SKYFALL

Sitting in the theater, as James Bond drove a motorcycle across rooftops in Turkey, I got goosebumps.  Since THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, I've seen every Bond move in the the theater.  It's one of those traditions I keep, no matter what.

In fact, I really can't rate a Bond movie until I've seen it more than once.  Something about the experience keeps me from being rational.  Hell, I even liked DIE ANOTHER DAY when I saw it in the theater.  I defended it when my friends said it was awful.  "They are trying to build invisible cars," I said.  "That's a realistic gadget."

Um.  Then I watched it again.

So, it is with trepidation that I talk about SKYFALL.  The fact that it's getting good reviews buoys my opinion. 

The fact that I could spot the plotholes from a mile away buoys me.

I feel confident in saying "This is a damn good Bond movie."

It's not the best.  It's not even the best Daniel Craig Bond film.  But it works in melding the grittiness of CASINO ROYALE with the Bond formula.  It works--sort of--as a revenge thriller.

And if there are plot holes, Craig, Judi Dench, and Javier Bardem make up for it.  They pull out all the stops for a great performance.  This movie does a great job of re-setting the deck chairs of the series.

I can't wait to see it again. 

So, yeah, as I sat in the dark theater, I got goosebumps.  Bond movies aren't just movies to me.  They're life experiences...  I can tell you I saw LICENSE TO KILL while on vacation in Florida, my parents worried because it was rated PG-13, and we weren't 13 yet. 

I saw THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH 2.5 times in the theater, because after I saw it the first time, my brother wanted to see it.  We went and had to leave because of a fire drill.  Had to go back to watch it the next week.

I saw this one with a friend Sunday morning on the IMAX screen.  And I couldn't stop smiling.

Bond is back.  Check it out*.

**All right, it made millions, odds are this post is redundant because you saw it already.

Why F*ckload of Scotch Tape may be the bastard child of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

by Jedidiah Ayres

In the wake of the recent DVD release and film festival screenings of Julian Grant’s underground crime flick F*ckload of Scotch Tape I’ve read a bunch of reviews that more or less fall into two camps – heralding it as a triumph of small-budget/big-vision nastiness with a surprising element of heart, or as just one of the worst, most unpleasant movies the critic has ever seen. The film centers around a hapless thug, a terrible crime and an increasingly bloody scramble for a bag of cash – it’s also a musical, an element that is as divisive with the critics as the unrelenting awfulness in the characters, and the atmosphere of moral rot.

I can’t take any credit or blame for the music, performed by songsmith Kevin Quain, (though I can assure you that film has made a fan of his out of me), but I will shoulder my share of responsibility for the character and plot as it is based upon two of my own short stories ("A Fuckload of Scotch Tape" and "Mahogany & Monogamy").

Among some of the more thoughtful reviews, I’ve come across nuggets of insight about my work that have deserved a moment’s reflection, as well as many off-base and (mostly) inaccurate dismissals of my contribution from the film’s league of detractors (one of my favorite disses it’s received went something like “If you like voice-over and homophobia, you’ll love this film.”)

But honestly, you can send your flowers and mail bombs back in time addressed to the late-great Sam Peckinpah. More than anything else, it’s probably his own nasty, divisive masterpiece/greatest-artistic-failure Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia that can’t escape the damning results of a paternity test.

Fifteen years into my obsession with Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, I’m still not finished ripping er, drawing inspiration from it, and I’m not the least ashamed to say that I do. Nope, I rip that shit off every chance I get and when I do, it’s the best stuff that I write.

Which is not necessarily to say, Peckinpah would recognize, claim or love his bastard. I won’t presume. Hell, even I have to squint to make out my own familial resemblance to the film at times, (as Julian created plenty of the adapted story himself), but in the wake of reading these many reviews, and squinting myself into farsightedness, it’s the Alfredo Garcia likeness has come into starker relief.

When we first meet Benny (the protagonist imbued with such amazing loser-charisma by Warren Oates), he’s playing piano at a hole in-the-wall Mexican cantina. His back-story isn’t told, but the lines are spaced plenty wide to afford an unobstructed view of the large print betwixt. He’s a gringo who has run out of options back home (apparently even Tijuana lies on the far side of a scorched bridge or two in his rearview), his inamorata appears to be at least a part-time prostitute, he wears a clip-on tie, and sunglasses indoors… at night… in bed.

