Reading A Dance With Dragons

I'm about halfway through reading A Dance With Dragons, the latest book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. I've said it before, but Martin is the greatest living fantasy author, at least for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I love many others, from Ursula Le Guin to Patrick Rothfuss and more, but Martin fits my taste almost perfectly.


I'm lucky, too, that I was able to find a mass-market paperback version of the book in English, since that isn't scheduled to come out until October. (Since I move a lot, I refuse to buy bulky, heavy hardcovers) Lots of people have complained about both this book and A Feast for Crows, but I have to say, I love them nearly as much as the earlier books. The writing grips me just as strongly and sweeps me away into a world that fits my sense of adventure perfectly.

I do have some minor quibbles, though not about how slowly Martin produces his books--as far as I'm concerned, he should take the time he needs in order to get them right. My main quibble is that Daenerys Targaryen is simply too passive, naive, and almost stupid in her chapters. I know she is very young still, but she has been through so much that she should have grown up a bit and gained some wisdom...or at least be able to listen to some of the wisdom of people like Ser Barristan Selmy. Instead she sits around moaning and doing almost nothing except stupid things like agreeing to marry someone very wrong for her. I haven't yet read far enough to see how badly that turns out, but I don't have to in order to know that it will turn badly very quickly, and she should have known it would. Her naivete regarding the slave trade and slave cities is just astounding--you can't make such sweeping changes without shaking up the world and turning almost everyone against you.

The last thing I wanted to mention was that I saw a riddle that Martin threw in to one of Dany's chapters, and it made me guess that the two dragon riders other than Dany will most likely be Tyrion and the 'Frog' prince of Dorne who has just arrived in her city at the point where I am reading. Of course, it could be another Dornish person or another Lannister, but that seems doubtful. Anyone else think this when reading the book?

Next Die Hard Scene

I don't think my scenes are 'big' enough to be considered spoilers, but just in case, if you haven't seen the film yet and don't want to know anything about it, don't read on.

Again due to the non-disclosure agreement, I had to wait all this time to talk about what happened. So, today I am writing about filming of Die Hard 5 on August 6 of last year. The scene was near the end of the movie, when John McClane (Bruce Willis) and his son are arriving in New York from Moscow. I play one of the five CIA agents waiting near the vehicles to escort them to Langley. When the scene wrapped (it was a long day, starting at 9:30 a.m.; I didn't arrive back home until 10 p.m.), I also got to drive one of the vehicles around the airport while they filmed it, though they told us they weren't sure that scene would be used or not.

The best part for me, though, was getting to work with the actress who played McClane's daughter, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I've thought she was awesome ever since seeing her as the lead actress in Scott Pilgrim vs the World. She has been in a number of other movies I've seen, such as the new version of The Thing, Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino, and Final Destination 3.

If you see the movie, most of the CIA guys are in combat gear with automatic rifles. I'm the one in the dark suit. Hopefully I can find a way to do some screen captures and post them.

Die Hard 5

This post was written way back, on June 4 of last year, but I couldn't post it until the movie came out. So I will be writing about 'today' but it is actually about June 4. I don't think my scenes are 'big' enough to be considered spoilers, but just in case, if you haven't seen the film yet and don't want to know anything about it, don't read on. It's too bad that the reviews are pretty bad for the movie itself, but I'll still go see it, of course.

Edit to add: It looks like this scene didn't make the movie, according to some friends who saw it. Maybe it will be in Deleted Scenes when the DVD comes out.

*******
Today was awesome. Better than I ever expected. I was told to dress up as elegantly as I could, so I wore a nice suit. I like another of my suits better, but I went with the one my wife liked best, because I know that wives are always right!

I had to be at the base camp by 5 am, which meant getting up at 4. I'm not a morning person, but this is exciting stuff, so I was fine. It didn't look like a scene I would get a chance to stand out in, because there were what looked to be two hundred extras there, all decked out in their finest.

We were told about the day's shoot, filming behind the Kempinsi Hotel in downtown Budapest. It was meant to be a high-end shopping street in Moscow. Only two buildings on the street had their signs changed into Cyrillic characters, one a bar and the other a gun shop. Don't ask me why a high-end shopping street in Moscow would have a bar and a gun shop on it. I lived there for four years and I don't think such a thing exists unless things have changed a lot since I left!

The street where it was filmed

In the scene, Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney (McClane's son), and another actor are walking down the street, past the bar, and into the gun shop. A choreographer began placing extras in various places and telling them what to do during the scene. This mainly involved simply walking along the street. Many of the extras were placed in positions where they would almost certainly not even get on film.

I got lucky, since Mike Papac, the guy who has done the weapons for all the Die Hard movies, was there dealing with the gun shop. I had met Mike a number of times and even spent quite a bit of time talking with him, as mentioned in this post. He was gracious enough to introduce me to an assistant director, who in turn introduced me to the director. They decided to put me in a place where I would be pretty much guaranteed to show up in the film, standing right by the door of the bar that the guys walk by on their way to the gun shop. So, I'm in a light-gray suit and am holding a briefcase.

I ended up working right near Bruce Willis for almost three hours. We're told not to speak with the actors, so I didn't, even though he met my eyes a few times and looked down-to-earth enough to have talked, but I'm not one to get myself kicked off a set. When they tore apart the set one time in order to rearrange the cameras for another angle, he hung out about four feet from me--he even sang a bit once. I sure wanted someone to take a picture of me with him, but that wasn't going to happen, of course. Anyway, we did around eight or nine takes in all with the real actors (more takes with their stand-ins) over about four hours, and they even paid us. You can't beat that.

I hope I will be able to pick myself out in the film, even if it is just for a second or so! Tomorrow I'll post about the last scene I worked on in the film, and include a photo taken on the set.

A Book to Read, a Movie to See

This book has been a bestseller in Europe for the past couple of years. I only heard about it when I was called in to play a small part in the movie when it was filmed in Budapest. I can't go into details on what I did yet due to a non-disclosure agreement, but I have a post ready to put up once the movie is released (supposedly next December).

My wife bought the book for Christmas and she read it first. It's the first time I ever recall hearing her laugh out loud while reading, and she did it often. I read it next, and though I never laughed out loud (comedy books have never much appealed to me), it was certainly amusing. My youngest son just read it this week and pronounced it very good, insisting that his brother needs to read it.

So, in case any of you might like to read the book that will shortly be a movie with me in it, here's the link!

By the way, this coming week on Valentine's Day, the movie A Good Day to Die Hard will arrive in theaters, and you may be able to spot me in that, too, if only in the background. If you wait a day or so after it comes out, I'll put up some posts telling you where you may be able to see me. Again, due to non-disclusure agreements, I can't really get into it in detail until after the movie is released.

All Dressed Up

I realized that I had posted these photos only on Facebook, when I've always meant to use this blog as a form of online 'diary', to a degree, so that I can recall interesting things that have happened to my family. We don't get to dress up often, so these photos were kind of nice. Each year at every post with a marine security guard detachment they host a marine birthday ball. Everyone gets to dress up and have a nice meal and a dance.

The most gorgeous wife ever!

I took the photo of my lovely wife just before we left the apartment, and the second photo was snapped by an offiicial photographer at the ball.

My wife checks out the night's program.

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.