Tom Petty Knew How To Cut To The Chase

October 5, 2017 by Joe

I’ve always enjoyed Tom Petty’s music, but it’s been a few years since I gave his catalogue a thorough listening. Upon re-visiting it these past few days, it has occured to me that Tom Petty might be my favorite musician of all-time. Strange, and sad, that it never really occured to me before.

Many, many people have written much better eulogies for him than I ever could so, instead, I’m going to pull a couple lines from my favorite Petty songs, and explain what they mean to me.

American Girl: “And if she had to die tryin’ / She had one little promise she was gonna keep” – Don’t we have have that one promise?

Refugee: “It don’t make no difference to me, baby / Everybody has to fight to be free” – And sometime that fight never truly ends.

Here Comes My Girl: “But when she puts her arms around me / I can, somehow, rise above it” – We should all be so lucky to find that someone.

Even The Losers: “Baby, even the losers / Get lucky sometimes” – Even The Losers was almost the title of my first book before I changed it to Misfit Toys In Love.

The Waiting: “The waiting is the hardest part / every day get one more yard” – In this life you have to just keep pushing and you can get there; one yard at a time.

Don’t Come Around Here No More: “Stop walking down my street / Who do you expect to meet?” – An oddly menacing line in a pretty straightforward break-up song that no doubt inspired the iconic Alice In Wonderland themed music video.

Free Fallin’: “I’m gonna free fall out into nothing / Gonna leave this world for a while” – Which was always made easier to do while listening to a Tom Petty song.

I Won’t Back Down: “You could stand me up at the gates of Hell / But I won’t back down” – Don’t let this world push you around. After all, you know what’s right and you got just one life.

Runnin’ Down A Dream: “It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down / I had the radio on, I was drivin'” – Anyone who’s ever cruised down the highway on a spring day at 80 MPH can relate to this one.

Learning To Fly: “Some say life will beat you down / Break your heart and steal your crown / So I started out for God knows where / Guess I’ll know when I get there” – This song really started resonating with me when I left the ‘burbs to attend college in NYC.

Into The Great Wide Open: “Into the great wide open / Under them skies of blue / Out in the great wide open / A rebel without a clue” – Everyone who is, or ever was, a teenager can nod along to this bit.

Mary Jane’s Last Dance: “Oh, my my / Oh, hell yes / Honey, put on that party dress / Buy me a drink, sing me a song / Take me as I come, cuz I can’t stay long” – We all need to cut loose every now and then.

Wildflowers: “You belong among the wildflowers / You belong somewhere close to me” – Take you significant other on a vacation somwhere nice, and then get back to me on this one.

You Don’t Know How It Feels: “I woke up in-between a memory and a dream” – This happens to me every time I wake up in the middle of the night when I’m spending the night in a hotel room.

Walls (Circus): “Half of me is ocean / Half of me is sky” – This underrated gem reminds you that everyone is more than one thing, but they are also at one with every other living thing on the planet.

Angel Dream (No.2): “I followed an angel down through the gates / I can only thank God it was not too late” – This lovely tune hit me most when I met my wife, and then once again when my son was born.

The best concert I ever went to was a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers show back when I was 19 or 20 years old. Every song sounded just as good as it did on the album, with just enough extra jamming to make it absolutely worth the price of admission.

RIP to the man, but his music will live on through CD’s and playlists until we all join him in the great wide open.

The Killers Were The Soundtrack Of My 20’s

September 26, 2017 by Joe

The Killers have a new album out titled “Wonderful Wonderful”, and it’s pretty good.

The title track has a nice riff that sounds a lot like Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain”. “The Man” has an okay rock-funk rhythm to it. While
“Rut” and “Life To Come” both have an inspiring sentimentality. All-in-all, I reccommned giving it a listen and maybe adding a few tracks to your Spotify or Amazon Music playlist.

But this article isn’t really about The Killers’ new album. It’s not even really about their old albums. It’s about the way I experienced those albums.

I was 25 years old in 2004.

I’d gone to college in NYC from 1997-2001, moved home for about a year-and-a-half to save money, and then moved back to the city (well, Astoria, but that’s basically just the upper-upper east side) in 2003.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but I probably did most of my growing up in college and shortly thereafter. I was a bit of a late bloomer and a hardcore non-comformist in high school, who refused to even try listening to some bands that were pretty widely accepted as good.

