes is the key to success. This is what they believe will invest others in stories.

• 1) Characters who kill over 10,000 people are irredeemable

First of all, redemption doesn't work that way. There is not a finite number of horrible things you are allowed to do before you can no longer turn back from the dark. Only someone who doesn't understand forgiveness could think this. Ironically enough, the same people who believe in permanent evil also tend to think anyone can turn evil at the drop of a hat, even if they spent their entire life being white hats. You can just smell the despair.

Audiences will accept both a tragedy or a redemption, no matter what either character does, if it's written well. People who engage in art on healthy terms know what they want from a story on a deeper level, and pop cultists do not because they are disordered in their thinking. A story of redemption or a tragedy are two styles that have lasted since storytelling began, because they are ingrained in us as things that can, and do, happen all the time. You know this if you have a healthy outlook to understand human beings from.

There is nothing more frightening than falling down a pit of despair and destroying everything you've built up by making a simple series of bad decisions, and there's nothing more hopeful than a sinner who has nothing then bowing his head and asking for a second chance to turn it all around. A storyteller knows this just as inherently as their audience, which is why it is as common as it is. It works.

In other words, this point is exactly wrong. A writer that doesn't understand the concept of redemption is not a writer. He is a defeatist putting his own warped worldview into his work. And as we all know, cultists can't help but be warped.

• 2) Friends is an example of good writing

In case you are unaware, because no one under the age of 25 will, Friends was a sitcom from the late '90s. It was about a group of six urbanites living in the city and dealing with superficial life problems while having sex with each other and dealing with plots about nothing. They did not go on adventures, they did not do anything worth noting, and they were completely selfish and self-absorbed. It was essentially Seinfeld, except completely unaware that these were bad things, and vapid as a result. You haven't heard about it since it ended because it had absolutely no staying power.

It only came to popularity because Seinfeld ended, before then it was just another Young Adult sitcom from the era that was obsessed with modernity and perversion. Friends received its explosion in popularity due to being a pale imitation of Seinfeld that leaned on soap opera plotting and '90s fads, none of which have aged well, and none of which has any relevance to normal, healthy people. The best '90s sitcoms still get talked about to this day, Home Improvement, Boy Meets World, Frasier, etc., but Friends does not get mentioned except as a nostalgic footnote. Everything it did was done better in countless other places, and it has no remaining appeal for those who didn't watch it when it was first on.

As you can tell, this doesn't make for the best example to model anything after. The last thing you want to do is date your work with what is flashy and current, because chances are that once the honeymoon ends no one will remember it as anything for the empty calories it was.

On the other hand: Friends was also a sitcom. It is not an action story. If you're not writing a sitcom for television, then you should not be writing a sitcom in your space adventure or period romance story. They are very different styles of stories meant for very different audiences. If your audience wanted a sitcom, they would go watch a sitcom. They are coming to you for something else. If you're reading stories for shallow soap opera drama the there are plenty of other places to get it.

Audiences are invested in you for a different reason than when they pop in a season of Married With Children into their DVD player. Give them what they want. It's really that simple.

• 3) "Bigoted story decisions" will harm your story

This is a big one you see a lot from writer workshops, and proof that OldPub has no idea what they are talking about. This is a way to make sure you don't tell stories they don't like, but it is wrapped up in nonsense jargon to obscure the real intent.

"Bigoted" writing means nothing, but it is a way to control what you write. You are simply not allowed to have certain story turns because it might offend someone of some group somewhere, and that's just bad. Therefore you must write by the right rules, which just so happen to be the ones OldPub and Hollywood, both currently failing, want you to do. You need to write stories that check the right boxes to make sure you don't hurt some group that may or may not exist. If you don't? Well, that's what cancel culture is for.

Isn't that just convenient?

Here's the secret: there s no such thing as a "Bigoted story decision" because a story decision can't be bigoted. That's not how writing works. That's how hacks work.

This one is going to need some explaining, so bear with me.

Whether you are a plotter or a pantser doesn't really matter here. When a writer comes up with a story and when they write and down and edit it, they are attempting to clarify a story that has sprouted in their mind. It is their job to clear it up for consumption, sort of like a window washer. They are attempting to clean and polish that picture clear and present it to the reader. The writer is a glorified delivery boy to their stories. That is what creativity is. Nothing is invented by whole-cloth.

The only reason you might disagree with this is would be if you have elevated writers and creators to the level of high priests who exist to deliver dogma to the unwashed masses. This is what a pop cultist believes, not what a healthy human being believes.

So when you read an old pulp story and they have salty language, or say mean things you don't understand, it isn't because the author views the world the same way as his characters, it is because the character sees the world that way. The writer is writing the story forming in his mind. If the narration is using terms you find offensive it is because that is how people talked at the time. Writers aren't able to use their psychic vision to see what will be considered acceptable by you half a century after they have died. Believe it or not, most people in history did not act and think like an over-socialized urbanite who thinks everyone who votes differently than them is literally Hitler or stupider than someone who pays the majority of their paycheck to live in a rat-hole of a city apartment. Most people are actually normal.

You can be arrogant about it and consider the world as having "advanced" since the old days, but then you are being oblivious to the fact that your work will be considered "bigoted" one day too, and maybe not even for good reasons. This is the problem with constant purity tests: it misses that the point of art is to communicate. The past cannot adapt its message to suit your fragile ego: it is what it is. It s up to you to adapt to their mindset and understand what they were trying to communicate beyond your shallow worldview.

There is no such thing as an "unbigoted" story, because writers don't write to proselytize messages. They write to connect their story to the audience. Checkbox writing is the writing of cowards with nothing to say or communicate but think they should be listened to. You cannot write stories that way. Your audience doesn't exist for you to sermonize towards them.

Your audience has a relationship with you. They will never be invested in what you have to say if you are more worried about caving to popular demand than you are delivering them what they want. See modern Hollywood and OldPub for hundreds of examples of just this failure.

