A Crazy Night at the Movies

So last night I took the 14 year old boy to the movies, and we made it a double feature with a theme. The Crazies and Crazy Heart were both playing at the Cinemark Legacy, which is the movie theater we visit when we go to the movies. We saw both of them, Crazy Heart first, followed by The Crazies.

Crazy Heart was a fine film, more because of Jeff Bridge's acting than any other innate goodness in the movie. He plays Bad Blake, a country western singer who's seen his better days. Think Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings. The plot is essentially boy-meets-girl, although it also involves boy-drinks-too-much-but-gets-his-career-back-somehow-eventually-anyway.

The film boasts some beautiful cinematography, great acting, and competent writing. The soundtrack was excellent. Unfortunately, the pacing is pretty slow, and the plot is predictable. Before I saw the movie, I was surprised that it hadn't been nominated for Best Picture, but now that I've seen it, I understand why: Crazy Heart is a very good film, but it's not a great film. (On the other hand, that didn't prevent The Hurt Locker, another good-but-not-great film, from getting nominated.)

If you're looking for a movie about country music singers, Tender Mercies, with which Crazy Heart has drawn some perhaps-inevitable comparisons, is a far superior film, one of the only films I've ever seen which seemed perfect in every way.

The Crazies is a remake of a 1973 George Romero film about a town that's quarantined by the military because of a disease that makes the people there act crazy. I haven't seen the original, but this remake is pretty good stuff.

Timothy Olyphant is always entertaining, although he's a little too earnest in this film. His performance reminded me of his Deadwood performance, where he was again very earnest. I prefer my Timothy Olyphant a little edgier, like he was in The Girl Next Door, Die Hard with a Vengeance, or A Perfect Getaway.

Ebert had it right when he said that The Crazies was a so-so zombie movie for people who want to watch a so-so zombie movie.

What I've Been Up To Lately

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy doing stuff. What kind of stuff? All kinds of stuff. For example, I've written and published a couple of new microsites, which are one or two page websites which provide a laser-focused answer to a single question. These new microsites include:

• Country Music Love Songs - This site takes a look at some of the best country love songs from the past 50 or 60 years, and it's organized by decade. Some of the songs are included because they're favorites of mine; others are included because they're notable. It was a fun page to put together.
• Fight Club Quotes - I thought the movie and the book Fight Club were terribly quotable, almost to a fault, so I thought it would be fun to collect some of the better quotes in one place.
• Funny Life Quotes - Obviously I enjoy quotes and quotations, so putting this page together was a lot of fun too.

I've also spent some time posting at Twitter under my new account related to my bookstore: @horrorbooks. Feel free to drop by there and befriend me if you like; I'll definitely follow you back. (Unless you have a super-lame Twitter profile page. I tend to not follow Twitterers who don't include any detailed info on their profile page.)

I also want to give a quick shout out to a couple of new horror authors that I've become acquainted with lately:

• Brian Keene - I just finished his novel The Rising, which I thought was entertaining as hell. I'm looking forward to digging into the sequel, City of the Dead, starting today.
• Ray Garton - I've become acquainted with him at Twitter, and I can't wait to start reading some of his fiction. I think I'll probably read Live Girls first, since I think vampires and strippers make such a great combination.
• John Everson - Another horror writer I haven't read yet but plan to start on this week. Since I own a horror books store, it's kinda pitiful that I haven't read any of Everson's books yet. I'm getting through a novel every day or two right now though, so that problem should be rectified shortly.

I saw Paranormal Activity. Yes, it's as good as everyone is saying it is. Even my son Drew was impressed with how scary it was. It's nice to know that Katie Featherston (who, IMO, is one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the big screen) is from right here in the DFW area too. She went to SMU. If she's reading this, I hope she'll consider doing an appearance some weekend at my store.

Curse of the Were-Woman Review

One of the books that I read about recently in the Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine's book reviews section is a graphic novel titled Curse of the Were-Woman. Here's my review.

Curse of the Were-Woman is an original graphic novel from writer Jason M. Burns and artist Christopher Provencher. It's a classic "high-concept" story, the kind of thing you'd see in a movie. Christopher Dalton is a womanizer and power-hungry ad exec who has constant one-night stands. Some kind of Wiccan that he beds one night gets her feelings hurt and curses him to turn into a woman every time the sun comes down. He'll remain a "were-woman" until he becomes less of a chauvinist.

I could see Curse of the Were-Woman playing out as a movie with a traditional leading man type (Vince Vaughn maybe) with someone like Jack Black as his best friend. And I think it would make for a successful and probably funny film. I left the graphic novel with the feeling that the writer really enjoys Ben Stiller and Judd Apatow movies.

Unfortunately, the kind of formulaic storytelling didn't work well in the graphic novel format. My expectations from a graphic novel are different than my expectations of a movie. I come to a graphic novel looking for surprises. Curse of the Were-Woman offers no surprises to anyone who's seen as many Hollywood movies as most people have.

The other problem I had with Curse of the Were-Woman is that the core assumption is that a man who likes having sex with a variety of women somehow has a lesson to learn. That's a pretty old-fashioned attitude. The main character didn't seem to be a total chauvinist ass to me; he just seemed like a guy who enjoys sex with multiple women. That's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's a pretty common thing.

But the artwork was excellent, and the writing was workmanlike if not inspired. I'd not hesitate to recommend this to someone as pure entertainment. At least Curse of the Were-Woman is trying to do something other than be a dark parody of the superhero genre, which is an overwhelming trend in the graphic novel/comic book field today.

There's a great interview and plot synopsis of Curse of the Were-Woman available on the Comic-Con message board here:

• Curse of the Were-Woman Review, Discussion, & Interview
  

Fantasy and Science Fiction December 2008

I'm on a bit of a reading binge this weekend, and I'm catching up on my Fantasy and Science Fiction back issues. I want to start blogging about some of the stories I read there because that way I can look back at some of my notes here and remember some of what I've read. These are my notes/review for Fantasy and Science Fiction December 2008:

"A Foreign Country" by Wayne Wightman

"A Foreign Country" by Wayne Wightman is probably my 2nd favorite story from this issue. It's about a self-described not-too-bright reporter who covers a third-party candidate for President who miraculously wins the election. His solutions to the country's problems are unorthodox in a fantastic way, and the characterization of both the main character is handled deftly. "A Foreign Country" is a short story worth re-reading.

"Leave" by Robert Reed

I'm sure that I'm not alone in my admiration of Robert Reed's short fiction. Every story I read in F&SF by Reed is excellent, and "Leave" is no exception. It's about a young man at some point in the near future who has decided to leave Earth to fight in an alien war for 30 years. Or, more accurately, it's about the people he leaves behind and how they cope with his decision. Top notch stuff.

"A Skeptical Spirit" by Albert E. Cowdrey

"A Skeptical Spirit" by Albert E. Cowdrey is a twist on the traditional ghost story. It's a cute enough story, but it's mostly just a fluff piece. I thought it was one of the weaker stories in this issue.

"How the Day Runs Down" by John Langan

"How the Day Runs Down" by John Langan was my favorite story of the issue. It's a post-apocalyptic zombie story told as a one-act play of sorts, and the stage manager is more than just a stage manager. It's a haunting, lyrical tale with a final sentence that was thought-provoking. This is a story that will stick with you.

This story was also featured in an anthology called The Living Dead, and you can read an excerpt from it here: "How the Day Runs Down" by John Langan - Excerpt.

"Falling Angel" by Eugene Mirabelli

"Falling Angel" by Eugene Mirabelli is what I understand to be an excerpt from a longer work, and it doesn't make much sense as a short story. I'm not a reader who needs EVERYTHING made clear to me, but I do like for SOME things to be clear. So much is untold in this story that it's hard to care about anything that happens. And honestly, other than an angel falling from the sky and having sex with the guy who finds her, not much does happen. I enjoyed the eroticism of the story, but I wished it had more of a plot. ("Falling Angel" intrigued me enough that I'll probably look for some of Mirabelli's novels though.)

"The Alarming Letters from Scottsdale" by Warner Law

"The Alarming Letters from Scottsdale, like "A Skeptical Spirit", is a trifle of a story. I won't spoil any of the plot here, but it reminded me of some of the older pulp fiction I've read. Had it not been for the fantasy element, it would have been a good fit for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or for Alfred Hitchock's Mystery Magazine. The story is a reprint from the early 1970's.