For example, I spent the first 18 years of my life in New Jersey, but I only had a passing knowledge of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. I thought Tom Petty & The Hearbreakers were pretty decent, but never really owned one of their albums. And I gave the stiff-arm to Billy Joel and The Dave Mathews Band since all the “Cool kids” were into them. I could say similar things about 90’s Alt-Rock acts like the Gin Blossoms and Counting Crows.

Needless to say, I got super into all those bands when I got to college. It even took me that long to discover that The Cure had a lot more good songs than the two they always played on the radio at the time. There were, of course, new acts that caught me attention at this time. Emo-Rock acts like Jimmy Eat World and Pete Yorn hit me right in the soft spot. They never received the same mainstream acclaim as The White Strips or The Strokes, since Garage Rock had made a massive comeback, but I related to them more.

It was out of this feedback-driven soundscape that The Killer arrived with their debut album “Hot Fuss” – the sort of glossed up rock-pop act that sounded as if Springsteen and the Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen had a love child. With my newly-discovered affection for the E-Streeters, and my long-time apppreciation for Van Hagar (a stance I will defend with the David Lee Roth acolytes all day) “Hot Fuss” hit a bullseye in my groove center.

Nearly every song found its way into my personal rotation. Sure, the hit singles “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside” were there. But so was the two-part interrogation/confessional track “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine” and “Midnight Show”. “Smile Like You Mean It” and “Change Your Mind” both offered sardoncally good advise for a tweny-something making his way through the concrete jungle. And anytime any of these songs got queued up at 2 AM in the pub (we didn’t really do clubs) my friends and I would happily (and drunkenly) sing along and bounce up and down in what I suppose we considered dancing.

“Sam’s Town” was released in 2006, while radio stations and bars were still playing the hits from “Hot Fuss”. The driving lead guitar on “When You Were Young” always managed to pep me up, even if – at 27 – I wasn’t quite old enough to appreciate the lyrics. “Read My Mind” was a synth-heavy power ballad that reminded me of my own transition from suburbanite to Manhattanite. Outside of those two songs, though, there wasn’t a lot to catch my interest.

2007’s “Sawdust” and 2008’s “Day & Age” both came and went while I was otherwise occupied. Sam could be said for frontman Brandon Flowers’ first solos album “Flamingo”. “Battle Born”, from 2012, had my favorite Killers song since their first album: “Runaways”. That track went all-in on the Springsteen trimmings, and I was happy to catch up on the albums I’d missed. As much I did – and still do – blast “Runaways” in my car, it was just one song and not a whole album full of treats.

I only gave a listen to Flowers’ second solo album, “The Desired Effect”, one day when I was felling nostalgic in 2015. I’m glad I did though, because that one was loaded with the best stuff I’d heard from The Killers’ corner in a long time.

“Dreams Come True” is a morale booster. “Can’t Deny My Love” is a funk-inflected jam. “Between Me And You” hit upon some of the same stresses that I’d been struggling with for a while before I’d managed to put them to bed. And “Lonely Town” referenced the Gravitron by name, so that brought back happy memories of 12 year-old me running through the Kiwanis Carnival that came to town every September flooding back. Seriously, if you haven’t checked this one out, I suggest you queue it up immediately.

My wife and I left Astoria in 2012 and moved into a wonderful house in the burbs. Two years ago our son arrived, and he’s also wonderful. Which brings us back to the new Killers album “Wonderful Wonderful” which, again, is pretty good. If “Hot Fuss” and everything that came out after it helped soundtrack your life, then you should give the new stuff a listen. I might take a deeper dive into my musical tastes at some point, though it’s a pretty deep pool. Until then, I’ll just keep playing the hits.

Stranger, Better Things

July 23, 2016 by Joe

A lot has already been written about the new Netflix show Stranger Things, so I’m not really going to take too deep a general dive into it here. Though I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the overall strong writing, directing, musical score, set design and performances.

This show features a number of teen, and pre-teen, actors and not one of them annoyed me. In fact, I’d say each of their performances holds up nicely against some of the better actors of any age you’ll find out there. Millie Bobby Brown – who plays the enigmatically gifted Eleven – and Finn Wolfhard – playing classically geeky and goodhearted kid Mike – deserve special mention for carrying much of the burden for bringing the viewer back to that age where the world really started changing for them en route to young adulthood.