It is OldPub because it is old and decaying. Taking examples from them is like taking humanitarian lessons from Ira Einhorn. It's a fruitless endeavor.

What those three points were meant to do is make you think a particular way when writing. It was meant to make you believe that there are things you can never do when being creative. These hacks mainly make these sorts of demands because they want all art to conform to their fetishistic standards of being a pop cultist. However, it is also because they don't understand the point of art to begin with. They can't, because they worship it as an idol.

As mentioned many times, art is meant to connect. This means one of your biggest tasks as a writer is to get your audience invested in what you do. To do that you need to connect to normal people, not fanatics. Fanatics will only ever be invested in what piece of art they fetishize, they are incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Normal people are capable of seeing everything, even if they don't always understand what made it connect to them.

So let us bring it back around to the original subject again. Why did Gremlins succeed at the box office and become a sensation despite having so many objective faults? Isn't there a formula for writing you need to follow in order to be good? If so, how did Gremlins surpass all of those to hit so big? Does this mean we should throw out all storytelling rules?

No, because Joe Dante did everything right despite not doing it perfectly, and what he did perfectly is what made the film a classic.

But how did he do it? As I commented on Brian's blog, it was because Joe Dante knew what the audience wanted and delivered it above everything else. Because he accomplished that task the faults of the movie no longer even matter in the grand scheme of things.

For context, I re-watched the movie with a more critical eye for Cannon Cruisers despite having seen it many times over the years. Because I had seen it so many times I thought I knew the film well. However, I soon noticed many things I didn't notice before when I wasn't watching it more intently. Characters disappear from the story, there are plotlines that go nowhere, and the movie just sort of ends without telling us the aftermath of any of the carnage. As a narrative, these are real problems that hurt the movie. Objectively, they are bad moves.

But no one really ever sees them. I never noticed these flaws until I paid attention to the film on a deeper level. The fact of the matter is that I didn't see these problems when I first saw them, and most others didn't either. Many people still list Gremlins as one of their favorite movies, despite its objective issues. The faults simply don't matter.

So how does that work? Why are audiences able to overlook the problems? What did director Joe Dante do to warrant such acclaim and popularity for a movie even he knew had flaws?

The answer is surprisingly simple: he gave the audience what they wanted on a deeper level. All the important things audiences crave are embedded in the final product. He gave them what they wanted, by giving them what they needed.

There are four points every story needs in order to engage the audience. They are easier said than done, but every classic story gets these points right on some level. Gremlins hits all four of these handily and expertly.

1. Characters that are likable
2. Themes that resonate
3. Action that flows
4. Story that is coherent

I would say these are fairly straightforward, but let us go through each to see how Gremlins manages all four of these points. I would recommend seeing the movie first if you haven't, it is well loved for a reason. But either way, there might be some spoilers. You have been warned.

We should start with the first point. What is "likable" characters referring to?

The audience needs a character, it has to be at least one, that they want to see succeed and win. Stories are about characters getting from one place to another so the audience needs a reason to want to see that happen. Many experts claim you need to make your characters "relatable" for this to work, but that is completely backwards. Art is connection on a base level--no matter what story you write, no matter how alien the cast is, the one partaking in the art will find at least one of your creations they can forge a bond with, even those they have nothing in common with on a superficial level. They know what they want out of stories. You can't really write an "unrelatable" protagonist unless you deliberately want to. See recent Hollywood movies for examples of an embarrassing failure to this point.

Gremlins aces this with Joe Dante's respect for his small town. Billy, our main character, is a good guy who has a thankless job, has a quirky but well-meaning family, and all sorts of weird neighbors he has a connection with. Because of that, we also forge a bond with them. The fact of the matter is that we like every character because they have positive connections with each other and attempt to support each other through the story. It's very much the community we wish we had (or used to have, depending on your age or location) which in turn connects you to the town. Dante spends the entire first act making you invested in this place.

Then there's the mascot of the franchise, Gizmo. Gizmo is a cute little mogwai with a friendly attitude who just enjoys being around Billy. He's a pleasant character where most such mascots from the time are just annoying and in your face. By nailing what so many others fail with, Dante sets up Gizmo to lead a cast we like on a base level. So when the horror begins we have total investment in all the characters and what happens next.

This rolls over into the themes. Gremlins doesn't have much in the way of theme, it's meant to be a popcorn horror movie, but it does stress the theme of community and following the rules. When the gremlins attack later to "sabotage" (as they do) the lives of the townsfolk, they usually do it through their lesser habits and quirks. They are in essence, "sabotaging" the community through their own weak-points. The scenes of them running rampant and pretending to be people, while mocking them, shows how little respect they have for humans and society in general.

One of the faults of the film, and something a film like Critters 2 actually got right, is that it doesn't feature the town coming together to beat them at the end. Instead, they basically disappear. As said before, one of the faults of the film is that all the subplots and most of the cast vanishes in the last leg of the movie. But we still want to see Billy win because we like the town and those in it. We still are invested in ending the chaos.

The gremlins' weaknesses also work on a deeper level. Water doesn't kill them, but makes them multiply. This is because Gizmo, the original mogwai, is pure. It can be said that the water is a purifying agent that cleans him of his bad side and separates them into whole other beings. It does the same to actual gremlins, but because they are already evil, it doesn't purify so much as make them lesser, sort of like the movie Multiplicity does with clones of clones. This is why the final or boss gremlin is always the first one that springs from Gizmo. Food after midnight makes mogwai change into gremlins because their inner gluttony takes hold, which reveals their darker vices and shows what they truly are. Sunlight kills them for the same reason it kills vampires: they cannot face the pure light of the world they rejected. They epitomize the night life, society's lesser half.

While none of this is ever explicitly said, the audience knows all of this due to how it is executed visually. You know this without being told it. Joe Dante's direction is what makes this work.

The flow of action is also due to Dante's deft touch. Scenes are paced perfectly, getting across exactly what they need to and lingering enough that we get the gist. By this point in his career, he had mastered the director's chair.

