3 Silly Questions Redux

So, you guys remember how the ever awesome Steven Luna Author of the Joe Vampire book series, co-purveyor of the Dumb White Husband blog, witty twitter person, and all around cool guy took time out of his busy schedule to answer three silly questions? Do you guys also remember how he hadn't seen The Goonies in reeeeeeaaaaaalllly long time and so didn't have a real answer for my favorite character question? 

Well, I remedied that. I sent a DVD copy for him and his family to enjoy and they did just that. Steven took time out of his busy schedule again to answer a few more follow up questions: 

My Questions: So, now that you've watched The Goonies, what is your favorite character in The Goonies and why?

Follow-up question: What's your favorite line in the movie? My favorite, even though its not uttered by my favorite character is "I can't believe this. It's like I'm babysitting but I'm not getting paid." It's so quotable and it has so many uses in every day life! A close second is from Data: "I'm wondering what is in that bag." But the movie has so many great lines that its hard to know where to begin.

Follow-up to that follow-up: Any other insights you want to add now that your a newly minted Goonies convert?

Steven's Answer: Okay...without question, my favorite Goonie is Chunk. He's funny and plucky, a lovable kid who has a great sense of himself. And he makes a connection with Sloth. Anyone who reaches out to the underdog is tops in my book. I think we'll need a second watching to determine a favorite line, but my favorite scene is the one where he and Sloth share the candy bar. There's something kind of gross and special about it that got me right in the feelings. The best part? My kids loved it as much as I did. They'll have no problem with repeated watchings, I'm sure.

[Ed. Note: Your favorite character is my favorite character! That is so rad. You're now inducted in the Chunk fan Club. In Chunk we Trust! Now, all we've got to do now is the Truffle Shuffle handshake and I'll let you into the clubhouse where we'll celebrate by eating Baby Ruths and telling fantastical lies. Please, no blenders allowed. ]

About the Author

Steven Luna was relatively quiet when he was born; that all changed once he learned to speak. Now? Good luck getting him to shut up. He’s the author of JOE VAMPIRE and THE AFTERLIFE, the first two books in the JOE VAMPIRE THREELOGY. Book three, THE NEW PARANORMAL, is due in late summer 2013. 

Website: http://thestevenluna.wordpress.com

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Vampire-ebook/dp/B00736WAZW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340715824&sr=8-1&keywords=joe+vampire

GoodReads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5757470.Steven_Luna

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/thestevenluna

Twitter: @joevampireblog

Trifecta Challenge: Freak

This week's Trifecta Challenge was the word freak:

FREAK (noun)

1

a : a sudden and odd or seemingly pointless idea or turn of the mind

b : a seemingly capricious action or event

2

archaic : a whimsical quality or disposition

3

: one that is markedly unusual or abnormal: as

a : a person or animal having a physical oddity and appearing in a circus sideshow

b slang (1) : a sexual deviate (2) : a person who uses an illicit drug

c : hippie

d : an atypical postage stamp usually caused by a unique defect in paper (as a crease) or a unique event in the manufacturing process (as a speck of dirt on the plate) that does not produce a constant or systematic effect

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I’m a freak, an anomaly, an accident that wasn’t intended. I’ve accepted this as my place in the universe. Most everybody who has ever encountered me has considered me damaged and not worth much at all. I’ve been sneered at, a nose has been turned up at me a time or two. I’ve been passed around and discarded more times than I care to admit. That can damage somebody’s psyche just a bit.

It’s not my fault I was made this way. I had no say in the matter. If I had I definitely wouldn’t have been this. I didn’t choose this. And if I had? If I had made the conscious decision to be this way, would that have really made a difference? You’ll think what you want to think about who I am. I can’t ever change your mind.

And I’m okay with that because someone, just one person saw past what everybody else saw as something that was wrong with me, and saw that thing as special. Then I started to see it too. Then I believed it. That very thing that people saw as ugly was the what made me unique, different, and in its own special way, beautiful. I got put on display for the world to see and thrived through my defect, because of it.

Call me what you want to call me. I don’t care anymore. Because I know the truth, I can see it plainly. Call me all the names they’ve ever called, an error, a freak, an oddity. I may be an EFO, but that makes me valuable. I know my worth now and so does he. 

