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Double Feature: A Review of Skyfall and Wreck-It Ralph

Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I took the opportunity to catch a couple of the latest theatrical releases. First up on the schedule was the latest Bond film, Skyfall.

Caught up in development hell (primarily caused by a bankruptcy filing two years ago), this film has been four years in the making. Franchise fans can rest at last, knowing that every day of waiting has been worthwhile. Daniel Craig is back as James Bond, his third film as Agent 007. The ever-graceful Dame Judi Dench reprises her role as James’ boss, M, making her seventh appearance in a Bond film (a role she first assumed alongside Pierce Brosnan’s Bond in Goldeneye in 1995). Starring as the antagonist of Skyfall is Javier Bardem. Bardem brings an eerie boyish energy to the role of Raoul Silva, a computer hacker with a dark connection to M.

Skyfall’s release marks the fiftieth anniversary of the film series, and I can’t imagine a more perfect present to mark the occasion. Daniel Craig’s performance is emotional and sincere as the movie’s plot forces Bond to revisit his past and secure MI6’s future in a rapidly changing world. When hacker and cyberterrorist Silva attacks the security agency’s headquarters, James must return to England to protect M, who is now facing queries and pressure from oversight organizations. Can 007 succeed in a world where a man can “do more damage on [his] laptop in [his] pyjamas than [Bond] can do in a year in the field”? Is everything as black and white as it seems? Bond travels around the world, from England to Macau, leaving no beautiful woman unseduced and no martini undrunk, and he does it all with impeccable fashion, but as Silva chases M and Bond chases Silva, there’s no telling who might get caught in the crossfire.

Skyfall had a lot to live up to, given the delay and the hype that always surrounds a new James Bond film, and the script and cast do not disappoint. Neither do the breathtaking visuals, fast car chases, intense action sequences (Craig has always been a more physical Bond, as he proved in his free-running intro back in Casino Royale), and beautiful score (headlined by Adele’s “Skyfall” theme). Ladies and gentlemen, break out the suits and cocktail gowns and dust off your martini glasses. Bond is undeniably back.

After braving the cold of a November evening in Colorado to make a trip to the nearby brewery (delicious local stout was had, as was, of course, a martini), we returned to the theatre for the second film of the evening, Wreck-It Ralph.

Wreck-It Ralph is the latest animated feature from Disney, and it is a wonderful tribute to video game lovers everywhere. The film is set inside an arcade, where some games come and go, but others, like the (sadly fictional) Fix-It Felix Jr. remain popular decades after their release. Ralph is the villain of Fix-It Felix Jr., and as such, he spends his days climbing to the top of an apartment building (built over his bulldozed forest home) to destroy it, threatening the homes and lives of the Nicelanders until Fix-It Felix Jr. can come to the rescue with his magic hammer. When the arcade closes for the night, however, Ralph and the other video game characters are free to gather in the Game Central Station, a massive terminal where the characters can mingle, have a beer at Tapper’s, or pass through the power cables into other arcade cabinets.

On the eve of the 30th anniversary of his game, Ralph leaves a support group (hosted by Clyde) after hearing from other villains, and realizing that he’s not thrilled with the idea of remaining a villain. After crashing a party thrown by the Nicelanders in Felix’s honor, Ralph sets off to a first-person shooter to win a medal, believing that becoming a hero in another game will earn him respect. While initially somewhat successful (Ralph does get a medal), his quest is derailed when he accidentally ends up in the racing game Sugar Rush. The childish Vanellope Von Schweetz steals Ralph’s medal, and working alongside her is the only way for Ralph to get it back. Unfortunately, Ralph’s game-jumping could spell disaster for his own game (what happens when the villain doesn’t show up for work?) and potentially the entire arcade.

Wreck-It Ralph is a fun ride, filled with great cameos and background events taken from the long history of video games. You’ll find yourself cheering for Ralph from the get-go, and learn that being a bad guy doesn’t necessarily make you a bad guy. The animation is phenomenal, as we get to see the evolution of gaming graphics from 8-bit to high definition (animators apparently had the most trouble making certain characters move jerkily, having trained their whole careers to strive for fluid motions). The voice acting is spot-on, with John C. Reilly as Ralph and Sarah Silverman (in what may be her most sincere and heartwarming role to date) as Vanellope, and the soundtrack includes catchy 8-bit-inspired tracks by Buckner and Garcia (of Pac-Man Fever fame) and Owl City. By the time the credits roll, you’ll be wishing you could put another quarter in the machine and do it all over again.

