A Blow to Childhood

I'm sure all of you have heard by now, the cinematic world lost one of the greats this week. Robin Williams was found dead on Monday, a death that shocked many. A man known for making people laugh, it's hard to know that he struggled with depression himself, a depression that eventually lead to the end of a life that touched many. 

Celebrity deaths often make a huge impact; however, as a friend of mine pointed out on Monday, this one holds a very specific kind of pain for many of my generation because, in a way, we grew up with Robin Williams. He was my childhood hero. The genie we all desperately wanted to befriend. The housekeeper that made us laugh and the teacher that made us think. I still remember every word to the "Batty Rap" from Fern Gully and long to play Jumanjii, the scariest board game known to man. And I will never forget watching him in one of my absolute favorite childhood movies, Hook. 

For the most part I try to avoid the celebrity craze, but losing Robin Williams feels a little like losing a friend. Or at the very least, a piece of my childhood. 

R.I.P. Robin Williams (1951-2014)

And though it didn't stir the media quite the same, I'd like to take a moment to honor Lauren Bacall as well. I was dismayed to learn that she died last night from natural causes. She was a beautiful woman, remembered for her magnificent performances in To Have and Have Not and Key Largo along with her late husband, the great Humphrey Bogart. On a personal note, my parents loved her so much that they actually named me after her. It always made me laugh a little, because she was born Betty Joan Perskey, but my name remains Lauren nevertheless. 

These two wonderful actors will surely be missed. 

Guardians of the Galaxy

I FINALLY got to see Guardians of the Galaxy (twice as a matter of fact), and It. Was. Amazing. The cast was absolutely superb (who would have ever thought Chris Pratt would be so phenomenal in this roll?), the musical choices, spot on. And the one liners, wow!

But more importantly, this film shows us, as so many have before, that the geniuses at Marvel know exactly what they're doing. Where DC Comics scrambles around making one blunder after another (with, of course, the notable exception of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight series), Marvel learned from their 2003 Hulk flop and recognized that the key to cinematic success was collaboration and cohesion.

For it's a cohesive Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) we're seeing now. No longer does each series stand alone . . . Thor blends together with Iron Man, ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reacts to the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and so on. All these films and TV shows are part of a intricate and complex world that Marvel execs have determined to bring together in one cinematic cosmos. And how fortuitous, they already had a vehicle in place that could blend the many different threads together into one complex fabric -- the Avengers team. 

The use of the Avengers allows MCU to delve into a vast array of different comic book superheroes while still maintaining an overarching storyline. Iron Man, Captain America . . . all roads lead to the ultimate endgame, Avengers 3. And that's where Guardians of the Galaxy takes it's place, giving us the first (non-post credit) glimpse of the final film's antagonist. 

Basically, Marvel is a genius. And with their Disney merger in 2009, they've become even stronger. If only they could get Fox and Sony on board, MCU could take over the world!

Insecure Writer's Support Group

It's the first Wednesday of the month and time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post! If you're an insecure writer or just looking to give some support to those of us that are, check us out here. And as always, a HUGE shout out to our fearless Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh for starting this group and giving us all so much support. Check him out here. 

This month I am facing a a new dilemma. I'm several chapters into a a redraft of an old story, and it's humming along fairly well. But to be honest, I'm just not feeling all that invested in the project. And to make matters worse, there's another project that's been running around my head the past few days, but I'm struggling to get anything on paper. I'm feeling a little defeated, but I really need to keep working. And more to the point, I need to make a choice between these two projects. Any advice? 

Good luck to all you other insecure writers out there!

Monday Movie Marathons: Disasters

Last night I saw a preview for the upcoming Into the Storm movie, which has the potential to be an awesome new disaster movie. As a huge fan of the genre, I'm really looking forward to it. And in anticipation, I thought I'd post a Monday Movie Marathon blog on, you guessed it, disaster movies. This list could just go on and on, but here are just a few of my favorites to get the ball rolling. 

Disaster Movies:

What about you guys? Any favorite Disaster movies I didn't include? 