Stranger Things

On the grown-up side of things, Winona Ryder gives a very nice performance as grieving mother Joyce, who spends much of the season bordering on insanity until she’s proven right. While David Harbour – who plays Chief Hopper – imbues the character with the sort of 1970’s-1980’s era of wry but steady masculinity defined by roles like Roy Scheider as Sheriff Martin Brody, or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.

What I’m more interested in here is taking a personalized look at the influences that inspired creators/show runners The Duffer Brothers, as they are many of the same things that influenced my tastes and own creative endeavors.

But let me first take a quick moment to applaud Netflix for taking a chance on show for such a specific audience, even though it has rather surprisingly found its way to much larger audience. But it reminds you of why Netflix exists, and was so successful, in the first place: taking chances on shows like this one.

Here’s the basic plot, as told from a child of the 80’s like myself (be warned, there will be some spoilers below):

Imagine E.T. but, instead of an alien, the kids find and bond with the girl from Firestarter or Carrie. Together, they’re searching for their missing friend in a similar end-of-the-innocence quest to the one in Stand By Me (of course the kid they’re looking for in Stand By Me is already known to be dead, while the kid in Stranger Things may not be). Either way, the boy’s been taken by a monster not unlike Pennywise The Demonic Dancing Clown from Stephen King’s IT.

Honestly, there is a lot more Stephen King spin present in this show than has been explored in some other reviews. Hell, even the main titles font from the opening credits looks like the vintage cover to a Stephen King novel.

Meanwhile, the teens are dealing with a sort of A Nightmare On Elm Street situation as this same monster presents itself as something that seems to be able to defy the laws of nature and bend reality to its will. This is not far from the truth, as there is some heavy extra-dimensional action happening a la H.P. Lovecraft stories like From Beyond or Dreams In The Witch House.

Lastly, there’s the adult characters’ story arc. This one gets a bit of the short shrift, though that’s clearly by design as The Duffer Brothers know where their bread is buttered here. Still, Winona Ryder gets to lose her mind over a lost loved one like Karen Allen in John Carpenter’s uncharacteristically sensitive Starman. And the other primary adult character, David Harbour’s police chief, ends up having to deal with your classic secret government cover-up prior to he and Ryder confronting the facehuggers from Alien and the shark from Jaws.

That all may make it sound very derivative but, seriously, everything is derivative. It’s just a matter of where you derive from, and how well you adapt it to your purposes. In the case of Stranger Things, they’re pulling from some of my old favorite things and shaping them into one of my new favorite things.

Now, my enjoyment of this show is actually due to more than just it hitting my nostalgic sweet spot. Stranger Things hits the emotional punching bag pretty hard too. It took me across the spectrum from the first tugging of love on my youthful heartstrings in the Mike & Eleven relationship, all the way to spending half of the season finale choked up for reasons I would not have understood until more recent years thanks to revelatory scenes from Chief Hopper’s past. And you better believe it takes a lot to get me choked up.

I do want to make one last mention of the fantastically retro, atmospheric synth-heavy musical score comes right out of John Carpenter’s best work. This is not a surprise, as it was composed by the same people who did a similarly awesome score for The Guest. The songs they licensed and used at key points in the show are amazingly on-point as well.

Speaking of The Guest – that film, as well as films like It Follows, Super 8, and Midnight Special, are kindred spirits in tone and theme to Stranger Things even though none were actually set in the 1980’s. Regardless, I can only hope this means we’re on the cusp of a whole new cinematic movement, as long as it gives us more gems like the ones mentioned above.

Oh and, by the way, in case I didn’t make it clear you should DEFINITELY watch Stranger Things. Believe me, you can burn through those 8 episodes this weekend. In fact, you’ll have a hard time not doing so once you start.

Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose A.K.A. Vince vs The WWE Universe

March 4, 2016 by Joe

If you’ve clicked to read this blog then you already have some sort of interest in the current WWE product, and so you don’t really need an elaborate introduction into their current quagmire.

So, the short version, Vince McMahon is thrusting his choice for top guy Roman Reigns at the WWE Universe despite how hard the universe resists. Meanwhile, Dean Ambrose has gotten himself way over in a very organic fashion and is clearly the WWE Universe’s choice for the next top guy.

