100 Favorite Movies Challenge

Nathan Bransford challenged people to post their list of 100 favorite movies. The order is about right for the first few and then is pretty much equal for most of the rest. I should list The Centenarian Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared and A Good Day to Die Hard since I'm in them, but neither are out yet. I'm sure I'm missing some, too!

1. Blade Runner
2. Lord of the Rings
3. The Harry Potter films
4. The Princess Bride
5. A Fish Called Wanda
6. Alien/Aliens
7. Sixteen Candles
8. The Shawshank Redemption
9. The Full Monty
10(a)(because I accidentally left it out!) Back to the Future
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark
11. The Silence of the Lambs
12. Schindler's List
13. ET
14. Platoon
15. Unforgiven
16. Pulp Fiction
17. Better Off Dead
18. Watch It
19. Star Wars (IV and V mainly)
20. There's Something About Mary
21. Good Morning, Viet Nam
22. Life of Brian
23. The Godfather
24. Good Will Hunting
25. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
26. Full Metal Jacket
27. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
28. Shaun of the Dead
29. Stand By Me
30. La Femme Nikita
31. Dead Poet's Society
32. Scott Pilgrim vs the World
33. Forrest Gump
34. Rocky
35. Rudy
36. Time Bandits
37. Sliding Doors
38. Groundhog Day
39. Murder By Death
40. The World According to Garp
41. Dumb and Dumber
42. Lawrence of Arabia
43. The Road Warrior
44. Gattaca
45. 28 Days Later
46. Jaws
47. Disclosure
48. Basic Instinct
49. Dangerous Liaisons
50. Cabaret
51. Summer of '42
52. The Thing
53. True Lies
54. Lethal Weapon
55. Die Hard
56. The Right Stuff
57. The Usual Suspects
58. As Good As It Gets
59. Love Actually
60. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
61. Finding Forrester
62. Scream
63. Hardware
64. Jurassic Park
65. Night Watch/Day Watch
66. The Colors trilogy
67. Goodfellas
68. True Romance
69. Ruthless People
70. Down and Out in Beverly Hills
71. Beverly Hills Cop
72. Mrs. Doubtfire
73. Ghost
74. Midnight Run
75. The Sting
76. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (US version)
77. Braveheart
78. The Spanish Apartment
79. Sex and Lucia
80. Queen Margot
81. Showgirls
82. Almost Famous
83. Clueless
84. LA Confidential
85. Carlito's Way
86. Boyz n the Hood
87. MASH
88. Bend It Like Beckham
89. Young Guns
90. Searching for Bobby Fischer
91. A Fistful of Dollars
92. Four Weddings and a Funeral
93. Salem's Lot
94. The Shining
95. Arachnophobia
96. The Exorcist III
97. Manhattan
98. Beautiful Girls
99. Leon, the Professional
100. When Harry Met Sally

TV Shows
1. Game of Thrones
2. Freaks and Geeks
3. Rome
4. Friday Night Lights
5. Northern Exposure
6. Firefly
7. Big Bang Theory
8. Battlestar Galactica (new version)
9. Band of Brothers
10. Frasier
11. The Walking Dead
12. Seinfeld
13. Friends
14. Taxi
15. Sopranos
16. Cheers
17. Deadwood

Kids
1. Monsters Inc.
2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas
4. Toy Story
5. Bridge to Terabithia
6. The Secret Garden
7. The Incredibles
8. Finding Nemo

Fresh Ideas in Science Fiction

Quite some time ago a reader of my science fiction novel The Immortality Game (it isn't complete yet, but there is a link on the right-hand bar for anyone wishing to read what is there) wrote that while I was doing new takes on many of the ideas, the ideas themselves had already been done. I didn't argue with the reader, just said thank you, but I have to admit this criticism nagged at me for a long time.