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So I took this challenge a little literally. I decided that the narrator of the piece should be a stamp that is considered a freak (definition 3d). Stamp freaks are errors in the printing process, I just learned. Some of them can be quite rare and valuable, but only if they go through the actual mail first.  I decided to use this as an allegory for any one who is devalued by our society.  People with genetic conditions, disorders, cerebral palsy, shunts, or even gay people who have been told they are limited, or not worth anyone's time, need to have or should have someone in their lives who know they are special and loves them for who they are. If you don't have that in your life, call me and I'll tell you you're worth something, give you a hug or tell you that you're loved.I'm a mother. I've got an endless supply of motherly love that would needs to be shared.

Beautiful Creatures Movie Review

There are some movies I’m never going to talk the husband into so if I’m ever going to watch them, it will have to be on my own. The time in which to take in a movie by myself has dwindled from slim to none and slim took a bus out of town the second my daughter became an official toddler. But recently I made time to watch Beautiful Creatures.

Let me start this review by saying that a movie like Beautiful Creatures is fodder for someone like me. It has all the makings of a perfect little guilty pleasure. YA adult paranormal fiction? Check. Based on a beloved book series? Check. Likeable, interesting leads? Check. A great cast of side characters including a Academy Awards winner Jeremy Irons and all around bad ass Emma Thompson? Check and Check.

But the sum of its parts didn’t quite add up for me as much as I hoped it would. And I can’t quite figure out why. I can’t pinpoint if it was some of the characterization or if it was the story itself, but the emotional heft wasn’t there, as much as I was hoping it would be. I don’t think it was the fault of the two leads. I think Alden Ehrenreich was absolutely perfect as Ethan and I think the character of Ethan was just the right mix of teenaged ennui and literary hero mash-ups. There were a couple of times where I caught Alice Englert trying too hard, but she still did a really passable job in the role and the chemistry between the two was palpable. Is it wrong that I could watch hours of the two of them making googly eyes and whispering to each other?

But when the focus moves off of them, the film loses its momentum. And I’m really not sure who is to blame. Thompson and her over the top accent? Emmy Rossum and her not even played for laughs Siren routine? Margo Martindale? (Kidding. I could never blame Margo Martindale for anything.)  Thomas Mann? You know what, after Project X I hold him responsible for damn near everything. Why did Fun Size suck? Thomas Mann. Why did Craig try to kill himself in It’s Kind of a Funny Story? Thomas Mann. Global Warming? Thomas Mann.  But he was the least of this movie's problems, I think.

I get the sense that the movie may have glazed over big chunks of exposition/plot from the book just to get where it was going. I’m not sure what those sections are, and I’m almost willing to break my one rule of book-to-movie adaptations (the rule is – never read the book after you’ve seen the movie) just to confirm that there was indeed something significant missing in translation.

It has some real, tremendous moments. Come for the meet cute, stay for teenage romance, leave when Emmy Rossum starts slutting it up. B-

Four Movie Reviews and a Funeral

I kid with this title, well with the latter, not with the former. I totally intend to review four movies, but there will be no funeral that I need attend or review, at least none that I know of for the present moment, knock on wood.

So yeah, I saw four movies this weekend and one of them didn’t involve OnDemand and actually involved my butt in a theatre seat for the first time in six months. I know, exciting. I’ma review them from my most favorite to my least.

Iron Man 3 – You know the broad strokes by now. I mean, the movie’s been out for awhile, and the internet doesn’t have a filter, so you likely have run into a movie review or two by now. I’ll spare you the longwinded review (especially since I no longer have a movie bladder and had a large diet coke so I had go to the bathroom twice and I’m missing big chunks of the movie…I know. Sorry for the overshare) and boil it down to brass tacks: 1) James Badge Dale is as awesome as advertised. 2) Even more awesome than him was Ben Kingsley and the bait and switch going on with his character. Freaking genius! 3) Even more awesome than THAT was Dale Dickey in the world’s tiniest/most awesome cameo. She deserved better than that bit part ya’ll. She rocked it, but still. She’s starting to stack up Beth Grant levels of admiration in me. She deserves all the parts ever. 4) And the most awesome of all? That Kid. Jesus that kid was freaking perfect in every way. I just wanted to pick him up, tuck him in my pocket and take him home. The back and forth with RDJ was so much fun. I could’ve used a whole m

ovie of that with fifteen more minutes of Dale Hickey. B+

Killing Them Softly – I talked the hubbie into this one mostly on the strength of My New Plaid Pants’ review, because he is my bell weather for all things movies/pop culture. And he was not wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, because it was perfect showcase for all sorts of character actors, and a lot of them came out of nowhere. I mean Max Casella! Max 'Newsies' Casella! He had a perfect scene, but I was distracted trying to figure out who he was and it came to almost as violent as the kick in the ribs he delivered on poor Ray Liotta. But there was a lot of talking that didn't got anywhere, which I understand is part of the point, but it was distracting nonetheless. James Gandolfini's role seemed pointless and didn’t go anywhere. I could’ve used 30 more minutes of Brad Pitt and Richard Jenkins just talking in a car over his little pointless insertion into the movie. I understand that his presence was to flip things around, to be that one thread that never went anywhere, but you know what really would've flipped things around? Scoot McNairy shirtless, alot, for no reason. There, problem solved.  Also, Scoot McNairy has got to become a band name somehow. The Scoot McNairys? The McNairy Scoot? Scoot his McNairys? Okay, I know I’m reaching, but the band would be almost as cool as the guy himself.  B