Here are the most pertinent factoids about Dean Ambrose: he lacks the in-ring skills of a CM Punk, a Daniel Bryan or a Seth Rollins, but he can hold his own with his take-a-beating-but-keep-on-fighting ring psychology. What he does have is Punk’s anti-authoritarian charisma and Daniel Bryan’s “never give up even when his opponent is clearly physically superior to him” attitude. He also clearly has the WWE fans’ support in a way that Roman Reigns probably never will.

Roman Reigns is fine in the ring, he sells well, and his offense looks like it it might actually do some damage to his opponent. But his mic skills are underdeveloped and he lacks any genuine natural charisma to lure in fans with his presence alone.

Another major knock on Reigns is the way he’s been booked, which is not his fault in any way. Popular opinion is that they tried to get the WWE Championship on him too soon. He has never worked the mid-card, or won a mid-card title, and his lack of true rivalries has cut off his chance to develop as a character. While some of this is true, the truth is that they’ve waited too long to make him WWE Champ.

Money In The Bank 2014 was when he should have become WWE Champion. He was coming off a fantastic Royal Rumble match, and the Shield has just wrapped a great program against Evolution. The fans were completely in Reigns’ corner and he was white hot at the time. The crowd was also ready for something new – as illustrated by Daniel Bryan’s rise to the top – and so they would have been fully behind Reigns winning that ladder match and becoming champion.

Instead, WWE decided to go back to John Cena for the umpteenth time. Sure Cena served as little more than a transitional champion to Brock Lesnar, but Lesnar never needed to be champion to have heat with the crowd. He could have run through Cena, and some other top guys en route to a collision with Reigns for the title at last year’s WrestleMania. Sure, Lesnar may have had the fans cheering him over Reigns by that point, but it was a risk worth taking.

Instead all these stops and starts with the title have only hurt Reigns’ credibility with the fans. Couple that with the fact that he keeps being given opportunity after opportunity on top of already being shoved down the WWE Universe’s throat by Vince McMahon, and now you’ve got a big problem: The WWE Universe is already ready to move on from Roman Reigns.

Ambrose faces a similar, if not worse, credibility issue at this juncture. He has been in several high profile feuds against the likes of Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt, and has lost all of them. An Intercontinental championship feud with Kevin Owens was fun, but did not elevate him like winning out in either of those other programs would have.

Still, the fans pop for him louder than for any other full-time act. But, if WWE is not careful, they might end up with Dolph Ziggler 2.0: a guy who is super over for a while until the fans realize that he’s never going to be allowed to really win the BIG one and so they lose interest in him.

People in the business like to say that wins and loses don’t matter in professional wrestling, but that’s simply not true. Wins are the currency for the fans that help them decide who to invest their energy into supporting.

Heels who get big wins are proven to be true threats to any who cross their path. On the flip side of that token, the babyfaces who then beat those dangerous heels feed into their fans’ belief that their guy really can make it all the way to the top.

When the right guy wins the right match, it’s an exuberantly cathartic experience for thousands or even millions of viewers (see: CM Punk at MITB 2012 or Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania XXX).

At WrestleMania this year Roman Reigns will beat Triple H for the WWE Championship. That’s a close to a certainty as you’ll get in professional wrestling. The problem here is that, because his Vince-mandated crowning was so long delayed, he’s already beaten every heel on the roster and even some of the top babyfaces.

Sure, there’s a Brock Lesnar match in there, but that’s about it as far as intriguing match-ups go. The best bet here, and honestly for Reigns’ future in general, is to turn him heel. It’s a more natural fit for him, it will offer fresh matches, and it might finally give him a chance to have some fun and develop more of a character.

Speaking of Brock Lesnar, the people really want to see Dean Ambrose beat Lesnar in a no holds barred street fight at WrestleMania, but don’t really think he’ll be able to. In pro wrestling, that is the exact set up you want in this situation. If Ambrose does somehow beat Lesnar, then it will be the biggest win of his career, and he will become a bona fide main event draw by becoming the first man in more than three years to pin Lesnar in the middle of the ring.

Allow me to fantasy book for a moment here. If I were running the WWE I’d have Ambrose pull the shocker of the century and beat Triple H for the WWE Championship at Roadblock on March 12th. The main event of WrestleMania on April 3rd then combines the two big matches currently booked into a no disqualification, no count out Fatal 4Way match of the Champion Ambrose vs Lesnar vs Reigns vs Triple H. Yes, you’d have one less big ticket match on the show, but this match would drive the 90,000 people in the audience into an absolute frenzy.