I'm writing this post because the other day the reason it bothered me so much became clear to me. Okay, so other writers in the past first introduced into fiction the ideas of such technologies as nanobots and cybertech mind interfaces. But the idea that a science fiction writer is somehow lessened by using these in his or her own writing is, to me, absurd. As time goes on, what used to be purely speculative instead becomes fully expected, i.e. barring any huge misfortunes, I fully expect we will be using nanobots and mind/data interfaces in the near future (we already are using rudimentary versions today). Thus if I want to write about the near future in a realistic manner, I have no choice but to include such technologies. Doesn't mean I can't find some really cool and inventive ways of using said technologies!

We aren't likely to be looking like this!

I mentioned to a buddy the other day how I felt so many futuristic novels and movies got things wrong by ignoring technologies that will clearly be in play in the not so distant future. How come so many sci-fi books and shows depict characters as being human? In my opinion, we will all be cyborgs within the next century, or at the very least, the number of pure humans will be very miniscule (as in, a few hidden tribes out in the jungles and such). That doesn't mean we will all look like a bunch of robots with metal pieces and parts, but it does mean that our bodies will be enhanced by technologies like nanobots, sweeping through our blood to search out and destroy everything from viruses to cancers and maybe even the common cold.

So all I would ask of any readers of science fiction is this--be careful about criticizing authors for using ideas that you have seen other authors use first, especially if these ideas are ones that seem all but inevitable to actually be used.

What I Read in 2012

Goodreads is a great way to track what you read throughout the year, but I thought I would also try a post to list and rate the books I read this year, if only to give myself a better idea of how much reading I'm managing to get through.

So, here they are in roughly the order in which I read them, along with my star ranking from one to five with five being a book I thought was great and would read again. Four stars is a book I really enjoyed but might not want to read again. Three stars is a book I liked but wouldn't read over again, and anything less means it had issues for me.

1. Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds *****  I've read a few by Mr. Reynolds so far, but this is the best. He brings to life an amazing city on a distant planet in a way I haven't seen done so well by any other author.
2. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson ****
3. The Once and Future King by T.H. White ***
4. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson ****
5. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy *** and a half
6. A Circle in the Woods by Winston Emerson ***
7. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson ****
8. To Green Angel Tower part 2 by Tad Williams ****
9. Acting in Film by Michael Caine ****
10. The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss ***** Amazing. Rothfuss may challenge George Martin as the best living fantasy writer.
11. Acting for the Camera by Tony Barr ***
12. The 25th Hour by David Benioff **** and a half
13. City of Thieves by David Benioff ***** Everyone should read this brilliant little story
14. The Skystone by Jack Whyte ****
15. The Singing Sword by Jack Whyte *** and a half
16. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood ***
17. Duma Key by Stephen King ****
18. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson ****
19. Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook ***** Just my type of fantasy! Vivid sword and sorcery blended with military fantasy that reminds me of the hellhounds from the Thieves World novels. Not quite as brilliant as Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but still right up there.

Note that there are several books that I began and haven't finished. Two of them were just dreary and irritating for me, these being Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Others are ones that I haven't yet completed, though they will get decent or even great ratings, such as the one I just began--The Passage by Justin Cronin. The others I am still currently reading are Rose Madder by Stephen King and Auditioning: An Actor-friendly Guide by Joanna Merlin.

The Hobbit Movie -- My Review

Along with just about everyone, it seems, I saw the first part of The Hobbit this weekend (note there may be spoilers here for any who have not yet seen the movie). While it didn't come close to being as good as any of the Lord of the Rings films, it was better than my low expectations for it. I had been dreading the comedy aspects of it more than anything else, but those ended up not bothering me so much. And what many critics disliked about it--the loads of exposition--were some of my favorite bits. I especially liked it when it showed historical scenes from when the dwarves lived in Erebor and when Smaug came.

Now, I've seen a lot of people rave about Richard Armitage as the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield. While I didn't dislike him in the part, I felt he rarely changed expression throughout the entire film, making him a bit one-dimensional to me. I especially disliked the scene where the entire company is dangling from a tree over a cliff and he decides to walk away from them to challenge his orc nemesis, when it appeared he had the breathing room to turn around and help his companions to not plunge to their deaths, as they should have if the film had been a tad more realistic in its portrayal of action sequences.