Community

Do you read magazines targeted at writers? I read a couple of different ones in my job at the library. I’m not about to claim that it makes me a better writer, but it does help me find some inspiration from time to time. I don’t only read magazines, though. I read blog posts by fellow writers. I follow them on twitter, published or otherwise. I do try to avoid books on writing, but that’s another matter altogether.

There’s an incredible community that is present in the writing world. We’re competition, yes, but we’re also the support network (yes, we have a support group for writers, we meet wherever there is booze). Without this community, I would have given up on my dream of being a writer a long time ago.

There are three things that I’ve learned that a writer must do in order to be successful.

1.) You have to write. I know it might seem self-explanatory, but we have a tendency to get caught up in the distractions of every day. Social media, research, the siren song of google and the endless labyrinth that is tvtropes. All of these things can keep us from doing what we need to do, whether it’s putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard (and both of those analogies began to sound dirty inside my head the minute I typed them, damn it). I know that I personally am over a week behind on NaNoWriMo right now because of various concept changes and plot shifts and other things keeping me from doing just what I set out to do.

2.) You have to read. It’s been said time and time again that reading is the only way to learn how to write. Find your favorite authors and read their works, early and late. See how they evolved over time. Study how they create characters and build plot events; how sentences are structured and how the story is shaped. Learn what works for you as a reader. Find the authors you don’t like, see what missteps they make so that you can avoid them.

3.) You have to live. Not like breathing and heart beating (though that generally is a prerequisite for numbers one and two above, and anyone finding out about a writer not being alive and still putting out new material should notify me right away). You have to experience things. Without channeling a certain amount of your own life into your characters, they’re going to come across as flat and boring. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing science fiction and have never been to another planet, or if you’re writing fantasy and have never fought a dragon with your bare hands (or in some cases, your bear hands). Everything you do can be turned into an aspect of a story. Did a conversation you had make you laugh? Recreate it in a setting-appropriate manner between your characters. Did you walk home from the bar in the dark last night? Take what you can remember of that walk and channel the emotion of it into your work in progress.

Thank you, fellow writers, for being part of the community that has taught me so much over these last few years. You’ve been great.

House of Leaves

House of Leaves is an editor’s nightmare.

I love it. It’s a jumble of narratives, strange font choices and jarring shifts between them, footnotes that ramble on for several pages, and pages that suddenly switch direction as the labyrinthine house that serves as the main location for the book.

It is riddled with grammatical errors, and seems utterly nonsensical to anyone who picks the book up and flips through it, hoping to find some semblance of sanity within the pages. In short, it is everything that a novel about an eldritch abomination should be.

I recently finished reading the book, and I must say that while it was one of the most dense reads of all time, it was incredibly satisfying to be able to put the book down and know that it was complete. There’s nothing beyond the text whatsoever. There is nothing behind me, growling in my ears now that I’ve completed the book. 

In short, read the book if you’re looking for psychological horror. It’s not a quick read, but it will definitely make you think.

NaNoWriMo: Round Two

November of 2012 marks an important point for me. I’m going to be attempting my second National Novel Writing Month. Last year, though a failure in terms of actually reaching the goal of 50,000 words, was still a great success in that I poured out over 30,000 before losing steam at Thanksgiving.

This year, a lot of things have changed. I’m now working two different jobs, and my overall amount of free time for writing has been greatly reduced. There’s also a lot of uncertainty thus far about what this next attempt will include. I’ve been debating several ideas, and even today I shifted completely from one genre to another. Never mind the fact that I’m still in the process of finding a (semi) permanent new place to live. All of this could be occurring this month.

Did I mention that this month is also going to see the release of Halo 4, James Bond: Skyfall, Wreck-it Ralph, and a host of other games and films I want to play/see? Dethklok and Trans-Siberian Orchestra concerts? Thanksgiving with my family? Christmas shopping? Dungeons and Dragons campaign to finish running? A presidential election? Okay, now I’m just ranting. Point is, it’s a busy month. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got less than five hours to crank out my 1600 words for today. These 200 or so don’t count.

Hallowe’en

My entry for my Hallowe’en Writing Challenge is here. Thank you participants, and Happy Hallowe’en.