The result here is Ambrose pinning Lesnar, followed by Reigns making an entrance during an Ambrose celebratory promo the next night on Raw, and nailing him with a spear to ferocious jeers from the crowd. Then we’ve got the most popular babyface as champ, Reigns in the monster heel position he belongs in, and a nice championship feud to kick off Ambrose’s title reign.

What is far more likely to happen is Ambrose loses to Triple H due due a distraction by Brock Lesnar at Roadblock. This would be followed by Reigns beating Triple H at Mania and Ambrose putting up a helluva fight against Lesnar but ultimately losing. Raw kicks off the expected Reigns-Lesnar feud, and hopefully they find something worthwhile for Ambrose to do.

The great thing about professional wrestling is that storylines and plans can change direction at a moment’s notice. Of course, that’s also the frustrating thing when the powers-that-be refuse to change things that are clearly not working.

I’ll keep watching, regardless, as I always have appreciated the art of the performance. And, as deluded as it may be, I will always keep hoping that WWE actually listens to its fans and gives them what the really want.

Fantasy Booking Game Of Throne Season 6

February 5, 2016 by Joe

Fantasy booking is a term you read a lot from pro wrestling reporters. It’s essentially when they book the storylines and matches that they would like to see, not necessarily what they expect to see. So this is my fantasy booking for season six of Game Of Thrones.

Keep in mind, this is for the TV show, not the novels. Therefore stories such as the Greyjoy family drama that no one really cares about are not taken into consideration.

Right off the bat we have Jon Snow resurrected by Melisandre. We all know this is what’s going to happen so let’s just bang it out right at the start of the season. Two minutes into the season premiere, here’s some king’s blood (likely Jon’s own blood) magic gets us off and running.

For his first act, the happy-to-no-longer-be-dead Jon says “fuck ya’ll” to his backstabby Night’s Watch brethren and decides to settle all the Stark family’s debts. His next step is to recruit any of the Free Folk settled south of the Wall, wherein has gathers a nice little army en route to reclaiming Winterfell.

The first stop, geographically-speaking, would be to find Bran. But Bran can keep doing his vision quest/learning magic thing, because he’ll be needed in season seven. You’ll understand why by the end of this post. Meanwhile Rickon & Co can keep laying low wherever they are.

Jon hooks up with Brienne, Pod, Sansa & Theon before they get to Winterfell. There can be a happy reunion between Jon and Sansa, who talks him out of running Theon through since he helped her escape from Ramsey. And then we’re back to business.

We get our first reckoning, as Jon’s army takes out the Bolton Crew. Jon kills Roose Bolton himself, perhaps by stabbing him repeatedly in the belly and slitting his throat in a combo platter of what Robb, Talisa, their unborn baby, and Catelyn got at the Red Wedding. Sansa and Theon can get their own justice by killing Ramsey in an adequately gruesome fashion.

Then they venture to the Twins, where they give old Walder Frey a bunch of arrows through his chest and other sensitive parts. At this point, they’ve progressed to the Vale, where Littlefinger managed to sweet talk them out of killing him. Perhaps they bring him along, but Sansa knows to keep a watchful eye on him by now.

That brings them to King’s Landing. While the Stark Family Revenge Tour has been going on, Cersei and her FrankenMountain have been trying to deal with the Sparrow infestation. Let’s say they accomplish mixed result with it, and are still in the middle of the process when they have some uninvited guests knocking at their northern gates.

Where’s Jaime during all this? Probably grieving over his daughter and looking to get some payback of his own on the Dornish. This would involve him turning the boat around and heading back to Dorne where they can milk a substantial season-long subplot.

Meanwhile, down south, Daenerys consolidates some power by hooking up with a new Dothraki horde. She brings them to Mereen, where she apologizes for abandoning Tyrion, Daario, Varys and Jorah to go joyriding on Drogon. She then apologizes even more profusely to Rhaegal and Viserion, finally unleashing their reign of fire on the unworthy citizens of Mereen.

She takes her buddies, her Dothraki, her Unsullied and her dragon kids as she finally moves towards Westeros. Along the way, they pick up Arya who, throughout the season has pretty much finished her assassin training, and pay an unwelcome visit to the south gate of King’s Landing.