Jack Reacher – I should’ve subtitled this post Richard Jenkins film festival, because this was the second movie this weekend I watched with him in it. And let me just state that Richard Jenkins is never the wrong answer. I almost always smile when he's on screen. But with that said, I liked this role the least of the two, not that it matters, because he was barely in it. Who was in it was Tom Cruise, in yet another installment of Tom Cruise the movie, which is not a bad way to spend two hours especially if those two hours also include Micheal Raymond-James (yum!), Jai Courtney (double yum! Although, with all the Die Hard jokes we were making, poor Jai can't win for losing), Rosamund Pike, a creepy Werner Herzog, and Robert Duvall at his craggiest, which for the record, is how I like my Robert Duvall. But the mystery, while resolved, just kind of stayed a mystery in that the motivation for the bad guy was never fully explained. It might just be me, but I needed more resolution than that. B-

Red Dawn – Jesus with this movie. I mean, Lord was this movie not good. It wasn’t horrible, and it did seem to have a sense of itself, what it was trying to be, but what it was trying to be was mediocre to begin with. And I can’t fault the actors, well I can’t fault most of them. Hemsworth tried and pretty much carried the movie the entire time. And I can never dislike Hutcherson in a role, even if that role and the movie he’s in is terrible (Cirque Du Freak, I’m looking at you), but he didn't even have a part to sink his teeth into. But Josh Peck! Gawd! And I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I saw The Wackness and I liked it, I even liked him in it, fercryingoutloud which is not something I thought I could do in regards to the kid who played Robe (yes, I’ve seen Max Keeble's Big Move, multiple times, without kids. Shut up! I don’t need to explain my art to you Warren!). But he was so over-matched in just about every way in this movie as to make the whole thing laughable. And there were so many dead plot threads, they probably equaled the number of dead bodies they created in the movie. It was ridiculous. I could go on and on, about its many flaws, and definitely its implausibilities, but what’s the point? I’ll just say that I’ve never been happier to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan show up in a movie in my life. Now, what that says for the movie is up to interpretation. C-

Trifecta Challenge: Appear

“You’ve never made any promises to me and I don’t expect one now, especially if it’s one you’re going to break.” There was emotion in Ariana’s voice he’d never heard before. Sadness was not an emotion that would appear on her face much if at all and he didn’t know how to react. “But if I mean anything to you, stand your ground, or at least try to.”

“What does that even mean?” Ben’s anger at the situation kept him from saying anything further. Finally, they’d made it to the gravel drive his car’s GPS had indicated, which meant the end of the long journey but, he was starting to suspect, the beginning of another one. He threw the car in park a few yards from her childhood home, a dusty ranch house in the middle of nowhere as the sun set, casting the sky in cinematic violets and pinks.

“Please, if you love me, stand your ground.” The tears came streaming down her face again as she left. He was a violent mixture of emotions as he exited the car, trailing after her.

“Well, there you are,” a lilting voice he’d recognized from phone conversations with Ariana’s mother rang through the air. He was at once comforted and unsettled by the voice. He came to find her streaming out of the door, slow for a split second and then coming at him at a dead run. A glint of something long and shiny in her hands caught his eye. She lifted it above her head and let out a primal scream, her face a contortion of fury and anger. His whole body tensed as if to sprint but then he felt it, Ariana’s hand on the back of his arm, her fingers echoing her voice, stand your ground. He didn’t budge an inch. If this was his death, he could think of worse ways to go and if it was a test, it was some damn test.

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The above story is for the Weekly Trifecta Challenge:

This week's word is:

APPEAR
1a : to be or come in sight
  b : to show up
2: to come formally before an authoritative body
3: to have an outward aspect : seem

This is from a larger story I'm working on and I might use for more prompts. I took me awhile to whittle it down to under 333 words, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Enjoy! This part of the story is actually part of a much bigger conversation, so you didn't get to read the beginning, but I think it still stands on its own.