“The Last One”

The fire had died down too much during the night, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d been in desperate need to rest after three straight days of running from them, and Marcus had been caught by them partway through the second day, so there was no one to share the watch. His screams had followed me, even into sleep.

As soon as I woke, I scrambled for a handful of twigs, leaves, and sticks to rekindle the flames, knowing that they were the only thing that would really keep them away. Once the fire was beginning to burn in earnest, I checked the gun I’d managed to grab from the facility guard’s body, a Colt 1911. “Only four rounds left,” I sighed as I checked the magazine. The .45 had been effective against them so far, but there were so many of them. Only one of us, me, now that they’d gotten Marcus. I sighed again, managing once more to hold back the tears that had threatened for the last day and a half, and chambered a round.

“He’s gone. Get over it. Get up, and get moving.” I added a small branch to the fire, watching as the flames kissed and embraced it, growing larger and brighter. As I listened for footsteps in the distance, I reflected on the past few days and marveled at how quickly everything had fallen apart.

We’d joked  for years, about how we couldn’t wait for it, and how our lives as video game geeks had prepared us for this exact situation. Well, let me just tell you that nothing, and I mean nothing can prepare you for the sight of your best friend being swarmed and eaten by those…things. We said that we’d make it through together, and now…I put my first three bullets into their heads. The fourth went through Marcus’ eye when I realized he wasn’t going to get away, when he realized what would happen if I didn’t.

The fire had scared them away, we didn’t know why, and I still don’t. I had the Zippo Marcus had given me for my eighteenth birthday, even though I didn’t smoke. I told him his habit would kill him. He said my nagging would be the death of him. Well, we were both wrong, but he was closer.

A crack of a twig breaking snapped me back to the present. They were here. I’d not gotten the fire started in time, and now they were here. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, grabbing the burning branch in my left hand and the Colt in my right. They were getting closer, surrounding me, but there was no way in hell they could know what my plan was. I knew I wasn’t going to survive, but I was going to take as many of them with me as I could. I fired my first three shots as they came into view. I dropped my torch into the dry leaves and raised my gun to my head.

 

 

Guardian

“Guardian”

I am a guardian, o knowledge seeker.
Ask me your questions,
And I shall ask mine.
If you are deemed worthy,
I will show you the path.
You must make the journey alone.
I am guardian, protector,
Though I was once as you are
Now, in another life.
In my youth, I too was a
Seeker of knowledge.
And on the day that I was
First a seeker, asking my questions
And trembling as I responded
To those asked of me,
I feared, but foolishly.
My questions were answered
With questions, riddles for reply.
Now ask your questions, and
Answer well mine, for perhaps
You are worthy of the path
That led me here, o knowledge seeker.
I am a guardian.

October Writing Challenge

Halloween is nearly upon us, with NaNoWriMo close on its heels, and that thought absolutely terrifies me. In the spirit of the season, I’m taking a page from Sonia M and asking my readers to take part in a writing challenge. This is the first challenge I’m hosting, and so it is going to focus on my favorite holiday. Craft a piece of horror-themed microfiction. Think Poe, Lovecraft, King, Machen, condensed into roughly 500 words.


The rules are simple.

1.) Theme: Write a horror-themed piece of microfiction.
2.) Genre: Other than the overall theme, there are no genre limitations. Write a steampunk/horror story, or a horror/romance, or science fiction/horror, just for some examples.
3.) Word limit: 500 words (approximate).
4.) Deadline: October 31st, 2012.
5.) How to submit: If you have a blog of your own, post your story on your blog and share a link in the comments on this post. If you don’t have a blog of your own, feel free to post the story in the comments here. If you do this, I will post the story in a separate post and re-link it here.
6.) Prizes: The reward of a job well-done and the knowledge that you managed to finish one more short piece before diving headfirst into NaNoWriMo.

Banned Books Week

This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, a week-long celebration of the right to read.

Throughout history, books have faced challenges and bans from people around the world. These challenges come from groups and individuals who have taken it upon themselves to determine what is “appropriate” for others to be reading based on tired dogma and personal opinion. In the words of Granville Hicks, “[a] censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.”