The horror comes and goes exactly when it needs to, punctuating the tension and constantly raising stakes. This is actually why few people care about the faults of Gremlins: you don't notice them because of how expertly paced it all is. Audiences will forgive anything if you give them what they want on a deeper level, and that's precisely what Gremlins succeeds best at doing.

Even with the objective faults the movie has, one thing Dante still manages to let shine through is the story, despite its warts. Everything that occurs, every wild moment and strange reveal, is perfectly coherent and understandable. Unlike the modern error of assuming something is good because it confuses the audience, Gremlins is tightly paced to the point where every beat works towards the story. Even with the holes in the plot, the main thrust of the narrative, and the themes, are still in tact, and the story still makes perfect sense. You are never confused at any point while watching Gremlins, nor are you distracted from what story the director is directing you towards.

As opposed to the modern trend of having horror movies drag on an hour too long and teach obvious messages on a surface level that the audience already knows, Gremlins does the opposite. Its themes actually aren't overt and it also runs under two hours, getting in and out like an action, adventure, or horror story should. This is why it has achieved classic status and why none of the vapid clunkers that fanatics prop up today will ever reach that level. One attempts to connect with the audience, the other desperately wants them to understand what is sluggishly being put across because it has nothing else under the hood aside from its main gimmick.

If the theme is the entire point of the story then it is not a story: it is a lecture. It is only one part of a missing whole. You need everything above to create a story.

The movie in question

In other words, Gremlins is a classic because it does everything it needs to in order to connect with the audience. The objective faults are there, and they do matter, but they simply do not subtract from what makes it succeed with normal viewers. What it needs to get right it gets right in spades.

Unfortunately, it does have one blemish on its legacy that has harmed future films, and that is that it created the PG-13 rating, the rating that would eventually kill its genre and neighboring ones by allowing studios to create focus group tested product and sand off the edges to their stories to appeal to audiences that didn't exist. You can see the full fruit of this in the sanitized fluff that was the 1990s not long after Gremlins 2's release. We can't really blame Gremlins for doing this, but Spielberg insisted on creating the label after complaints of violence in the movie. If anything, he should accept the blame for preventing movies like this from being made anymore.

But we're getting off topic. The point is that Gremlins' success is entirely owed to the fact that it prioritized audience investment over everything else. It prioritized the right things over everything else.

This is, at its core, what storytelling, and art, is about. This is why audience investment is key in creating a good story, and why current Hollywood and OldPub cannot do it any more. They are not trying to connect, they are trying to force the audience into accepting unbelievable frames and checkbox characters that are not based on any rational form of reality. They expect you to puzzle out their non-human nonsense, and give them lots of money while doing it. Oh, and shutting up when you don't like it. Can't forget that.

What this ends up churning out is inhuman stories that feel like aliens from another galaxy wrote them. They just hire human actors to say their nonsensical catchphrases and hammy overacting poses while they go through the motions of presenting a story they don't really understand, because they don't understand who they are trying to reach. Even the worst B movies have more humanity than a modern Hollywood film. Because, at the heart of it, their main goal was attempting to connect with the audience: not expecting the audience to put aside their humanity to connect with them. Art is not a one way street.

This is why the rise of alternate industries such as NewPub is so important. People need art to give them hope and entertain them through darker times. They need art to stir imagination and reinforce their lives. The old industry has no interest in doing this anymore, they are too bloated and self-important for that. But the new wave of artists coming up will give you exactly what you are craving. There are new ones springing up every day.

Investment matters, because the audience matters. Creators should all accept this. Art is connection, and it will always find a way.

We just need to be willing to make the effort to bridge that gap.

Connect audience and artist with a Pulp Mindset!

The Victory in Horror

One of the toughest aspects about being a writer or creator is dealing with a cautious audience and tackling tricky subject matter without being needlessly flippant or aggressive. It is difficult to forget that not everyone sees things the same as you do i your field. Creative types take those that insult their entire line of work very seriously, which can lead to a divorce in the audience and those making the art due to miscommunication. Art exists to connect--artists shouldn't want to sever that connection. Unfortunately, one never knows how far the audience will follow them.

So perhaps this post might make a few uncomfortable. All I can say is to please read it to the end. I promise it is going somewhere.

Take the horror genre, for instance. It's especially touchy to talk about for those who take grave spiritual matters seriously. This is fine, since spiritual matters are of utmost importance, and should be discussed. However, what does not help is the dismissal of an entire genre of art as useless, degenerate, or evil. Despite no matter how you explain it, there are those who do not want to engage with it. We all have our own tastes, but I do wish to make something clear about it.

Horror is not pornography, and you will find very few horror stories (that aren't terrible or bottom of the barrel trash) that will glorify evil at the expense of the good. The very best in the genre reinforces the good by showing how ultimately powerless evil is in the face of true opposition. Ultimately, the genre is a celebration of light over dark.

Horror isn't for everyone, of course, as its subject matter is not for the faint of heart, and there are those who misunderstand its intent as a way to celebrate degeneracy and carnage, but the original point of horror is beyond either of those things. Having its roots in fairy tales and marchen romance will do that. The genre is about the opposite of destruction and the victory of evil--it's about reinforcement of the good. All the best horror tales get this right. The ones that don't? They aren't horror, they're pornography for violence lovers. They don't stand up for a reason.

The two biggest aspects that build horror up are two things: the importance of rules and societal strength, and the ultimate victory of even the simplest flicker of good against a powerful wave of evil. You engage in a horror story for the same reason you read fairy tales: to fortify the good. Horror that doesn't do either of these things, fails. Without exception.

One of the biggest believers in this concept was director Terence Fisher, responsible for some of the best horror movies ever made. He directed 50 films ranging from 1948 to 1972 (the last was later released in 1974), he only died a few years later in 1980. In other words, directing was his whole life and vocation.

Mostly he began his career creating pulp thrillers with titles like A Song for Tomorrow, Wings of Danger, and Blood Orange. They were mostly standard for the time, but it was steady work. In the late 1950s he began to make horror movies for Hammer Films, and that would end up defining his career, and his later life. Near half of his 50 film output was spent on this genre with the occasional adventure, fantasy, or science thriller picture, because they are all related genres anyway. It isn't as if his work in noir crime didn't prepare him for horror. They have many similarities with each other, as most in the adventure genre do.

Regardless, his horror films are the ones he is most known for today. And that is the subject of this piece. Today I would like to talk to you about my personal favorite horror movie, one that Mr. Fisher directed, and one that deserves far more attention that it gets. It is a classic, but it is somehow still obscure. I hope to help change that.

But before we get there we should start at the beginning.

One of the biggest names in the horror genre was, and still is, Hammer Films, a British film company that operated from 1934-1979 (yes, starting from the pulp era) which specialized in horror of the older sort. Gothic tales and stories of the eerie over the explicit and profane. You might even recognize some of the actors that made their name there from Christopher Lee to Peter Cushing to Oliver Reed: there are many actors and creators from the era that we go on to do many more exciting things, even after Hammer closed its doors in 1979. For a long time, Hammer was the name for horror, due to their staunch traditional view of the genre and their insistence to treat it with respect and reverence.

Ironically enough, what killed Hammer was the explosion of grotesque and nihilistic horror in the late 1960s and early 1970s such as Rosemary's Baby and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. These sorts of movies ended up changing the market towards more explicit content, and by the start of the 1980s consumed the genre. True horror couldn't compete in this era of decadence, so they could do little but fold. It didn't help that most of their later films simply weren't very good, but they were probably running low on inspiration at the time.

Yes, they died before the big horror boom in the 1980s, probably one of the biggest missed opportunities in all of film. There was nothing to be done about it. Their time was simply up. It happens.

However, time is a very strange mistress, and due to the passage of time and the death of horror as a viable genre by the '00s, many had begun looking back on the past and taking stock of what worked. From what I can muster, you can tell the enthusiasm for what worked in film by what gets the most attention with a modern Bluray re-release. The two things that always seem to sell out fast are '80s horror movies and Hammer films. They also take up the majority of the discussion online. The "dated" nature of the films has come around to the point where they have aged far better than most of the competition that outsold them back in the day. Truth always wins.

So what is it that Hammer did that worked so well? How are they looked back on so fndly despite being so criticized for being out of touch, tired, and out of date? That is the subject of this post--that favorite horror film I wanted to talk about.

Today we will be taking a look at the 1968 Hammer horror movie, The Devil Rides Out. This is an occult adventure movie about the dangers of the dark and the ultimate victory of the light. It is the anti-Rosemary's Baby, except it has aged far better. Another interesting fact is that they both released in the same year.

Our Heroes

The Devil Rides Out is based on a book by Dennis Wheatley, in particular the second in his Duke de Richleau series, a series of eleven novels that ran from 1933-1970. Unlike other series characters such as Seabury Quinn's occult detective Jules de Grandin, Wheatley's series did not have a set genre it was required to operate in. The first book was an adventure story called Forbidden Territory and was adapted to film way back in 1934. The Devil Rides out is the second book in the series, and is vastly different in style from the first. Just as was common in the pulp era, genre wasn't so set in stone. This story could have run in Weird Tales, it is so bizarre.

It most likely took so long to adapt due to the subject matter, which is very tricky and was not one mainstream filmmakers were keen with taking on, especially in the 1930s. This doesn't even take in to account the level of special effects that would have to go into it just to make an adaption work on a basic level. This would be a nightmare to adapt at any other time. It's hard to imagine now, but pulp was far more ambitious and big than what film could allow before studios like Hammer came around. Much of this just couldn't be done.

Nonetheless, it took until the '60s for a proper adaption of Wheatley's second book, and what an adaption it was! Hammer pulled out all the stops for this one, getting Terence Fisher (The Horror of Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Earth Dies Screaming) as director, and casting Christopher Lee in one of his best roles (and few as a protagonist!) as the Duke among the rest of the perfectly cast ensemble. They went in hard on this picture, sparing no expense. It should also be mentioned that this adaption was penned by Richard Matheson, of all people, so that should help explain its masterful transition from page to screen.

The story starts with one of the Duke's friends coming to him with a problem. His son seems to have gotten himself involved in something strange. Richleau investigates and finds the young man is involved in the occult, in specific a cult worshiping a demon named Bahomet. Now the Duke plots to get him out and escape without getting himself or the young man killed. What follows after this is daring escapes, spiritual attacks, odd monsters, fights, and time travel (!) along the way to the stunning conclusion. I don't want to spoil the finer details of the plot except to say that you are not going to guess where it's going, and where it goes is quite incredible, especially for a movie from the late '60s when nihilism was all the rage in film. 

I should probably tackle the elephant in the room, which is the demonic part of the plot. This is going to make some wary, but it should be explained first.

It can't be stressed enough that the evil in this movie is treated as evil, there is no ambiguity here except when it involves questioning how deep someone might have fallen under the cult's influence. The main character uses a cross to make a demon explode (yes, that happens and it is one of the best scenes ever put to film), and one plot point involves turning a coven into a church. Then there is the denouement. The entire movie is a reinforcement of good over the inevitable failure of evil. This subject matter can make the movie hard to watch for some, and it doesn't need explicit content to do it, either. However, it is in service of good.

In case you are unaware, the writer of the novel and the director were both Christians, faithful Anglicans, so you won't see much in the way of celebrating degeneracy. They aren't Roman Polanski or the crowd he ran in.

From wikipedia's page on Fisher:

"Given their subject matter and lurid approach, Fisher's films, though commercially successful, were largely dismissed by critics during his career. It is only in recent years that Fisher has become recognised as an auteur in his own right. His most famous films are characterised by a blend of fairytale myth and the supernatural alongside themes of sexuality, morality, and "the charm of evil". Drawing heavily on a Christian conservative outlook, there is often a hero who defeats the powers of darkness by a combination of faith in God and reason, in contrast to other characters, who are either blindly superstitious or bound by cold, godless rationalism."

