I just got some very nice news — Samantha Rose over at Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine just told me that my poem, “December,” will be featured in the next issue. “December” was first published by Dagda in 2013.
It’s always an honor to be included within a terrific creative community like Peeking Cat. Thanks, Sam!
When I was a little boy, “Highlights” was the only thing even remotely fun about going to the doctor’s office. And because that was the only place I ever saw it, I thought that it was a special magazine that you could only get to see at the doctor.
First, a clarification — there appear to be maybe a half dozen films or shorts entitled some variation of “Afflicted;” I am referring here to the outstanding 2014 found-footage vampire film.
Second, some advice — if you skip this because of an aversion to found-footage horror movies, you’re cheating yourself. This was fantastic. I’d give it a 9 out of 10.
It’s a creative tour-de-force for young filmmakers Clif Prowse and Derek Lee, who not only wrote and directed the movie, but also starred (quite capably) as its two leads.
It begins well, but not with brilliance. It’s too reminiscent, at first, of a similar recent found-footage film in which affable young men develop superpowers with frightening consequences — 2012’s wonderful “Chronicle.” Also, certain plot points are predictable. (Gasp! Derek is suddenly burned by sunlight!)
Then we get an unexpected plot turn, and the film gets much, much better. I won’t say much for fear of spoilers, but this is a fresh, entirely fun take on the vampire genre, with some special effects and action sequences that are pretty impressive for a low budget film.
And do watch through the entire credits. There is both a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene that are absolutely worth it. The latter casts the story in a completely new light.
Check this out, horror fans. You won’t be disappointed.
So anyone close to me who’s asked me why I became a writer (and a horror fan) knows that one of the reasons is my awesome childhood memories — telling ghost stories under the front porch at the house of Jason and Adam Huhn, across the street in rural New York, along with my next-door neighbor Shawn Degnan. Those were some damn fun summer nights … and ghost stories were a perfect way to end a long day of exploring the woods, trading baseball cards or playing basketball in the hoop that Mr. Huhn put up for all the kids on the street. I used to beg my Mom to let me stay out longer.
Jason, Adam and Shawn and were my closest boyhood friends. Our quartet could easily be the 80’s equivalent of the kids in “Stand By Me.” Or, maybe better yet, we were adventurous enough to be “twinners” for a certain Ka-Tet in Mid-World: Roland Deschain, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns and Jamie De Curry. (Seeing how I was an obnoxious chatterbox a preteen, I’m pretty sure I would be Cuthbert.)
Well, tonight Adam found me via this blog, and wrote to say hello! (I’d tried previously to find the guys via social media, but to no avail.) Adam even asked if I remembered telling ghost stories under the porch!
This Internet thingy can be a good thing, I tell ya!
How’s this for a pop-culture artifact? It was shared recently on Facebook by my friend Conrad.
This is a screenshot from 1977’s “CHiPs,” that weekly, family-friendly, primetime police dramedy in which a pair of affable California Highway Patrolmen would never even draw their sidearms over the course of an hour-long episode.
And, yes, the period marquee in the background is indeed advertising the original “Star Wars.”
Even at the age of five or six, CHiPs was too goofy for me — despite the fact that Shawn Degnan, my best friend next door, frequently recommended it. Shawn and I did agree on the show’s contemporary, however — “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (1979-1981).
Why on earth did MacDonald’s discontinue the McDLT? Sure, it had a stupid gimmick. And it seemed to have so much lettuce and tomato that I used to think of it as “the saladburger.”
But it was good. Hey, it takes a lot to get a guy like me to order anything resembling a salad.
I have no idea why the commercial below features George Costanza singing and dancing like he’s in a Michael Jackson video. The 80’s were a weird time.
I’m honored to report that two more of my poems were published today by Dead Snakes. They are “A Muted Iris” and “Amanda II: A Haiku.” You can find them here:
http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2016/05/eric-robert-nolan-two-poems_8.html
“A Muted Iris” was first published by Dagda Publishing in October 2014; the haiku was most recently published last year by Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine. (It follows “Amanda,” which was featured by both Dead Snakes and Peeking Cat.)
Thanks once again to Editor Stephen Jarrell Williams at Dead Snakes!
Photo credit: By Kylir Horton from Eagle Mountain, Utah, United States (Backbone) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons.
“Captain America: Civil War” (2016) is nearly everything I hoped it would be; it’s easily on par, if not better, than the first two “Avengers” movies. (And I can’t help but think of this as the third “Avengers.” Yes, Cap’s name is in the title, but this is necessarily an ensemble story about the divided superteam.) I’d give it a 9 out of 10.
I honestly just need to be very vague in this review … this is such an eagerly awaited film, and I want to be extra cautious about spoilers. No, there are no twists in the movie, but there are surprising character and plot elements.
The movie surprised me in a couple of ways. One, this film appears to follow the original 2006 comic book crossover only very loosely. (I have not read it, but I know the story.) There is no “Superhero Registration Act” that would directly affect countless people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s much narrower than that — a demand by the United Nations for direct oversight of The Avengers.
Two, this is definitely the darkest and most adult outing with The Avengers so far. Don’t get me wrong — the levity and gee-whiz comic book fun that is the MCU’s trademark is still there, and it’s no Christopher Nolan movie. But the movie’s central story device is set in motion by the question of who should be held accountable for civilian deaths. And so many individual major characters are motivated by grief or rage.
This is notable throughout the film, for example, in the characterization of Tony Stark, and his portrayal by Robert Downey, Jr. He’s no longer a wisecracking billionaire playboy who all the guys want to be. Instead, he’s a troubled, pensive leader who often seems out of his depth. We watch as his team and the events surrounding him spin out of control, and we no longer want to trade places with him. He’s more sympathetic. But he simultaneously fails to engender the viewer loyalty that he so quickly and easily won in every other Marvel movie he’s appeared in.