That last is actually my biggest problem with the movie--the action sequences were so unrealistic as to be absurd, which pulled me right out of the believability. Lord of the Rings had done a decent job of keeping it real. The Hobbit doesn't bother with realism at all. I won't bore you with a listing of every scene that bothered me, but I'll tell you the worst offenders:

1. The mountain giants -- in the book, if I remember correctly, the giants are at play in the storm off in the distance, so the party decides to hide in a cave to ride out the storm. In the film the giants are 'warring' with each other and the party happens to be on one of the giants as it gets up and enters the fray. So much of what happens is utterly ludicrous and anyone would have died or at least been seriously maimed. The sheer quantity of rocks and fragments flying around makes it impossible that they would have come through unscathed, yet that is exactly what happens.

2. In the goblin caverns, they flee and go through several absurdly long falls into chasms, which with, you know, uh,...gravity...would have killed all or most of them. Yet it happens over and over again and not one of them gets so much as a scratch, it appears.

3. When the company climbs into the trees to flee the chasing orcs and wargs, the sequence goes off the deep end, with wargs actually knocking over trees just by slamming into them. Not only this, but each tree does a whole domino effect thing, with the company jumping from tree to tree as each collapses under the weight of those unbelievably powerful wargs.

The sad thing, in my opinion, is that there was simply no need to make things so unrealistic. I'm not one that needs the movie to follow the book faithfully. I understand that movies need a different type of story than books generally, if they are to succeed. But regular, believable action would have worked splendidly.

King Animal by Soundgarden

In these sad days for music when presentation tends to trump substance, it's refreshing to have an album come out from a band that wrote its own music, played its own instruments, didn't need any dance choreography, and gave us solid or even great tracks from beginning to end. That album is King Animal by Soundgarden.

Soundgarden was one of the original bands involved in the early nineties Grunge movement out of Seattle. I saw them live, opening for Guns n Roses, before I knew who they were, but they impressed me more than the headliners did, and I immediately bought their latest album and fell in love with the incredibly heavy sound of the song Searching With My Good Eye Closed. It's still my favorite Soundgarden song, though they've done well enough to have more than fifty songs of four stars or higher in my iTunes list.

Their most commercial album Superunknown was my least favorite, though it still had some good stuff like 4th of July. They broke up in 1997 shortly after releasing my favorite of their albums Down on the Upside.

Fifteen years later the group overcame their disputes and got back together. Would they still have their old chemistry? King Animal gives us a resounding 'yes'!

In the past I got used to their songs often appealing to me right off, while with this album I had to let it grow on me by multiple listens (the same thing I had to do with one of my all-time favorite albums--Mer de Noms by A Perfect Circle). I've now listened to the album more than fifty times, and there are no tracks of less than three stars in my iTunes, and there are only two of those, which makes this a pretty amazing album.

Taste differs from person to person, so these ratings are mine alone. Here are my rankings of the songs in the approximate order of how much I like them:

5 stars: Bones of Birds, Blood on the Valley Floor, Worse Dreams, By Crooked Steps
4.5 stars: Taree
4 stars: Non-State Actor, A Thousand Day's Before, Eyelid's Mouth, Attrition, Black Saturday, Been Away Too Long
3 stars: Halfway there, Rowing

They did a great sounding mini-concert on Letterman a month ago, and here was an oldie but goodie to turn way up and enjoy.

Dived vs Dove

Ever been confused about the past tense of the word 'dive'? You'll see it in literature as both 'dived' and 'dove'.

The truth is that both are correct. Purists from Britain will argue that only 'dived' is correct, and that is the form you will see there. In Canada you will see a mix of both. The US mainly uses 'dove', and this latter form has been in use for well over a century.