Some of the greatest pieces of literature ever written have been banned or challenged in schools, churches, and public libraries for various reasons. The Great Gatsby, for example (one of my favorite books), was challenged in 1987 by Charleston, South Carolina’s Baptist College because of “language and sexual references in the book.” Now I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that this particular phrase could have been used to challenge the presence of the Holy Bible, considering the Old Testament features several chapters which single-handedly contain more explicit sexual references than anything written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. J.D. Salinger’s classic tale of teen rebellion, Catcher in the Rye, was banned for being “a filthy, filthy book.” That’s a bit of a vague excuse if you ask me, and makes me wonder if the people behind that challenge had actually read the entire book, as, in an amusing twist, the narrator believes a “catcher in the rye” to be one who safeguards the innocence of children. As recently as 2009 To Kill a Mockingbird has been challenged for use of the word “nigger” among other language that was dubbed as inappropriate. The list goes on and on, and increases in absurdity. The works of Tolkien, a staunch Catholic, burned in New Mexico in 2001 as “satanic.” Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying “[b]anned at Central High School in Louisville, KY (1994) temporarily because the book uses profanity and questions the existence of God.”

More recent works are facing challenges and bans as well. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Captain Underpants have all been threatened with removal from library shelves. I’ve personally encountered people willing to ban materials on nothing more than hearsay. My mother, herself a Catholic, has encountered this at the bookstore she owns and operates.
Customer sees Harry Potter on the shelf: “I can’t believe you have that book in your store! It’s about devil worship and magic and terrible things!”
Mum: “Have you actually read the books?”
Customer: “Well, no, but I heard that they were bad.”
Mum: “Well, if you actually took the time to read the book, you’d learn that they’re about a little boy who overcomes terrible adversity and still manages to become a good person despite facing an evil enemy bent on the destruction of the world, and that there’s nothing harmful about the books.”
Customer: “Oh.”
It’s enough to drive a person insane. “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” -attributed to Stephen Hawking

My favorite response to any of these challenges is taken from Oscar Wilde, a man who knew quite a bit about dealing with people who were upset by things that he wrote and did. “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” Humans have an unfortunate history of trying to hide our mistakes and our failures, from the child who attempts to disguise the fact that he wet the bed to avoid the anger of a parent to the government that covers up evidence that it had authorized criminal acts against its own people. It’s human nature, I suppose, but it shouldn’t stop us from learning from our own mistakes. If we hide away all of the bad things that people have done in the past, we can’t do that. You know what they say about learning from the past, and those who are unable to do so.

We need to get over this. If I may be rather earnest, it’s bullshit. Books are here, and they’re being read. If you stop someone from getting a copy at their local library, that might slow them down for a while, but the information, the ideas, are still out in the world. We can’t stop people from experiencing life. Sex and profanity and hate and love and violence are going to be there, whether someone read about it in a book or not. We’ve screwed things up before. Let’s not do that again. 

It’s Banned Books Week. I’m celebrating by reading as many banned or challenged titles as I can. I work in a public library and a bookstore, and I’m providing the people with free ideas and ideas of freedom. “[a]nd ideas are bulletproof.” -V (This V, not that V) 

The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling‘s first post-Harry Potter novel is coming soon. The Casual Vacancy is the writing superstar’s newest work of fiction, and is apparently a standalone work rather than the start of a new series. The literary world is buzzing with rumors about the book and how it might stack up against Rowling’s previous work. I can’t wait, though I find it hard to knowingly invite comparisons between what quickly became one of the best-selling (and most frequently challenged) books of all time and something that would seem to be in a completely different genre. I’m doing my very best to avoid any spoilers, because I want to take on The Casual Vacancy with as open an outlook as possible.

People are complaining that it’s too simple, too 70s, too garish. I like it.

To add to the excitement (at least for me), the book is releasing days before the start of Banned Books Week 2012. Considering the fuss that Rowling’s earlier works caused in the community of morons who decide that they have to determine what other people read, I can’t wait to see the reactions to this new novel. To sum up, I’m thrilled for next week, even though I’m probably going to have to wait for a library copy to arrive (it’s on hold for me). A fan on goodreads said it best, and so I’ll paraphrase. The topic of the book makes no difference. Rowling’s words are always magical.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Arr! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, the best holiday to ever emerge in the modern age. Spend the day talking like a pirate, or dress like one like me. Better yet, if ye be of age, drink like one. Read some good pirate books, too.

Pirate Latitudes, by Michael Crichton

On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini