All posts by Eric Robert Nolan

Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress. Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations. Eric’s poetry has been featured by Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.

I taught Benedict Cumberbatch everything he knows.

Well … maybe not, as I am not even certain he’d been born yet when I was in college.  But I did a fine job of channeling Christopher Plummer.  I was into Sherlock Holmes about 20 years before it was cool.

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I believe all that coolness rubbed off from a double-dose of Nate.  Pictured here are Nate “The Amazing Nate” Leslie and Nate “The Great Nate” Wade.  Nate L. is now a critically acclaimed author and a professor at Northern Virginia Community College.  Nate W. is now a public defender in Pima County, Arizona.

In place of hair, I wore a Tribble from the original “Star Trek” series, as was popular at the time.

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No one can forget the time when Carroll O’Connor (aka Archie Bunker) stopped by to prepare barbecue for us …

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Finally, no Mary Washington College post would be complete without a shot of the legendary Len Ornstein (far left).

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Or the mythic James A. Cordone.

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Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory”

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My review of “The Strangers” (2008)

“The Strangers” (2008) is yet more evidence that horror movies can be formulaic, yet effective. This is a very scary movie to which I’d give an 8 out of 10.

It’s strictly by the numbers. Masked psychotics wielding axes and knives terrorize an innocent couple in an isolated location. There are severed phone lines, bad guys appearing out of nowhere behind our protagonists, and even gratuitous underwear shots. There’s even a scene in which one character hides in a closet and stares out between the slots of one of those blinds-type doors. Then the predictable happens. Where have we seen all this before? Everywhere.

Yet it’s still a frightening movie – thanks to some slick directing and camera work. It works. If you want a scary movie, this delivers. There’s also some cool cinematography – especially with the use of color in rendering the immense forest around the story’s isolated cabin location. Decent fright-flick!

There were three criticisms I had of this movie:

1) When a deep-voiced male narrator assures us seriously in a prologue that this story “is based on true events,” this is a cliché. It was pretty cheesy when it was done in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” way back in 1974. It also insults our intelligence; we know that claims like these are rarely true.

2) I occasionally dislike female characters who become weak and panicky when imperiled. Once you fall in love with Ellen Ripley or Sarah Conner, the portrayal of weepy scream-queens seems vaguely sexist, and these characters are harder to care for and root for. And I have female friends (including a few NRA members) who, although afraid, would probably @#$% a brother up if attacked like this.

3) I had the same concern about this movie that I had with “The Devil’s Rejects” and “Wolf Creek” (2005), and it’s a little hard to explain … Yes, I really like horror movies. And some of my favorites contain a lot of explicit violence. But there’s a very fine line between a decent horror story and a faux snuff film. If we are presented with very little story, and are merely shown innocents being attacked with little hope of recourse … I dunno. It feels gratuitous. I’m no Puritan when it comes to violent content. But if that’s ALL there is, I feel guilty in a way. (Am I a psycho or voyeur for viewing this?) I feel … “healthier” if I am watching a movie that contains violence, but allows the good guys at least a CHANCE to fight back and maybe even prevail. (Think “Aliens” (1986) or “28 Days Later” (2002).)

All in all, though, this was a good movie.

 

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From a secret snowy sylvania discovered by a friend …

Winter. It’s hell on your commute, but heaven on your eyes.

I love the creek. These shots make me think of Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.”

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Lamenting “Star Trek: Nemesis” (2002)

I’ve been blogging my past movie reviews from Facebook — this was my own humble pan of “Star Trek: Nemesis” (2002).

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It’s easy to understand why “Star Trek: Nemesis” (2002) was the lowest grossing Star Trek film of all time. I didn’t hate it quite as much as everybody else (I’d give it a 4 out of 10), but it was a pretty big misfire.

The movie was, frankly, boring for most of its first hour. At one point the film’s villains scold its antagonist, “You promised us action – and yet you delay!!” Yeah, that’s pretty much how the viewers felt. This movie has no sense of pacing at all. There’s an admittedly neat horror flourish early on, then an action sequence cheesy enough to have been lifted from “The A-Team.” Then a good portion of the film seems to revolve around … planning …and conversations. Did the filmmakers think they were writing Shakespeare?

This is also a cobbled together pastiche of plot elements we’ve seen many times before. We have a charismatic leader uniting two groups of bad guys. He’s got an astonishing secret and a link to Jean-Luc Picard. He’s got a new secret weapon and is heading to earth to destroy it. There’s another model/clone/whatever of Data. Telepath Donna Troi is mind-raped by a creepy alien (which just might be a plot device in poor taste). Only some inspired ship maneuvers and a surprise stratagem by Data manage to save the day. If this sounds familiar, you may have seen Star Trek movies or the TV show before.

Even the special effects were average. Did this movie really come out the same weekend as “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones?”

Then there are the nitpicks connected with the entire franchise. Why do seatbelts not exist in Star Trek’s universe? If any matter at all can be created out of nothing via “replicators,” why do mining colonies exist? Why are all the aliens humanoid, but with funny foreheads? WHY IS EVERY CREW MEMBER PERFECT IN EVERY WAY? Is the future inhabited solely by cheerful, hardworking honor students who are always home by curfew? Please watch Ron Moore’s “Battlestar Galactica,” people. There are reasons why Starbuck is a compelling character, and Donna Troi is not.

And even a casual viewer of the TV show could spot the … complete lack of continuity. This film really does contradict the “All Good Things” climax for the show (though, admittedly, the show’s writers really did paint future stories into a corner with that far-future epilogue). If imdb.com is correct, director Stuart Baird had no familiarity with show, and even thought that Geordi LaForge was an alien. Wow.

All of this is a little sad, because there are a few elements of a great movie here. Tom Hardy (Space Bane?) was damn fantastic as the story’s villain. I had no idea he was this good of an actor. The guy is intense, convincing and scary, and I love the way he delivers his lines. What a shame his face and mouth were obscured in “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012). The guy is incredible.

Patrick Stewart is also fantastic, as usual. He does just fine in the “X-Men” films, but he seems like a one-note character there, because he’s almost always serene and in control. Even the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” TV show gave him a better range to show. He’s great when he shows remorse, concern and apprehension. You can tell the guy’s done Shakespeare.

Finally, the movie’s climactic ship-on-ship battle was quite good.

This movie also had some damned interesting themes stemming from Hardy’s bad guy, who is a younger, angrier clone (literally) of Picard. (Maybe that’s a spoiler, but it’s okay – you really don’t need to see this film anyway.) The script presents this well – it actually isn’t as stupid as it sounds. Any sci-fi movie in which Hardy and Stewart comment on the duality of man, or nature vs. nurture, ought to be an automatic classic. And this movie did just fine when it let the two actors explore that.

Oh well. They can’t all be gold, right? It’s just a little sad that the cast of a decent TV show (and a couple of decent movies) had to embark on this as their final voyage.

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Lecter’s next adversary?

This is my big brother — actor and screenwriter Russell Morgan.  Look at that iconic face and that steady stare.

TELL ME THIS GUY DOESN’T DESERVE A GUEST-STARRING ROLE ON NBC’S “HANNIBAL.”

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Zombies, time travel, small towns and scary sewers — check in with me at The WIP Blog Tour!

Hello, all!

I’m honored to be able to report tonight that I’ve been accorded a rather nice honor by my fellow novelist and poet, A.K. Hinchey – nomination for The WIP (Work In Progress) Blog Tour. Ms. Hinchey is a lovely voice and a friend from across the pond, hailing from Lancaster, Britain, where she is a prolific young writer and also the busy mother of a new baby girl. Her publications include short fiction in Dagda Publishing’s “All Hail The New Flesh,” as well as Dagda’s 2013 poetry collection, “Threads.” She has completed her first novel, “Incarnate,” and is hard at work on its sequel, “Bound.” She is also a terrific supporter of the independent publishing community, with in-depth reviews that introduce readers to new voices. To get a little better acquainted, check out Ms. Hinchey’s writing blog, “The Torn Page,” right here:

https://akhinchey.wordpress.com/

The WIP Blog Tour lets readers and writers catch up with one another. When nominated, indie authors can update the community about what they are working on, and share excerpts to whet their appetites. Authors are then asked to nominate a few of their peers. Read about it here:

WIP Blog Tour – Bound, Incarnate, Teasers and More

I’m happy to say that I am still hard at work on my prose. While Dagda Publishing and Dead Snakes have been kind enough to share more of my poetry, my major works in progress include two books. The first, of course, is the sequel to my post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More,” published by Dagda. While “Dogs” was primarily a character study of Rebecca O’Conner and her role in the global war between humanity and super-intelligent wolves, I hope that this new book will change the series’ pace and tone, with more action and horror to turn this into a frightening war epic.

Another project that I am quite excited about is a collection of short fiction. I began this project after being encouraged by colleagues in the community, and let me tell you, it’s great fun. “Dogs” and its sequel gave me an opportunity to take a single fictional universe and explore it in depth. But working on short stories gives me plenty of new sandboxes in which to play.

What’s ahead? Well, some of the stories will be traditional horror tales, while others will be darker mainstream fiction. We’ll take a look at what happens when time travel goes disastrously wrong, and consigns one woman to a truly unique hell. We’ll join a pedophile and child pornographer on his thirsty hunt through New York’s Penn Station – then watch as his plans go delightfully, horribly awry. We’ll tremble alongside two members of the New York City Department of Pest Management, as they discover unexpected threats in the labyrinthine subways. We’ll visit an ostensibly idyllic Virginia town, where a supernatural danger segues sadly into a horror that is all too common in the real world. And, for good, old-fashioned, gorehound fun, we’ll take a detailed, blow-by-blow look at what happens when spirited average Joes defend a supermarket full of customers from a ravenous zombie swarm.

And more. If you’ve enjoyed my writing before or want to take your first journey with me, rest assured, I do hope to please you.

Well, The WIP Blog Tour invites participants to share three lines of their work in progress. I thought I’d share the first three lines from the above-mentioned time travel story. Its title is “Today, Tomorrow, the Next Day and Forever” (c) 2015 Eric Robert Nolan.

(And, what the heck, I’ll make it four lines.)

I am going insane. I have watched my husband burn to death at least 500 times.

It always begins the same. It begins with beauty.

(c)  2015 Eric Robert Nolan

I’d like to thank AK Hinchey for nominating me for The WIP Blog Tour! I’m always grateful for her attention, and this was a lot of fun! In the meantime, be sure to check in here for my own nominations for the tour. 🙂

Goodbye, Spock.

Rest In Peace, Leonard Nimoy.

Thank you for the memories.

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‘Illusions,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

‘Illusions,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flow, flow the waves hated,
Accursed, adored,
The waves of mutation:
No anchorage is.
Sleep is not, death is not;
Who seem to die live.
House you were born in,
Friends of your spring–time,
Old man and young maid,
Day’s toil and its guerdon,
They are all vanishing,
Fleeing to fables,
Cannot be moored.
See the stars through them,
Through treacherous marbles.
Know, the stars yonder,
The stars everlasting,
Are fugitive also,
And emulate, vaulted,
The lambent heat–lightning,
And fire–fly’s flight.
When thou dost return
On the wave’s circulation,
Beholding the shimmer,
The wild dissipation,
And, out of endeavor
To change and to flow,
The gas become solid,
And phantoms and nothings
Return to be things,
And endless imbroglio
Is law and the world, —
Then first shalt thou know,
That in the wild turmoil,
Horsed on the Proteus,
Thou ridest to power,
And to endurance.

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“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My good friend Jaine Sirieys posted this yesterday.  It’s powerful, and I love it.

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why”

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

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