Tagged: small

REVIEW: Roadie

Let me state for the record that I grew up loving the music of the Blue Öyster Cult, partly because I was the right age and partly because their lead singer, Eric Bloom, is my uncle. Therefore, I am attuned to all things BOC and am amazed I missed the release of Roadie. Now out on home video from Magnolia Entertainment, the film is a small tale about love, life, and yes, rock and roll.

The BOC was among the premiere heavy metal bands of the 1970s, thwarted from super-stardom because New York City AM radio wouldn’t play their music so they peaked. They continue to tour and play around the world with Uncle Eric and guitar wizard Buck Dharma (Donald Roseser) fronting the group. Roadie features the sad life of Jimmy Testagross (Ron Eldard), who was living his boyhood dream of working with the band but now that they play only occasionally, he’s effectively laid off. He returns home to Forest Hills, Queens for the first time in two decades and the film features that fateful day and night.

Pushing 40 with only roadie on his resume, he’s not poised to do much of anything and feels like a failure, whose widow mother (Lois Smith) still smothers him with tough love. Licking his wounds, Jimmy looks at his old room, his old neighborhood, and his old relationships. He sees the world with sad, tired eyes and comes to grips that things have changed. The first thing he notices is that his mother is not herself as the first signs of dementia are evident. Secondly, the girl of his dreams is still around although married. She’s a singer herself, but her music is folk acoustic, seemingly anathema to someone like Jimmy, but he listens with fresh ears. (more…)

JOHN OSTRANDER: Casablanca At 70 – You MUST Remember This

SPOILER WARNING: I’m assuming that people reading this have seen the movie and thus will be free with me discussing elements of the plot. If you’re one of those who haven’t, do yourself a favor and DON’T READ THIS. See the movie instead and have your own experience with it. Trust me. You’ll be glad you did. If you need a plot synopsis, IMDB has a good one here

The movie Casablanca turns 70 this year and, to celebrate, Warner Bros is releasing it on Blu-Ray on March 27 and is also showing it, one night only, in selected movie theaters across the country on March 21. I’ve already got the tickets for Mary and myself.

I’ve seen the film at least twice now on the big screen and look forward to seeing it again – I’ve watched it countless number of times on DVD but the experience on the big screen is matchless. Those incredible close-ups of the three stars at the climax of the film are so stunning on a large screen.

My first experience with Casablanca, fortunately, was a showing at a second run small movie theater in Chicago (the 400) in an inspired double bill with Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam. I had put off seeing the film for the same reason I put off seeing or reading or listening to many things that I would later love – because people told me I had to see/read/listen to something and sometimes I’m a pig-headed idiot.

This was an audience that knew and loved the movie; they cheered and laughed at the best lines and scenes. In the famous dueling anthems scene, some audience members sang the Marseilles and the entire audience erupted into cheers when the French anthem triumphed over the Nazis. It was electrifying for the audience as well as the characters. What a great introduction to the film.

Over the years I’ve watched and became aware of different fine points of the movie. It was very much a picture of its time and reflected a reborn patriotism that came with the War effort. In a scene where Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick, is waiting for Ingrid Bergman’s character, Ilsa, to come back to his nightclub after hours, he’s getting seriously drunk and asks his piano player and confidant, Sam (Dooley Wilson), “If it’s 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in America?” That line isn’t just drunken slosh.

Earlier in the movie, Rick okays a credit slip dated December 2, 1941. It sets the events of the movie five days before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor causing the United States entrance into World War II. Prior to this, much of America is isolationist and Rick embodies that. He “sticks his neck out for nobody.” He’s cynical and aloof; he never drinks with customers or employees. That all changes before the end of the film.

The fulcrum of change is the return of Ilsa, Rick’s former love in Paris before the Nazis matched in. You can’t much blame Rick for being in love with her; as played by a young Ingrid Bergman, Ilsa is radiant. Rick, however, has been burned. He was jilted by Ilsa just as they were to leave Paris together.

Rick’s change comes late in the film when he and Ilsa have been reconciled and she declares that she still loves him. Torn, upset, she tells Rick that he will have to decide for her, for everyone involved. Rick simply says, “Okay. I will.” That, however, changes everything. At that moment Rick becomes the man of action once more and everything moves forward at a gallop towards the climax.

Rick disposes of all his holdings. We assume it’s because he’s going off with Ilsa but that’s not his goal; he’s getting her out of Casablanca (along with her husband). He’s not out to kill the villainous Nazi Strasser (even though he does). He expects to wind up in jail, a concentration camp, or dead. That, more than anything else, marks him as a real hero – the degree to which he is willing to sacrifice himself.