World War I Centenary

Exactly one hundred years ago today, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in a political move aimed at breaking off part of the Austria-Hungarian empire to combine with Yugoslavia. In response, the Austria-Hungarian empire issued an ultimatum which, going unmet, resulted in the start of The Great War, or as we know it today, World War I. 

There are of course many tragedies I could speak of in this post, or statistics, or political alliances whose effects we can still see to this day. But whenever I think of World War I, I can't help but think of the Queen Victoria, one of my favorite historical figures, and what she might have thought about the war had she lived to see it. 

Monarch to the United Kingdom and Empress of India, Queen Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert, in 1840 and together they had nine children. As they grew older, her children went on to marry into nearly every prominent royal family across the face of Europe, essentially linking them together and earning Victoria the nickname "Grandmother of Europe". 

At the start of 1914, her various grandchildren included King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, consort to Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Thus, these three first cousins led the nations at the heart of the war. 

How strange would it be to declare war on a closely related relative like that? I think of my own cousins, the children I grew up with, shared holidays with. Of course, I'm an inconsequential nobody who leads nothing, let alone an entire nation. But I think it'll always seem strange to me that family members declared war against one another. And I'll probably always wonder what Queen Victoria, famed for her "Close your eyes and think of England" comment, would have had to say about it. 

But for today, one hundred years to the day since the start of the first war set on the global scale, remember Queen Victoria, her many descendants, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, and above all, the many who died from July 28, 1914 to the end of the war in 1918. 

Transformers 4: Or Why Too Much is as Bad as Too Little

Every author has at some point or other experienced the curse of the writer, otherwise known as writer's block. That soul sucking phenomenon when the literary well runs dry. As a writer, I've always feared this dreaded curse, considering it the worst possible scenario. However, after finally getting the chance to watch Transformers: Age of Extinction last night, I realized there is something perhaps even worse. 

Too many ideas. 

I've always been a little critical of Michael Bay movies. For all his excellent taste in franchises, the man simply cannot get past his love of overwrought action sequences and short shorts. But after watching the latest Transformers flick, I have officially lost all respect. There were certainly aspect of the movie I enjoyed (namely Stanley Tucci), and I thought the first half was at least decent. But then came the fatal case of too many ideas. 

[Spoilers Ahead:] The story was all over the place. There were unnecessary characters who simply disappeared. Superfluous explanations for statutory romances. Dinobots, which despite being aesthetically interesting, felt out of place and would perhaps have been utilized in the next movie. And far too many villains (Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Megatron/Galvatron, bounty hunter Lockdown, and the somewhat confusing "Creators"). 

All in all, I counted four different plot lines in a movie which, if edited, could have had real potential. It just goes to show that sometimes having too many ideas can be far more detrimental to a story than too few. 

Life Off the Page

The other day my friend and I were talking about a favorite TV show of ours (as it is neither science fiction nor action oriented, I'm keeping the shows identity under wraps to protect my street cred). Having concluded it's finale several years ago, I wondered aloud where the characters were now. You know, what they were doing. How their lives turned out post credits. 

My friend looked at me with a strange expression on her face. "They're fictional," she said to me. "They don't have lives post credit." And I guess to her they don't. Characters live and die on the screen, and when the picture fades and the words The End are read, they cease to exist. 

But for me it's something else entirely. Characters are real. They exist in a reality different from my own. They age, they change. The hero lives out his time on earth after the villain is slain and the victory celebrated, perhaps a little nostalgic for his battle days. The new bride and groom, having made it through all the rom-com hurdles leading up to their wedding, settle down, buy a house in the suburbs, raise a couple of kids and put away money for their eventual retirement. 

They live. They live off the page and screen. And I wonder about them and their lives in the same way I wonder about that girl I was friends with in high school but lost touch with somewhere along the way. And I hope they're happy, wherever they are. 

Anyone else feel the same way about their favorite characters? Ever wonder how many kids Belle and Beast had? If Luke Skywalker holidays with Leia and Han when they're not rebuilding the Republic?