While everyone is converging on King’s Landing, the snowfall hits and winter finally comes. With it, the Night’s King and his undead army of ass-kickery knocks down the Wall via some sort of dark magic, and that’s where the season ends. This, of course, leaves season seven to deal with the real main event of every living person vs every dead person.

Unfortunately, I don’t actually expect this to be how the season plays out. But, if it were, I suspect it would be the most awesome single season of a TV show in history.

They could absolutely accomplish everything above in 10 hours of television. If you don’t believe so, then you’re most likely an HBO executive looking to milk a great show until it’s running on fumes. Personally, I’d rather to see things go down my way.

We Need To Talk About Movie Bloat

January 13, 2016 by Joe

A few weeks ago my three month old was only sleeping about an hour at a time – he’s since gotten much better. But this led me and my wife to watch a recently released three hour long movie that shall remain nameless in three or four separate segments and, honestly, it felt like a much better way to watch it than siting down for it all at once.

Historically, epic movies with a massive sprawling tale to tell tended to run about three hours. See movies like Gone With The Wind, The Ten Commandments, or Lawrence Of Arabia. But these films came out at a time when films were still competing with live theater, so two hours, followed by an intermission, followed by another hour was by and large acceptable.

Those times have long since passed. Films are more popular, more accessible and certainly more affordable than live theater. So it’s time they broke from that mold. But I’m willing to forgive a Braveheart here, a Heat there, or even the occasional Gladiator over yonder.

What bothers me is why so many contemporary movies are running up around the three hour mark, for seemingly no other reason other than the director’s ego demands you spend half your day staring at his creation.

Now, I look at the most guilty culprits and it’s easy to understand why this type of bloat is allowed. Martin Scorsese has been making great films forever, Quentin Taratino is one of the last guys can can legitimately claim the title auteur, Michael Bay’s terrible movies make a billion dollars every year, and Christopher Nolan is probably the most successful filmmaker (combining critical and commercial success) of the 21st century.

That being said, The Wolf Of Wall Street was a good hour too long. It was basically a series of events, several of which could have been excised without hurting the film in the least. But him making us watch these awful people do awful things for three hours is just an awful way to treat your audience.

Most of The Hateful Eight’s runtime takes place in a single location with maybe ten characters. How the hell do you allow that picture to explode up to three hours? I mean this is the same guy who made the same kind of movie in Reservoir Dogs more than twenty years ago, and he did it then in just over 90 minutes.

He had the right idea about ten years ago, though, when he released Kill Bill in two volumes that ran about two hours a piece. Why, then, did he decide that he would rather have his viewers slog through the whole damn thing in one sitting?

And, come one, is there anyone out there who doesn’t think Django Unchained should have ended with that first big shootout in Candie Land? I don’t recall anyone calling out for an extra monologue, Tarantino’s terrible South African accent and a second – smaller – shoot out in Candie Land. Do you?

There’s not really anything I can say about Michael Bay’s monstrously bloated, increasingly lackluster filmography that hasn’t been said before. But I would like to point out that he’s made four Transformers movies, the first of which was two and a half hours long, and each proceeding sequel was five minutes longer than the previous one.

At this rate, the next one will run all of four hours, and it will still only have about 45 minutes of giant transforming robots punching each other.

Every film Christopher Nolan makes is more critically acclaimed and makes higher box office grosses than the one before it. However, he seems to think that the way to keep that going to to make each movie longer. The Dark Knight Rises was 2 hours and 45 minutes long. I love me some Batman, but come on!

Interstellar had some really strong and interesting central ideas, along with great visuals, but it did not need to spend an hour driving around the future dustbowl with astronaut farmer Matthew McConaughey before he decides to take off into space in order to save humanity. That entire first act could have been summed up in a five minute flashback segment halfway through the movie.

The truth is that no studio is going to force edits upon these guys, at least not until one of them stumbles and puts out a three and a half hour critically reviled box office bomb. But these are smart guys, they should be able to figure out how to edit themselves to maximize a solid two hours, give or take.

My solution, revealed to me by hourly baby cries, is not really an appealing one for these filmmakers or their studios. The reason being that these films do make upwards of a billion dollars each.

Oddly enough, I really don’t have a problem sitting for three hours of a TV show on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or HBOGo. I’ve realized that this is mainly because I know I don’t need to since each episode will end in a place for a natural break. But, again, while TV may offer a legitimate artistic outlet for guys who want to film something that lasts for six hours, it will never rake in the box office millions.