The Catalyst Scene

To me the moment that everything changes in a character's life is what I call the 'catalyst scene'. Life was bumbling along just fine (or not so fine) when all of a sudden nothing will ever be the same again for that character. The scene below is the very first one I ever wrote, and I consider it the catalyst scene for my main character Sir Midas in The Shard. Also here is the artwork I commissioned of the scene, done by Hungarian artist Andras Orr.

Midas had never heard of elves killing men before.  He slumped in his saddle, staring at the bodies scattered near the forest edge.  Crows hopped and cawed just out of kicking range.  The horses stamped their hooves and flicked their tails at flies.  The smell of corruption was yet mild.

“I don’t recognize these men,” he murmured.  He should recognize them; he knew the people on his lands.  These men had not simply been passing through.  Three axes lay near the corpses, and two of the trees showed chop marks.  Red sap flowed down the silver bark, the trees bleeding from their wounds.

Laithtaris--called the Elf Wood by men--bordered the tiny province of Welby.  It was home to the elven folk, their only remaining home since the race of man had come to the Known Lands more than two thousand years ago.  A treaty was signed at the time promising these woods to the elves, to be untouched by man for all time.  Midas had rarely heard of any encroachment of the forest; if it happened it was usually an accident and elven rangers would escort the offenders to the edge of the woods.

Three bodies lay near the trees and two more were partially obscured by the brown grass and weeds a few paces away.  Each had a single silver-fletched arrow jutting from its chest or back.  Elven arrows, thought Midas.  No man could make arrows so perfect.

He shifted his gaze to the woods.  Silverbark trees towered into the sky, their canopies forming a ceiling over the tangled shrubs and dead leaves below.  The edge of the forest was thin and the summer light shone down in beams to the forest floor, but there was no sign of elves.  This was not unusual; Midas had never seen an elf in all of his thirty-eight years.  There could be dozens of them staring at us right now and we’d never see them.

He twisted in the saddle to speak to Fridrik.  “Bring a wagon from the village.  Post a guard on these bodies until they can be loaded up and brought to Welby.  Something's happening and I intend to find out what.”

“Yes, milord,” the squire said.  He detailed two men to guard the bodies, picked out two more as escorts, and rode off toward the hamlet they’d passed on the way.

Midas sighed and glanced at Sir Brindor, who was gazing blankly into space as usual.  Amidst the stubble of his gray hair, the crater in Brindor’s head was clearly visible.  Years ago, Sir Brindor had taken part in a tournament melee, during which his helm had been knocked from his head and a mace had bashed in the side of his skull.  Healers had given him up for dead, but Brindor slumbered in a coma for three weeks and then woke up.  He wasn’t the same man--his speech was slurred and he had little memory of his previous life--but he remained a ferocious fighter, devoted to his liege lord.

“Brin!” Midas said.  

Sir Brindor swayed on his mare, but then his eyes focused and he turned to Midas.  

“Brin,” Midas repeated.  “That dwarf merchant who sold you the elven dagger, where can I find him?”

Brindor’s mouth worked silently for a bit and his face took on the confused look it always did when he was required to remember how to speak.  “Iskimir,” he finally managed.  “Sh-shhhop in Iskimir.”

Midas nodded to Brin and bent to examine the closest corpse.  The man was filthy and clothed in rags.  He looked like the beggars or thieves one might find in any of the big cities.

“How could they think to get away with this, Voor?  Even desperate men…”

“I don’t know, milord,” Voor said.

“Someone forced them.”

Voor nodded.

“Have Dalthis and two guards ride to Iskimir.  I want them to find the dwarf merchant who sells elven goods.  I want to know how he gets his goods; how he makes contact with the elves.  Make sure Dalthis takes enough coin to persuade the dwarf.  If he won’t speak to Dalthis, see if he’ll come to Welby and talk to me.”

“Yes, milord.”

            Dust rose in clouds as the group cantered over the dry field. Even in the light of day the small red moon was visible just above the horizon--an evil omen if there ever was one. Midas thought of his sons, the memory of skirling swords echoing in his mind, and despite the heat he felt a chill in his chest. Why would someone want to provoke the elves?