I'll refrain from reviewing the nonfiction columns like Gordon Van Gedder's editorial or Lucius Shepard's film reviews. Suffice it to say that the nonfiction content of every issue of F&SF that I've read have been exceptional and well worth reading.

Mary, Me, and a Cupcake

What more need be said about this photo?

What I've been working on lately

I haven't been posting very often here, and for that I'm sorry. I thought today I might make a quick update to let everyone know what I've been doing lately.

The family and I just bought a new home in Lucas about 3 weeks ago. We like it there so far, and the kids are happy that they all have their own rooms.

The bookstore is going well. I've launched a new blog there at the site: Horror Books Blog. Along those same lines, I also bought a horror forum. I'm particularly interested in the horror movies section there.

I also bought a site called Ask Deb a while back, and I'm doing some blogging there. Ask Deb Blog. It's a really cool site with a lot of "channels". The site focused largely on love advice originally, but we've expanded the topics to include personal finance advice and travel tips.

Anyway, that's enough about the web stuff. I've also been reading more books lately. I particularly enjoyed the new novel from Wally Lamb, called The Hour I First Believed. This was honestly one of the best novels I've ever read, in fact. I recommend it.

I started reading Duma Key last night. It's a Stephen King novel about a guy who's in a wreck, loses an arm, and becomes an artist. So far it's really good, and really different from King's other books.

Leave some notes in the comments about what you've been doing.

A Reading Plan for 2009

I've been thinking a lot about "reading plans" lately. I've been browsing through The Joy of Reading by Mark van Doren and realized that the end of my life is actually in sight. (It's not close, but it's not so distant as to be unthinkable anymore. I'm not depressed about this either, so don't worry about me.) And in my lifetime, I'm only going to be able to read a finite number of books.

I don't have any means of knowing how many books I have left in me to read, but it does occur to me that there are some great books I want to experience before I die, and I should start doing some planning in order to actually get some of them read.

If I live to be 80 years old, and I read 52 books a year (one a week), then I've got about 2000 books left in me.

I guess if I wanted to create a lifetime reading plan, I'd make a list of 2000 books and get started on them. But at the same time, that would eliminate the possibility of reading any books that are written between now and 2050. I guess that a better approach would be to prioritize my reading by which books I think are most important that I read and start there.

And most lifetime reading plans I've seen only include a couple hundred books anyway, so I've got a pretty good degree of flexibility.

At any rate, here's what I'm planning to read in January of 2009, and only one of them is really what you'd think of as a traditional lifetime reading selection:

• The Killer Inside Me (book club selection for my book club)
• House of Leaves (another book club selection)
• A Game Of Thrones
• The Trial by Kafka, which is the classic piece of my selection

Talk about what you're going to be reading in 2009 or in January in the comments, if you like.

Quick updates

This is just a quick post about what I've been up to lately.

As I posted previously, I've opened a horror book store. That's going well. I'm enjoying it, and the locals are starting to realize that we're open for business. The book club meets the first Thursday of every month, with the exception of January, and the last two meetings have been a lot of fun.

I've also been doing some blogging about poker affiliate marketing at the PAP blog. That's been a lot of fun. I'm also the admin of the poker affiliate forums at PAP too, and I'm the host of Poker Affiliate Radio now.

I'm reading Up in the Air by Walter Kirn right now, and I'm liking it pretty well so far. I'm trying to increase the amount of actual reading that I'm doing lately. Oh, and I also just finished reading Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. Great stuff, that - I liked that almost as well as I liked Lullaby.

The wife and I have caught up on this season of Californication by watching the show on OnDemand. I love the Lew Ashby character and his obvious parallels to Jay Gatsby.

My daughters keep getting bigger and more delightful, while my boy gets even bigger too and surlier.

We're enjoying the holidays.

PS - I promised a buddy of mine that I would mention his latest article about warm winter drinks here. I'm a particular fan of egg nog this time of year, personally. His main site (the article is featured on his blog) is about buying bar stools. Very cool stuff.