And yet … he isn’t, as I had suspected, a cardboard adversary for Captain America’s underdog to stand up to. There are some sad things going on in his life, both during the events of this movie and in “Iron Man 3” (2013), and his failings and poor decisions are perfectly understandable. (I won’t say more, besides that viewers will definitely get a different spin on “Iron Man 3” after this movie.) And Downey displays a great range in playing this far sadder Tony.
One character in the movie even makes a quip about “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), and it feels like a meta reference, as that film is regarded as the darkest in the “Star Wars” original trilogy. (And their are story structure similarities as well.)
But don’t get me wrong — “Captain America: Civil War” still brings loads of fun. It’s an effects-laden, geeky, hero-against-hero, superteam gangfight that is straight out of every Marvel fan’s dreams. (And, needless to say, it’s far better than its analog this year from DC.) Tom Holland might be the best Spider-Man yet. The action is damn pleasing, and the one-liners made me laugh out loud. (“Made ya look.”)
The bromances (including the broken ones) seemed real to me. I found myself liking and caring about … Winter Soldier, of all people, and I kept hoping things worked out with his friendship with Cap. (Sebastian Stan impressed me in the role for the first time.)
What didn’t I like? Well, I had some small criticisms. I submit that Black Panther was a complete misfire. The character concept is boring (he’s an African Bruce Wayne), he seems like an ethnic caricature, and he absolutely is shoehorned into the plot. When his tough female subordinate physically threatens Black Widow, he smugly opines that a fight between them “would be amusing.” It felt creepy and sexualized, and maybe like something out of a 1970’s blaxploitation film. He’s also pretty blandly played by Chadwick Boseman.
Spiderman, too, seems shoehorned in as fan service. I loved seeing him in the movie, but i wish he’d been written in differently. (Would Stark really recruit a highschooler to combat seasoned soldiers, one of whom is a superpowered psychotic assassin?)
Next is a criticism that is just a matter of personal taste. I myself would have preferred a movie that was even darker. Just think for a minute about the basic story. We have civilian casualties driving the world’s governments to seek control over its superheroes — then the heroes themselves fighting each other with what must at least be considered possibly deadly force.
That’s a story pretty much brimming over with pathos, if you ask me. But the movie underplays those plot elements considerably. We hardly see the civilian casualties that are supposed to drive the plot — and when we do, they’re glimpsed briefly in news footage. And all but three of the heroes (Tony, Black Panther and Winter Soldier) display any of the anger or sense of betrayal that you would expect from a violent “civil war” among former friends. And it is violent … members of either faction fire missiles at, or try to crush, their opponents. Does the MCU’s characteristic banter belong anywhere here?
Finally, this could have been an idea-driven movie like the latter two “Dark Knight” films. But only Cap and Iron Man seem to genuinely fight about ideology. Others fight according to personal or professional loyalty, personal revenge, or just because they are a “fan” of either Cap or Tony. And neither does the script articulate their positions especially well. Wouldn’t it be perfectly in character for Cap to quote Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin? “Those who would exchange their liberty for a little temporary safety” and all that?
Oh, well. I’m probably asking too much from a superhero movie.
This was a hell of a lot of fun. Go see it.
I’m happy today to see one of my latest poems featured over at UFO Gigolo. If you’d like to peruse “Blue Wolves Move In An Indigo Wood” and you didn’t see it yesterday at Dead Snakes, you can read it here:
http://ufogigolo.blogspot.com/2016/05/eric-robert-nolan-poem.html
Again — UFO Gigolo is a terrific site. Its emphasis is poetry in the genres of horror, fantasy and science fiction, and it does accept reprints.
Check it out.
No, I’m not talking about the Marvel Comics adaptation of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981); I’ve written about that separately here at the blog. This was a regular ongoing comic book title between January 1983 and March 1986.
And every issue of it was a mind-boggling pleasure for a fourth grader whose favorite hero was Indiana Jones. I remember issues one and two waiting for me after school one day, displayed upright on the kitchen table. My Dad had picked them up for me. (He was constantly trying to help me with a problem that had plagued my childhood — I simply never owned enough comic books.) These were a departure from the “Sgt. Rock” comics that my father usually bought for me, but damn if they weren’t a thousand times better. I was stunned by the very concept of them. “Raiders” was a … COMIC BOOK now!?
Of course the plots were derivative of the film. Ninety percent of the places Indy went, an ancient artifact or temple held a terrifying secret, often unleashing a power that could control or destroy the world. And only Indy’s superior knowledge of archeology — or just his sheer pluck — would allow him to employ it to vanquish the bad guys. [Spoiler warning for “Raiders,” by the way.] The writing was damn good, as far as I can remember. And we got to see Marion, Sallah, Marcus Brody and even Captain Katanga again.
You see that cover where Indy is on the wing of a plane? That bad guy just might be one of the Hovitos … I can’t remember well enough to be sure. At one point this adversary steals Indy’s whip and tries to use it against him. (It doesn’t turn out well for him.) In fact …I think it was the scene you see on the cover. I’m not sure why the artist depicted a grappling hook instead. I remember the villain’s line being, “It would be fitting for such a man to die by the sting of his own weapon.” I have no idea why I remember that dialogue after 35 years (and little else about the issue). The mind is a funny thing.
All of the covers were damn cool. I happen to love that final one you see at the bottom. That was Indy’s adventure at Stonehenge. But the first two covers you see are the ones that I would eventually like to get framed, someday after fame brings me opulence — those were the ones waiting for me on the kitchen table that day in 1981.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 