And in regards to a later adaption of his work, Wheatley detested it for being obscene. This helps put what happens in The Devil Rides Out into context, since its subject matter is intense yet covered respectfully. Just before he died he received conditional absolution from his friend, the Bishop or Peterborough, and he spent his life warning about the evils of dark spiritual forces.

In fact, according to wikipedia:

"He came to be considered an authority on Satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, toward all of which he expressed hostility."

Wheatley also believed Communism was created by satanic power, so you know he's a true believer in what he writes.

I also don't want to spoil it, but the final line of the film is as far from Rosemary's Baby-style nihilism and a reaffirmation of everything listed above about the writer. Good is not going to roll over for evil, not like Polanski would have wanted it to.

Suffice to say, these two individuals are a good part of the reason the film never veers off course in its morality, just as Matheson's tight adaption and Lee's tremendous performance keeps your eyes glued to the screen. The film flies by a confident pace, always knowing where it needs to be, and the actors help tremendously in holding the viewer's attention. In fact, Christopher Lee considered this one of his favorite roles. He was not wrong.

What also contributes is the amount of action, from car chases to fist fights, spiritual attacks and monsters, to heroic characters and seedy villains, all flying at you at a pace that other such films wouldn't have until the 1980s. It's pulp of the best sort, and a reminder of the potential such a fun first mindset can have, even in a horror story about the conflict between good and evil.

As for faults, there are few. No movie is perfect, though this does come close.

The special effects are not going to wow those used to modern CG or even the perfection of practical effects from the 1980s, but they are remarkably effective and evocative regardless. The imagery is no less disturbing just because Tom Savini isn't handling makeup. You just have to keep in mind that effects were limited right now.

I also wouldn't recommend showing this to children. It's too intense and the themes are to tall for kids to properly see the top of. This is an affair for older audiences only.

Another sticking point some are going to have is the ending, and I mean the way the characters reach it. Some consider it to convenient, or a deus ex machina, and your mileage might vary. However, it is not quite typical for this sort of story.

It really isn't that controversial, however. If you keep in mind the movie is about the battle between good and evil and how arrogant, overconfident, and stupid, evil can get at its peak then it works just fine. But if you were expecting a grand sword-fight or gun battle where the Duke shoots the villain through the heart then you might be disappointed. The ending isn't like that. Though one should keep in mind that a final confrontation in a story is about summing up the greater themes from the work, and such a violent ending would not be in tone with what the heroes were trying to accomplish throughout. It would be at odds with the events of the plot.

That said, the end probably could have been stronger, but I can't complain about what we got from this ending. At the very least, you aren't going to see much else like it.

And that's the takeaway here. There isn't much like this movie, and I highly recommend seeing it, especially in this season where we celebrate Good's ultimate triumph over evil. This is why we engage in the genre to begin with.

The Devil Rides Out is the ultimate battle between good and evil and how that might go deeper than we first expect it will. It's masterfully directed, perfectly written, expertly acted, and phenomenally paced. You will not see any other movie like this, especially not from the modern film industry. Much of this comes from the Gothic influence and the morality prepackaged in it, but the genre itself is so far from its roots these days that such a film is incapable from coming out of the minds of modern producers. Don't expect anything like this coming from the mainstream.

But that's fine. Independents and NewPub can take it from here.

Gothic is the beating bloody heart of horror. The battle between good and evil is perilous, dangerous, and unsettling. Everybody isn't comfortable with that, and it's understandable, but to dismiss an entire genre that has so much to offer is simply wrong. We need to be reminded of we are are and what we aren't. Considering this is the season right before we celebrate the ultimate victory of Good, it is imperative to remember what we are up against.

So this Halloween do your part and celebrate the ultimate powerlessness of horror against the normal. Evil has already lost and that is something that we should all be reminded of over and over. Good has already triumphed, so cheer up! We only have to make it to the end to see for ourselves.

It goes without saying that you should see this movie. I can't recommend it more highly.

I'll see you next time when I go through another season appropriate subject. For now, have yourself a fun time and remember that good things are on the way. Times are changing. Don't forget the spirit of the season: triumph!

And triumph is what NewPub is all about.

Bring back the Gothic with the Pulp Mindset!

It's Eating You

"Do you think you, with these guns you got in your hands, do you think you can shoot anything you don't like? Well, what if what you don't like is inside you? How you gonna shoot it?"

With Hollywood's death spiral currently unfolding before our eyes, those who enjoy cinema are a bit out of luck if they're in the mood for new movies to watch. That is a shame. However, there are decades of films yet to be seen by everyone, and many movie buffs are taking advantage of that fact. Streaming and torrenting are a reality now, so just about any film you've ever wanted to see from and time or place is available at the tip of your fingers.

Just one click is all it takes and you can watch anything that's ever been made. Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, it is. Some of them you won't even find via official channels and, one everything goes digital, will eventually be censored or flushed down the memory hole. The past must destroyed in order to shape the future, after all.

There are certain movies Hollywood wouldn't want you to see or know about these days, and we're going to talk about one of them today. This is a movie you've probably never seen, and if you have you probably only heard of it in passing or offhand, but never gave it much of a shot. This is a film that deserves much more attention than it gets.

I am referring to 1985's The Stuff directed by Larry Cohen (It's Alive!, God Told Me To, Q), which is a smaller, unknown film from the golden age of B-movies. It released right in the center of said golden era. Despite that, unless you're an '80s film buff you've probably never heard of this one, and that's a shame. The fact is that it's more relevant today than when it was first released, but not fully in the way you might think, and possibly not in the way the director intended. Unfortunately, Mr. Cohen died a few years ago so there is no way to ask him about his real intent.