There’s more to be said about Casablanca and I’ll say them next week. Until then – here’s looking at you, kid.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell, R.N., CNOR, C.G. (Comic Geek)

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO ‘GHOSTS TEMPLAR’! JASON DARK III

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- All Things Pulp Reviewed by Tommy Hancock
GHOSTS TEMPLAR
by Guido Henkel
Published by Thunder Peak Publishing
2010
Even though this novella is Guido Henkel’s third outing with his now trademark Paranormal Investigator Jason Dark, GHOSTS TEMPLAR stands out as the perfect storm for not only Henkel’s talents and imagination, but is also the pinnacle example of a moody, gothic Victorian revenge ghost story.
Dark and his ever enticing, extremely interesting partner Siu Lin are asked by a newly promoted Yard Inspector by the name of Lestrade (yes, that one, Pulpsters!) to look into the disappearance of a constable in a small town.   Of course for Dark to be involved, there has to be more than just an absent human.  Such as a band of phantom knights appearing each night and killing people.  Not randomly murdering the masses, but instead handpicking their victims and gruesomely dispatching them.   Dark and Siu Lin stumble onto not just a missing persons case nor simply a ghost story, but a quest that will lay souls, both living and dead either to rest or damn them to Hell forever.
Although the first two Dark novellas are excellent in their own rights, GHOSTS TEMPLAR proves them to be nothing but setting the table for the right blend of horror, mystery, tension, intrigue, and character development.  Henkel’s use of Lestrade as a catalyst even adds a depth to that literary figure that he doesn’t often get elsewhere.   Dark is at his moody, masterful best and Siu Lin blossoms completely into a fully realized character and one who more than holds her own in a series focused on her mentor.  
Not only do we get a full rendering of the characters we’ve now followed through three volumes in GHOSTS TEMPLAR, but Henkel provides us with an intricate, beautiful canvas which he wraps both characters and readers in.  The descriptions of the village and particularly one particular area where much of the story actually is revealed are haunting and definitely had an impact.   Henkel captures the atmosphere, the strangling, almost choking presence of evil and the desperation of good to overcome in wonderful, wonderful ways, in everything from how the ghosts in question carried out their killings to the way the village unfolded with every descriptive word from Henkel.
FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-  One of the best novellas of its type or possibly in my top best of novella list ever.   Can’t use enough Terrifics to describe this.  
STEEL CITY NOIR

STEEL CITY NOIR

Art: Dave Stokes

Writer, Vito Delsante’s new noir pulp story, Tonight Down By The River debuts at http://welcometotripcity.com/2012/02/tonight-down-by-the-river/

In Tonight, Down By The River, a rendevouz leads to murder.

Art: Dave Stokes
She wasn’t afraid.
It wasn’t their first date and while she was as nervous as she always was when they met, she wasn’t scared.
She just didn’t want to get caught.
She arrived at their favorite meeting place early, a small bar called Hemingway’s on Forbes Avenue, and she slid into their favorite booth. She didn’t dress conservatively on purpose, choosing a low-cut blouse over the business attire she was more comfortable wearing. The blouse clung to her curves, accentuating her tiny hips and her enhanced bust. The skirt was tight and gave the semblance of a shape where one didn’t exist naturally.

Read more at http://welcometotripcity.com/2012/02/tonight-down-by-the-river/

About Trip City:
TRIP CITY is a Brooklyn-filtered, multimedia, literary arts salon that launched November 1st, 2011. Curated by and featuring exclusive content from Emmy award winning artist, Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, Bored to Death), Seth Kushner (The Brooklynites, CulturePOP), Chris Miskiewicz (Everywhere), and Jeffrey Burandt aka Jef UK (Americans UK), with a fellowship of regular contributors featuring; Joe Infurnari (MUSH! Sled Dogs with Issues, Marathon), Nick Bertozzi (The Salon, Lewis & Clark), Jennifer Hayden (Underwire), Nick Abadzis (Laika), Jen Ferguson (Art in Chaos), Ron Scalzo (Bald Freak Music), Sandra Beasley (Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life , I Was The Jukebox), Dan Goldman (Shooting War, Red Light Properties), Jeff Newelt (Heeb Magazine, The Pekar Project), Jonathan Vankin (The World’s Greatest Conspiracies), Amy Finkel (Furever), Kevin Colden (Fishtown), and The Perv Whisperer (The Perv Whisperer).