To that I’ll say that I’m very happy my boy is sleeping pretty much through the night now. But I’ll keep utilizing the lesson he taught me, and watch these big fat bloaters in nice bite sized treats.

Crying Like A Man

December 17, 2015 by Joe

What sort of things make men cry?

I won’t pretend to speak for all men, but I’ll speak for myself and maybe that will shed some light on men at large.

Musical tends to be a major factor in firing up my tear ducts, in fact it is the most frequent culprit. A swelling string section can get to the soft, gooey center of just about any man who is not dead inside.

That’s true whether in an orchestra film score, or incorporated into a ballad or lament. Give me the cellos stirring things up deep down inside, and then the higher pitched choir of the violins to grant the release of tears.

Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back album, especially The Book Of Love, is a prime example of blending pop music with classical trimmings.

Same can be said about Damien Rice songs like Amie, Delicate or Colour Me In. Something with a slow build and a big finish a la With Or Without You, Journey’s Faithfully or Bloc Party’s Sunday tend to get my emotions roiling as well. It’s that they’re working the body bag of my emotions before knocking my block off.

Thematically speaking, the idea of letting go of a dream, a belief, or especially a loved one, can often hit my soft spot. Of course, that’s usually accompanied by the aforementioned musical cues.

John Barry’s theme from Somewhere In Time calls to mind the great essence of an otherwise flawed story about love made possible by impossible circumstances and then torn asunder by the unstoppable force of time.

Meet Joe Black, is a bad three hour movie that might have made a pretty decent two hour movie buried in there somewhere. But the ending featuring Anthony Hopkins saying goodbye to his family and friends with the fireworks and the swelling Thomas Newman score building out of What A Wonderful World always gets me misty.

Stand By Me starts with a simple string rendition of the titular song and ends with the main characters having to leave the innocence of childhood behind. So it gets me every time.

James Horner’s score from Braveheart is fantastic. At one point it takes a fairly over the top torture and execution scene and turns it into the build up of a moment of pure catharsis. The musical score bangs home the idea that, while they may have killed William Wallace, they did not destroy his beliefs. It’s one of those all too rare swelling-tears-pumping-fist moments.

I can occasionally be caught off-guard by understated pieces of a story that are not punctuated by a 50 piece orchestra. Stallone’s locker room interaction with Michael B. Jordan in Creed where he briefly talks about what he’d give up for one more day with his late wife is a recent such emotional movie moment.

Another moment is in Of Mice And Men, when George kills Lenny to save him from a more painful death at the hands of the lynch mob, but also because he knows Lenny can’t help himself but be dangerous sometimes. Either way, he killed the only person who he really cared for, the only thing he really had to hold onto in the world, and that’s a button pusher for me.

As Flowers For Algernon winds down the formerly mentally handicapped narrator starts losing his super intelligence and falls back into his lesser intellectual state. You can tell that he can, and cannot, sense him losing himself again and it’s pretty heartbreaking.

And, good lord, do not even get me started on anything that involves someone’s pet or animal companion dying. That’s the one thing that breaks me down every single time, even if it’s hammy or kinda rudimentary.

At any rate, it’s healthy to have a good cry every once in a while – manly or otherwise. So I’m always happy to revisit the things that bring me the sweet release of sorrow, and you should be as well.

Wherein I Write A Broadway Musical

November 6, 2015 by Joe

To get my creative juices flowing before jumping into my next novel, I’ve decided to SongFic, as the kids call it. You could also lay some blame on South Park’s Tweek x Craig episode for this little experiment.

In this case, I’m using the supercharged, overwrought, mega cheesy, impossibly melodramatic songs by Jim Steinman as the soundtrack to what would be one helluva Broadway show.

Here’s the story: a young man (let’s call him Aaron) is sent from heaven to Earth to do battle with the forces of darkness that are sent up from hell to wreak havoc.

A young woman (let’s call her Eva), meanwhile, is sent up from hell where she is the gate keeper and go-between for the devil and his Earthbound minions.

Aaron is tired of the fight and ready to give it all up, while Eva is similarly disillusioned by her own mission. Needless to say (this is Broadway, after all) they fall in love with each other. Neither the forces of heaven or hell are very happy about this relationship disturbing the balance of things, and so the situation gets pretty crazy from there.

Let’s call this show Love & Damnation.