In The Stuff, railroad workers discover a white foam and cream-like substance coming out of the ground. One of them tastes it, like an idiot, and finds it delicious. Not too long later, due to forces well beyond the scope of this movie's plot, the material ends up being sold on store shelves as a pseudo-ice cream and branded The Stuff. Everyone who tastes this food loves it. How can they not? It's tasty, it has no calories, and it gives you incredible energy. This is the exact thing we've been waiting for! Needless to say the Stuff quickly becomes a sensation.

However, there is more to this Stuff than meets the eye. One boy swears he's seen it move, though nobody believes him. Elsewhere, former fed turned industry saboteur, David "Mo" Rutherford, is hired to investigate this meteoric rise of new junk food by the negatively affected ice cream industry. What each protagonist finds ends up turning out to by much worse than they first thought it would be. The Stuff is alive, and it has sinister motives of its own.

By this point you're probably guessing The Stuff is a typical '80s horror movie, and you'd be partially right. There are a lot of horrific happenings to be seen on screen, and there is an obvious bit of satire that you certainly already caught. However, it is mainly an adventure story when it all comes down to it, based on old 1950s horror B-movies.

Going a bit further, there is something to The Stuff that is rarely discussed. While there is a satire element at play, it goes a bit deeper than you might think. 

"See this hole here? It's getting bigger and bigger, isn't it? So you better eat that, or you're gonna eat this."

The obvious element here is the satire of consumerism. It wasn't that uncommon for the 1980s to parody the absurd buy, buy, buy, nature of the era. Eat, devour, and swallow, everything we give you, but don't actually think about anything you're actually eating. We know this is a bad thing, and it was treated as such back when it was a growing problem in the 1980s, but what The Stuff actually ends up saying is that the root cause comes from something deeper than being tricked by slick corporate advertisement. The Stuff is able to thrive in a world were the hollowness of modern life is trumpeted as normality. The pit in your soul that you can't quite fill exists because something is missing. And what comes in its place? Well, it's what allows subversion to thrive. The main theme of the story is about how humans will consume anything to fill that hole inside of them.

The Stuff represents subversion, not consumerism. This film is actually about this poison and how it destroys a functioning society with empty promises, all stemming from a spiritual vacuum. We all know rampant consumerism exists because of a need for something higher and more fulfilling than what the world offers us, and the Stuff is the poor substitute for what you actually need and crave. But the Stuff doesn't care about you--it attracts you with dopamine hits and high promises before it ends up turning you inside out.

The worst part of the Stuff, is that every one of its victims welcomed it in. They will take anything to fill that pit in their soul, even if it is willing to kill them to do it. It's a higher cause, isn't it? That's more than modern life offers. This is what makes the Stuff far more dangerous than most threats in a horror movie. It actually will give you what you want.

You see, this isn't quite like Invasion of the Body Snatchers where your neighbors are involuntarily being replaced with strangers. Nothing is being forcefully taken--at first.

In The Stuff your neighbors are consuming because it gives them a good feeling, a perfect, healthy high, one they will fight for the death for, even though it is subverting their own lives and warping their insides, turning them to dust. They are fine to give themselves over to some higher cause because the high they achieve from obeying it is the best they can hope to get. This is all they have, and the promises of the Stuff are worth dying for.

To drive the point home, there is a obvious parallel with communism in the movie. Some have tried to state that both the original Body Snatchers and the Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street were parodies of the red hunting going on in Hollywood at the time (even though the writers have said they were not), and at first glance you might be mistaken for thinking this is the same. There is, after all, a good bit of satire ad goofy humor in the movie. But it goes a bit deeper than to say The Stuff is parodying McCarthy. If anything, it's the opposite.

You see, the film is actually about subversion as a whole. It is not shown how the megacorp got its hold on the Stuff to sell it, but the process is mentioned in passing a few times. This might have seemed unbelievable back in the '80s, but seeing how many megacorps actually hate you these days makes it far clearer how something like this could happen. Greasy palms, back alley dealing, and buttering up the right government stooges allowed the untested substance to slide by with minimal checking or deep study. There are no known chemicals or diseases, so what's the problem? It's not like it's being sold as medicine! It isn't poison, so what's the big deal?

But it is poison. The Stuff is used as a weapon in order to get what the megacorp wants. It is even shown how these megacorps devour mom and pop businesses along the way to consuming what they want, which is iron fist control over the Stuff. They are subverting the entire system and the normal supply and demand process in order to get that high they want: mindless profit. They are filling a hole themselves.

However, the secondary effect is that the Stuff they are putting out to be eaten by the masses is turning into something that will usurp the entire system that got them rich to begin with. Those who consume the Stuff become a slave to it, devoted to its very whims. Stuffies won't fraternize with their own family members unless they too accept this pleasant high into their lives, but all they want is that feeling. If everyone is a Stuffie than everything will be alright. The megacorp has no idea what it has unleashed. Anything that gets in the way of the high is to be destroyed, and that includes the ones who let them in the door. Everything must be consumed.

To make the message clearer than a freshly washed window there is a moment in the movie where our heroes meet up with a retired Colonel who lives off the grid with his own platoon of soldiers. He is distrusting of the entire political system. He is spurred into action to help our heroes destroy the Stuff because Mo deliberately draws parallels to communist espionage in government to the way the Stuff is currently operating to destroy the system. This conversation before the climax of the movie really needs to be seen to be believed, because it is not one they would allow in a movie today. To drive the obvious intention home, the Colonel calls the consumer puppets "Stuffies" which is why I used the term above earlier. No, I didn't make that up. This is what the movie is really about.

It takes our heroes going to the Colonel and getting his soldiers together to storm the plant and take it out of operation. Mo and his friends simply can't trust anyone else to help them fight the subversion, and it turns out to be the right call. The Colonel then uses the radio stations he owns in order to broadcast his warning against this subversive infiltration across the country: Stop eating the Stuff because it is deadly and turning your insides upside down! Hurry up before it's too late!