Welcome to Trip City.


Trip City” © Dean Haspiel. All materials are © their respective creators.

Some material on the Trip City website may contain adult subject matter and may not be appropriate for children.
 

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO LAURIE R. KING’S ‘BEEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS’

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
BEEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS
Laurie R. King
Bantam Books (Random House)
It seems every company, large and small, comic and print, audio and video, so on and so forth, has a Holmes product these days.  Most of them deal with Sherlock directly, but many also veer off into Watson’s life, Mycroft’s adventures, and Moriarty’s machinations.   And amongst those varied adventures of truly the World’s Greatest Detective, many are good, but very few stand out as works that both honor what came originally and bring a whole new life to the concept.
Laurie R. King is known for doing just that probably as well as anyone has.
‘Beekeeping for Beginners’ gives readers the first meeting between Mary Russell, King’s very own character inserted into the life of, at the opening of this story, an extremely despondent Holmes.     Both new readers and long time followers of King’s Russell/Holmes series will find this story to be a true delight.  Questioning his very place in the world with the War to End All Wars in swing and seemingly the time for one such as him past, Holmes comes to a decision at the opening of this tale that, had a young brash girl not happened along, would have made for an extremely short story. 
What ensues after this rather spirited trip away from the melancholy is both a great adventure that revives Holmes and a fantastic character study that adds flesh to Mary Russell.   The pacing is brisk and the characterization crisp and quick as well.   Russell makes a formidable partner for Holmes, able to verbally spar with him, but also willing to learn and play student to the master.   What comes after this opening segue in the series makes perfect sense with this glimpse into their first meeting.
FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT- Some people bemoan when people go back and give ‘origins’.  In this case, King did nothing but add another great piece of literature to her already wonderful collection of tales.

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
BEEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS
Laurie R. King
Bantam Books (Random House)
It seems every company, large and small, comic and print, audio and video, so on and so forth, has a Holmes product these days.  Most of them deal with Sherlock directly, but many also veer off into Watson’s life, Mycroft’s adventures, and Moriarty’s machinations.   And amongst those varied adventures of truly the World’s Greatest Detective, many are good, but very few stand out as works that both honor what came originally and bring a whole new life to the concept.
Laurie R. King is known for doing just that probably as well as anyone has.
‘Beekeeping for Beginners’ gives readers the first meeting between Mary Russell, King’s very own character inserted into the life of, at the opening of this story, an extremely despondent Holmes.     Both new readers and long time followers of King’s Russell/Holmes series will find this story to be a true delight.  Questioning his very place in the world with the War to End All Wars in swing and seemingly the time for one such as him past, Holmes comes to a decision at the opening of this tale that, had a young brash girl not happened along, would have made for an extremely short story. 
What ensues after this rather spirited trip away from the melancholy is both a great adventure that revives Holmes and a fantastic character study that adds flesh to Mary Russell.   The pacing is brisk and the characterization crisp and quick as well.   Russell makes a formidable partner for Holmes, able to verbally spar with him, but also willing to learn and play student to the master.   What comes after this opening segue in the series makes perfect sense with this glimpse into their first meeting.
FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT- Some people bemoan when people go back and give ‘origins’.  In this case, King did nothing but add another great piece of literature to her already wonderful collection of tales.

JOHN OSTRANDER: 101 Mistakes

Almost every mistake I’ve ever made as a writer comes down to what I call a “Writing 101” mistake. I’ve been writing for a living for umpty-bum years at this point and you’d think I’d have graduated to at least Writing 102 mistakes, but no. It keeps coming down to the basics.

It usually happens because I think I don’t have to bother with the basics because, after all, I’ve been doing this for umpty-bum years now and it should all be second nature to me. Or because I’m behind in my deadline and don’t have time to bother with all that stuff.

Here’s a helpful clue. When you’re running late, you only have time to do the job right. Take a deep breath, clear out the cobwebs, looks at the basics, and work carefully. It winds up saving you time.

I need to have that pounded into my head with a very large mallet every so often.

What are the basics? To start off it’s the classic questions of who, what, when, where and how. By who I mean not just the characters’ names but who they are – their background, their history, their backstory. Those around a character help define them – who are their friends, their family, who loves ‘em and who hates them.

Think of your own life and who you know. How does that define you? Do you act the same way with your friends as you do with your parents? No, you don’t – they are different roles that you play and your actions adjust accordingly. All the roles are you but they are different aspects of you. Bruce Wayne as Batman is different from Bruce Wayne in public who is different from Bruce Wayne in private. As with you, so with your characters.