It’s worth noting that, while I’ve embedded the available videos for these songs from YouTube, you need to imagine them being performed by the characters in a sort of gothic-neo-noir setting and costumes.

We open with Bat Out Of Hell – performed by Eva and the Minions of Hell Choir singing & dancing about all the shit they’re going to kick up. This number’s purpose is the introduce Eva’s side of the story, and start things off on a fast note.

Next up, we go to Aaron and the Heavenly Souls Choir performing Nowhere Fast, one of the massively underrated songs written for the film Streets of Fire. I’m thinking there may just be one choir who changes costumes between each number, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, we see him going about his business of vanquishing demons, but feeling like none of it’s really accomplishing anything.

Fun combo number here as Eva and Aaron each separately go to their bosses – Satan and the archangel Michael, respectively – to lament their situations. Michael, Satan and the choirs of heaven and hell all respond with Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back, to declare that everyone’s life is pretty crummy so they should just get over it.

After the flat out refusal from Michael to relieve him of his duties, Aaron decides to go rogue and wander off anyway. His singing of the ballad Heaven Can Wait draws Eva’s attention and so she decides to follow him on his walkabout.

After Aaron realizes that Eva is shadowing him, they finally meet, bond a bit, and break out the rollicking duet Dead Ringer For Love.

Things are good for a while, but Eva starts suspecting that the strength of her feelings for Aaron are not fully reciprocated. At which point Aaron recounts the origin story about how his beloved was killed by a demon which led him to take on the job of heaven’s bad ass slayer. This culminates in his singing Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad to try and explain things better.

Eva goes off on her own to reconsider her feelings to the tune of Total Eclipse Of The Heart. She begins to feel like it’s worth being with Aaron even if he doesn’t truly love her, but is too proud to go to him and say so.

Luckily, Aaron comes to his senses and realizes that it’s okay to love again and that he really does love Eva. He rushes back to her and, with the help of the Heavenly Souls Choir, performs I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). By the end of which, Eva has embraced their love by singing the last part of the song.

Everything came together nicely and culminated with a bang, so now’s as good a time as any to have an Intermission to let the audience buy some astronomically overpriced candy and bottles of water. Maybe have a bit of a pee break too.

Aaron & Eva are happily in love on a hot summer night, hence You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth. Frolicking ensues.

Holding Out For A Hero is then sung by the Minions of Hell / Heavenly Souls Choir dressed up as people (Earthbound Choir) that Aaron and Eva are helping defeat the demons in their lives. Satan and Michael take note, and are not pleased with how this forbidden relationship is affecting the balance of the battle between heaven & hell. They strike up a deal to do something to restore balance.

When Eva and Aaron start performing Making Love Out Of Nothing At All they’re sharing a nice, tender moment. But Satan and Michael cast a spell on them, which makes them forget one another. The lovers part and wander off in opposite direction in a dreamlike daze.

Aaron reminisces about his life, death and rebirth as demon slayer while singing Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are. But the lost memory of something he can’t quite grasp sends waves of doubt through his mind and soul.

Eva is in the throes of a similar identity crisis but, with a little help from the Earthbound Choir, it all comes back to her now. First, she remember that she never actually deserved to go to hell. She was offered to the devil when she was born, and so truly owes him nothing. She then also remembers her love for Aaron, all of which is represented by her performance of It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.

Eva finds Aaron, and through the course of Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through she helps him remember their love. Once reunited, Satan & Michael drop by again to put the kibosh on things.

And so we roll right into Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young – the other great, forgotten song from Streets of Fire. The choir is split up into Heavenly Souls garb, Minion of Hell gear, and Earthbound attire. They all gang up this time to chase off the archangel and the devil by letting them know that love is truly the most powerful force on Earth, and in heaven or hell. Michael & Satan finally relent and let Eva & Aaron ride off together into the sunset to live happily ever after.

For anyone interested, you can find the full (theoretical) Love & Damnation Soundtrack at my Spotify playlist here.

https://open.spotify.com/user/joemikolay/playlist/4MPUabktxcNKpAB5d7WVYT

Also, see if you can find me a millionaire to bankroll this bad boy.

Book One of the Post-Human Universe

June 7, 2015 by Joe

Finding your place in the world is tough; especially if your world is filled with pissed off superheroes who want to kick your…

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Joe Mikolay

Author Of The Venator Series

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