You might be thinking that there is an obvious outcome here, especially if you've seen modern movies in this vein. Clearly no one is going to listen to the conspiracy nut warning them about what gives them fuzzy feelings, and the entire country, then the world itself, is going to be consumed by this unknown substance. This is a horror movie, after all, and what better way to drive home the point that it is all futile then by showing the Stuff winning over our empty material nature.

But that isn't what happens.

Instead, the message goes through and doubt seeps into the populace. There are riots and the masses eventually turn on the Stuff. Stores are blown up, factories demolished, and containers are burned in bonfires on the street. The people come together and turn against the Stuff. The scourge is eradicated. All because they listened to the crazy retired gun nut veteran who lives off the grid and was right about the subversion taking over. You really can't make this up.

To put a capper on it, Mo then travels to the home of the billionaire that funded this entire mess. You see, even though he was stopped, it doesn't matter. This fool will re-brand the Stuff and start anew, even though the last batch almost wiped out the world and would eventually consume him. He doesn't care what he sells, even if it will end up killing him, so Mo does the only thing he can do to stop this. He force-feeds the billionaire the Stuff at gunpoint. Only after the fool's own appetite is satiated on the same garbage he sold the masses will he understand just what he has done. The police arrive shortly after and our heroes walk out triumphant. The menace was defeated.

The final scene shows a black market sale of the Stuff, implying that as long as man craves something to scratch his itch this new drug will always be around. Emptiness asks to be filled, and the Stuff still promises to do it for you. Only when you defeat the deeper problem will the Stuff be truly eradicated for good.

And that's the end.

"Are you eating it, or is it eating you?"

The Stuff wasn't very successful at the box office, due to many reasons surrounding its troubled release, and it still doesn't have much in the way of a cult following today. The movie doesn't have the best effects or grossest horror, though they are effective at what they are trying to get across. Most just see the general concept and write the movie off as typical. Reviews were mixed at the time with some such as the Chicago Sun Times giving it a low score stating it had a lack of plausibility and no movie to house the ideas it had. This isn't quite true.

Being that The Stuff was very clearly a throwback to 1950s horror didn't help, as these were rarely successful at the time. See Tobe Hooper's underrated remake of Invaders from Mars for proof of that. In fact, aside from a handful of swears, you could put the movie in black and white and most people wouldn't be able to tell it wasn't from that distant decade. Mr. Cohen was very successful with his aesthetic and works for the movie.

The story itself is straightforward, which it needs to be since it is about subversion overturning the normal. The main character speaks like a snake oil salesman yet he ends up being the most honest man in the movie due to having a nose for liars. It is the normality of heroism that saves the day against the poisonous nature of subversion. The monster itself, the weird element, is never explained even after it is defeated at the end. All of this are marks in its favor as a true successor to the Weird Tales legacy. The Stuff definitely follows a tradition older than itself.

Technically it might not be the greatest movie, but as far as execution, ideas, and general entertainment value, The Stuff is easily one of the most overlooked B-movies from an era where they were at their best. It's a shame it is so passed over, because it has quite a lot of value and has dated surprisingly well despite its existence as a deliberate throwback to a now-forgotten age. It is in fact probably more relevant now than when it came out. In an era where subversion is seen as an unquestioned synonym for good, it speaks truth against it.

In this day and age the worst thing you can be is well. Healthiness is unhealthy. Wholesomeness is unwholesome. But there are still those out there who believe in something more than the mire of modern life. The Stuff celebrates the good at the expense of evil.

Eventually this will all pass and the truth will reclaim its place again. Just like in The Stuff, the junk that consumes you will one day fall by the wayside. Then what will you have left to show for yourself? Hopefully more than a dried out husk of a skeleton. Truth always wins, in the end. Be sure you are there to meet it.

Defeating subversion is key to having a Pulp Mindset!

The Myth. The Legend.

So there's this guy.

His name is Jonathan. He's retired. His wife died. He's devastated. He wants to be left alone.

Then someone kills his dog and steals his car.

That someone soon learned that the unassuming quiet man is named John Wick. The Baba Yaga of the underworld. A retired monster who left his life behind to live in the light. And this idiotic punk took the last bit of light away. And he isn't happy about it.

What you get is one of the best action movies of the last twenty years. John Wick is a classic revenge film with phenomenal action choreography, an intriguing backstory and world, and manages a real sharpness to the writing. You could even see the action on screen! It came out of nowhere to surprise everyone and quickly became a favorite of many.

And now the sequel's here. So how does it compare?

John Wick Chapter 2 starts off wrapping up the loose ends of the first film with John Wick reclaiming his car, and dealing with the repercussions of coming out of retirement even for a moment. What he ends up doing is getting pulled back into the underworld of professional killers and finding himself at odds with what he is and where he's probably going when it's all over and he's dead. This leads to classic John Wick action, but also a plot that quickly spirals out of control as the deeper he digs into the darkness, the deeper the hole goes. And by the ending you get the sense that there is much more to it all.

I'll be frank, I thought this movie was great. The lore from the first movie is expanded upon and given a real kick in the pants, John Wick himself shows even more charisma and surprising depth, and the supporting cast is even stronger than the one from the original. Everything is a step up.

But what about the action? Of course you want to know about the action.

Well. Um.

Let's put it this way. There's a scene where John Wick buys a bunch of different weapons (at least five by my count) and like some hyper-violent Chekov, ends up using them all until the ammo runs dry . . .

By the halfway mark of the film.

You do the math.

Look, man. If you're still reading this, you probably like action movies. Do you like action movies? Then you are going to go see this one.

If you aren't, well, maybe that porn movie they released today is more your speed. You clearly can't handle the action.

That's a long way to say "Go see it".

But go see it.

Ka-BOOM

I saw Mad Max over the weekend. Lots of explosions and car chasing. But sometimes that's all you want, you know?

But we don't get well-written simplistic action movies like this much anymore, so I like to take them in when I can. It's been a rather slow summer for me and there hasn't been much to talk about. Still, I like to update this weekly regardless.