What can be defined in many ways; some of the most basic include what does the character do, what is their function in the story – protagonist, antagonist, supporting character? For me, the What also comes down to What Does The Character Want and what are they willing to do to get it. That governs every scene, every line of dialogue. Also, What Is At stake? Life, money, fame, ruin, get the girl, get the guy – what?

When would seem a no-brainer, but taking it for granted is a no-brain mistake. One of the legendary changes that Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams made when they took on Batman was to clear away the muck connected with the campy TV show was to make Batman once again a creature of the night. It was that simple, that elegant, and that basic. When can include time of year, era, the season and so on. The amount of time elapsing also matters. How much later does one scene take place after the previous one – immediately, soon, much later, a few days? You have to know.

Where would also seem obvious but a generic location tells us nothing about the characters or the story; a specific setting reveals a lot. How big or small is the house/apartment/office/coffee shop? What posters or art are on the wall or the desk? Details matter. Look around your own abode; what you choose to put in it says something about you. Same with your characters. My office currently says I’m a lazy slob. It says it pretty loudly, too.

Why does the story happen in the order that it does? Why do the characters make the choices that they make? That’s motivation. More often than not, there is no single motivation and the multiple motivations can be in opposition with one another. Back in college I was seeing this girl and she, teasing me, said that if I had to choose between her and a chocolate cake, I’d have to think hard. I told her, “Nonsense, my dear. You exaggerate. I would always choose you – with infinite regret for having lost that chocolate cake.” See? Conflicted.

We often want more than one thing at a time and often try to have it all and usually fail – because we can’t make a clear choice. Why do people make bad choices? Because conscious and subconscious are both acting upon us and they are rarely in agreement; what the heart wants is not necessarily what the head insists on. As with life, so with your characters.

And then there’s how. How does your character go about getting what s/he wants or think they want? How far are they willing to go to get it? Do they use direct action, indirect action, do they lie, cheat, steal, kill? Are there boundaries they won’t cross or are there just boundaries they don’t think they will cross. What are the specific acts? If the character tries and fails to achieve their goals, do they come back and try again? The story is meant to show us how far the protagonist/antagonist will go to get what they want. It reveals what they need or think they need. Are these acts consistent with who the character is – not just who they thinks they are, but with who they truly are? Who they are dictates how the character acts.

Each one of these – the who, the what, the where, the when, the why and the how – influences the other and as you play one off the other, the character, story, and themes come more clearly into focus.

One last word about mistakes. You are going to make them. I know writers who got frozen because of being afraid to make a mistake. It has to be perfect. Got news for them – nothing is perfect. Everything a mortal can do is flawed somewhere. You just do the best you can at the time.

One of the best teachers I ever had in anything, a man named Harold Lang, advised us to make big mistakes; you learn nothing from small ones. The operative word here, of course, is “learn.” Make new mistakes; don’t keep repeating the old.

Now if I could just remember that for myself. Ah, well; I’m off to make some mistakes.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

Howard Hopkins Remembered

A RETROSPECTIVE FOR HOWARD HOPKINS

This piece was arranged immediately following the announcement of the passing of Howard Hopkins, noted Pulp Writer/Editor.   It is published now as those participating have all completed their thoughts and remembrances.

From Tommy Hancock
My friendship with Howard Hopkins, and I can definitely refer to it as that, was one of emails, keyboards, and computer screens. I’d only seen Howard in the occasional image on his Facebook page, most notably that pic of him leaned against a tree. But it was also a friendship founded on mutuality. We were both writers, we had a massive jones for Pulp and genre fiction in general, and we were both fairly active in pursuing that love for that sort of thing in our own ways. From my side, there was also a basis of reverence in a sense. That may sound corny, but it’s true. There have been a handful of writers I’ve looked up to for a long time, long before I was published or a publisher myself. Authors who I recognized were working in New Pulp before it even had that name attached directly to it. It was a short list initially, mind you one that has grown over time, but of the few names that were on that initial list, Howard Hopkins was one.
As sudden as Howard’s passing was, his effect on me and, as I’ve learned, other writers and I think in the long run on the field of Pulp fiction in general, has been a gradual, ever growin
g positive one. Whether or not he was tackling a known character from the vast library of Pulp and literature, editing the work of others putting their own brand on what has come before, or crafting all new tales to terrify, tantalize, and tease from his own expansive imagination, Howard always brought something extra to what he did.
There was a vitality, a strength, an ever present energy to Howard’s work, to even his email interactions. You could sense it, it was this palpable wave of excitement, of happiness to be digging his way into this work that wasn’t just a job, but more of a life’s work for