If you enjoy action movies, then you should really see this. Then go back and watch the original Mad Max and the sequel, the Road Warrior, to see where it came from. The original movies were highly influential for a reason, despite their low budgets, and should really be enjoyed by more people.

Have a good weekend!

Another Good Story is Hard to Find

My favorite podcast did an episode on one of my favorite movies, Frequency. While I could write a post on this, I think it would be better given justice by checking out A Good Story is Hard to Find and listening to what they have to say about it.

Frequency is a time travel thriller that has excellent pro-family and father and son themes that just about anyone should enjoy. If you have not yet seen this movie, you really should. There isn't really another movie out there like it. Plus it stars Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid who never turn in bad performances.

I know it's not much of a Mother's Day film, but I figure that's okay. I'm sure any female would enjoy this just as much as any male would.

Avenging in the Age of Ultron

This is a bit late, but I recently managed to see the new Marvel movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron in theater. In fact, I saw it a day before its official release, but really didn't get around to talking about it until now. So, here it goes.

First of all, this is basically more of the same. I know the commercial's try to peg this as a darker and more serious movie than the first one, and that would be okay if that was what we got here. However, it's not. There are some darker moments, mostly related to visions, but for the most part this film remains as fun and focused on adventure as the first movie did.

And that's actually a great thing!

It's not as serious and character focused as Captain America: Winter Soldier, or as over the top crazy as Guardians of the Galaxy, but retains the original charm the first movie had. Now, if the only thing you liked about the first movie was that it had all these characters together in film form for the first time, you're bound to be disappointed here. There is simply no way they can replicate that intangible feeling again. What they can do, is make it much better.

The question is, did they? The answer? Oh yes.

I would recommend ignoring the critics in regard to this film. Not to say they have no valid points, as they most likely do. The thing is, a lot of the criticisms are overblown by people who want the superhero explosion to go away and bring us back to films of pointless nihilism and preachy social commentary that audiences have all but hated since Hollywood has been trying to force feed it to them. Any criticism that goes beyond "it's ridiculous" or "too goofy" are reviewing the wrong film. Simple as.

So what makes this film so good? Well, it's ridiculous, fun, and goofy. Like every good adventure story. Which means that if you enjoy adventure stories like about 99% of all the best stories ever written, then you should be good to go. If you expect a boring slog about how people are terrible and pointless, then this really isn't for you.

You have the billionaire playboy who has grown up tremendously over the course of three films, the man out of time who is slowly but surely learning his place in the world, the demi-god learning humility and the importance of grace, the man who wears his inner monster on the outside for the world to see, the woman with the shady past who is trying her best to live in the light, and the moral compass-- a soldier who is both the most human and the one with the most to lose. It's a fascinating cast of characters that work so well because we've seen them in their own films grow and now face challenges that they can only face with each other.

The action scenes are pretty insane. Every character both villain and hero fight their best for their own ideals and the fate of the world. It's energizing stuff.

Ultron, the villain himself is a bit fascinating. A machine the runs off of emotions, he is literally the counterpoint of Spock from Star Trek. Watching his plan unfold is literally like watching someone throw all reason out for a feeling, like abandoning your family for a one night stand. His counterpoint in the film, a being of grace, compassion, and reason, is an excellent way to show just how far off the rails a man (or machine, in this case) can get.

Of course, the biggest surprise is the length of the film. It is near three hours long, but doesn't feel like it, which is incredible. If anything, I could go for an extended cut with more if Mr. Whedon is willing to indulge us.

Basically, if you enjoyed the first film, this one is a step up in every way. It's a tightly directed action adventure epic with heroes and villains that are larger than life.

What could be better than that?

The Battle of Far Too Many Armies

I saw the final Hobbit movie on Friday. I guess I can cross that off my list. You know, seeing all the Tolkien movies in theater. But, uh, it wasn't all too great.

Now, I've seen the Lord of the Rings movies a lot. I own the extended editions. They are great fantasy movies bolstered by Tolkien's sharp sensibilities and classic myth making. Even though the movies are not perfect (Faramir, Galadriel, and certain other themes are missed), they do work as a whole. I still enjoy them now.

The Hobbit movies, however, are almost all Peter Jackson and as a result, markedly inferior. When the movies center on Bilbo, they're usually enjoyable. As well they should since Bilbo is the title character and protagonist. So when you have a whole movie that he's barely in, well, you've got a problem. Which is a shame because Martin Freeman is a perfect Bilbo Baggins.

The first movie was sluggishly paced, and missing much of the whimsical charm of the books. The second movie crams most of the book into one movie, destroys a core scene in the story to make it an action sequence out of a theme park and ends at a bad location. The third movie, well, the third movie was not a movie I was all too excited to see, and my fears were not disproved upon seeing it. It just continues with my problems.

I like the cast, the acting is well done, and the lines taken from the book are just too good. The problem is that almost nothing in this final film is in the book.

The first twenty minutes is basically the climax of the last movie (where it should have been placed) and the rest is little more than the conclusion of a very hackneyed love story and fight scene after fight scene. Bilbo's journey back to the Shire isn't even in the film version, it is simply cut to after the end of another fight scene.

I'm under the impression that someone could make a decent (decent, not great) Hobbit film here by cutting the dead weight and editing it to around a comfortable four to five hours, but it certainly isn't Peter Jackson who is up to the task. He extended a 300 page novel into three 3 hour movies, one of which has almost nothing in common with the book. Meanwhile, he extended a 1500 page novel into 3 near four hour movies. It doesn't take much to realize which one was the better idea.

As it is, I'm glad the films were made so no one has to wonder "what might have been", but I don't see myself re-watching them any time soon.

Stick to the books.

A Good Story

For those who enjoy a good story, and a holiday appropriate one, should check out the A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast run by Julie Davis and Scott D. Danielson, where they talk about "It's a Wonderful Life" and what lies beneath the surface. It's already my favorite podcast, but this seasonal episode deserves a link of its own.

If you're a fan of good storytelling, you might want to catch this discussion. Chances are it'll be more than worth your time.