him. Our first long extensive correspondence began a few months ago as I was considering stepping up my efforts in the Western genre and, if you didn’t know this already, one of the strongest modern voices in that field as far as I’m concerned is Howard Hopkins. As he outlined for me his thoughts on how I could accomplish that and gave me tips and hints, he also did something else that I’m not even sure he was aware of. These emails, some of them simply a few lines in response to my queries, read to me like adventures all their own. The very sense of Howard’s true passion for the craft of writing and genre work bled through in each and every word. Even though he was looking at moving away from that corner of genre a bit and really wanting to put his effort into his other work, such as the Chloe Files, I still saw the burning need to write, the childlike giddiness of being a part of this field, that Howard had. He poured into his work, into his editing, into his Facebook statuses even.
And that doesn’t even touch the actual work itself. If you’ve never read a Howard Hopkins tale, you’ll find in it all the staples of whatever genre he decided to work in, but there’s more. Howard is in everything he wrote. And I don’t just mean the way that it’s assumed writers write from their own experiences and we pour a little bit of ourselves into the narrative. It’s that energy again, that exuberance, that unbridled love for what he crafted, it’s in everything I’ve ever read that Howard wrote and it’s the reason I kept reading things by Howard after the first one I’d ever read.

Some will think this retrospective is late, that it should have been done as most others were in the days just after Howard’s passing. I don’t apologize for that, it is coming when it was right for it to come for me. Others may see this as maudlin or ‘too much’ from someone who admittedly only knew Howard via the internet and from reading his books. To them, I’ll say this-What better way to know a writer than through that which he believed he was born to write?
Howard is fondly missed and will continue to be a presence in the Pulp world, as his wife has pledged to continue his work. I actually have a small part in that as I’m the editor on a collection that will contain one of the last pieces Howard submitted for publication. In times like this, we often say that an artist’s work will continue to live even after he has passed. How long that work has life, however, depends on how much life its creator gave it at the moment of its birth. Based on that, Howard Hopkins will be around long after the rest of us are gone.
From Martin Powell-
I still cannot bring myself to talk, or write, much about this. It is a profound, unexpected tragedy. Howard and I had known each other for several years and he was like a brother to me. We shared our ups and downs, and our thrills and frustrations. I last spoke with him Wednesday evening, a day before he died. How horrible. How unfair. Howard was a tireless professional and a genuine gentleman. It was a privilege to be his friend. He was one of those rarest of men, a real “good guy”, as loyal and true as the heroes he so vividly brought to life on the page. I’ll never stop missing him.
Martin Powell

Primeval Volume Three

primeval_vol3_bd-300x348-1169642Thank goodness the wicked Helen did not bring about the end of mankind and civilization as we knew it. This meant the characters of ITV’s Primeval could come back for a fresh go-round. The show took a breather after the third season ended in 2009 and came back in seven and six episode arcs, making for abbreviated fourth and fifth seasons respectively and they are now available as a combined third volume in either standard DVD or, for the first time, as a Blu-ray option from BBC Video.

I find myself enjoying the series more for the characters than the writing, which either leaves holes as big as the anomalies the heroes deal with or are overly convoluted, leaving me wishing for a happy middle ground.

primeval_s_4_cast-300x205-3423973Season three ended with three of our heroes – Connor Temple (Andrew Lee Potts), Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt), and Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) – trapped in different eras of the past while life back at the ARC continued, presuming them lost but not dead. Still, the near destruction of reality meant a rethinking of the operation which allowed the creators – Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines – to retool the show a bit, mostly for the better. (more…)

To Kill a Mockingbird

Few 20th century novels have been as warmly regarded as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Currently a perennial work taught in high schools around the nation, it was an acclaimed, award-winning work when released in 1961 as the southern author tried to recapture her childhood life in a small Southern town. I enjoyed the book as a student, then a parent, and now that I’m studying to become a teacher, recognize it as a great piece of literature and great teaching tool.

She wrote in 1964, “I would like to leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world. I hope…to chronicle something that seems to be very quickly going down the drain. This is small-town middle-class southern life as opposed to Gothic, as opposed to Tobacco Road, as opposed to plantation life.”

It was a story of rights and responsibilities, tolerance, fear of the unknown, race relations and many other issues. When first released, it kicked up quite a bit of dust, especially from people who felt maligned by her glaring spotlight on the small town and its small-minded people. But most everyone else embraced it. (more…)