There’s a significant disconnect between his self-image, and the reality of his nature and capabilities. He seems determined to cast himself as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, but, it’s the loser Bogart character Fred C. Dobbs from Treasure of the Sierra Madre that gets name-checked by a condescending heavy in the scene where we first meet Benny – tipping Benny, and the audience, off to the fact that Benny’s act isn’t fooling anybody. But Benny is equipped with powerful self-delusion, and lets the slight pass unacknowledged, and that type of willful blindness continues throughout the film.

In fact, the rest of the picture is a non-stop assault on Benny’s masculine ideal, which he grudgingly concedes by attrition, and even though, or perhaps because, he is emasculated at every turn, and by everybody he encounters from Alfredo the deceased lothario and Elita the survivor to Kris Kristofferson the rapist and the gringo mercenaries who insult him openly, Benny carries on with the quest that will cost him his soul.

Indecisive and weak-willed when it counts, insecure, always reserving action for when he’s out of options, he fucks over justice for cowardice, revenge and self-destruction, and passes up love for convenience. Integrity for self-preservation and self-loathing.

And yet… we care for Benny.

I do, don’t you?

During his many opportunities to walk away from the path he’s stumbling down, his desperation and panic are barely contained, and his pain is so evident… He’s so utterly lost - it just breaks that lump of coal I have the good humor to call a heart.

He’s a loser, and helpless, but far from harmless. Once he’s out of options, he’ll play that final card, his capacity for physical violence, and he’ll pound that note hard and with conviction - his final avenue of expression - like the last key left on a piano.

It’s all leading to that eventually, but as long as that titular object can evade him, Benny’s got a chance. Elita knows it, Benny knows it, and we do too – which is why we’re rooting for Alfredo Garcia’s head to remain out of reach – as soon as it’s within his grasp, Benny’s finished. He will destroy himself.

The characters at the center of my short stories have cast themselves as the central figures in a story much larger than they are, and both take severe actions based on twisted instincts and bad information. They are as confused and frustrated about their place in the world, and in their masculinity and sexuality as Benny is. They construct identities and images for themselves that they fail to actualize, and if given half a chance they will fuck things up every time. Benji and Ethan (from "Fuckload of Scotch Tape" and "Mahogany & Monogamy" respectively) are fumbling after the same object, to which they’ve both (as Benny has) attached inappropriate symbolic weight.

Just as Benny has, in Elita, the love of a woman he doesn’t deserve, and whose character he will disparage, in comically un-just outbursts of moral outrage, intended to distract from his own defects, each of my creations has their own loving one, of whom they will make terrible assumptions, and quickly curse - Chuck, the father figure for Benji and Trish the object of desire for Ethan.

Also like Benny, both Benji and Ethan, having pushed away every good thing and human connection by the end of their story will find themselves haunted by their consciences and conversant with them, on some level, through unlikely intermediaries. Benny spends the third act of Peckinpah’s film driving dusty back roads, unloading and explaining his psychosis to a severed head in a canvas sack on the passenger seat, while (especially in the film) Benji’s physical brokenness, the ever-bloodied nose, and the discolored busted arm - bound with a fuckload of scotch tape – which grows more foul and infected mirroring his inward state, while Ethan (in the short story) hears his Greek chorus in the hair metal ballads on the radio and blasting from the strip club’s loudspeakers, and surrenders himself to the fates.

At the end of the stories I hope that you can feel a sorrow for them, though I doubt anyone will argue that they don’t deserve what they get. Ultimately, like Benny, they consistently fail to recognize grace when it’s revealed, and will always abandon salvation-offered for damnation-earned.


***

Jedidiah Ayres is the author of A F*ckload of Shorts and co-editor of the Noir at the Bar anthologies. He keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.

The state of the publishing union

By: Joelle Charbonneau

In the last couple of weeks, there have been some interesting developments in the world of publishing.  I admit, that in the grand scheme of events (Hurricane Sandy, the snow that hit the north east and the presidential election) the publishing news hasn’t been on the front burner. And it still isn’t.  There are bigger issues at the moment.  However, since this is a writer blog, I figured I’d take a look at some of the interesting news to hit the publishing waves. 

First, as our own Steve Weddle chatted about, Amazon has been busy taking reviews for books off their website in an unusual manner.  If you are an author and you have reviewed the book of someone you know – your review could be deleted.  Not all reviews by all authors have been removed.  Just some.  Which is frankly odd.  Either you allow authors to review books or not.  Remove them all or don’t remove any of them.  Personally, I’m not sure how they could identify all the reviewers who are also authors, so I’m on the camp of leave the old reviews up and go from there. 

Do I think all reviews should be honest?  Sure.  Do I, like Steve, think reviews with disclosure of whether you know the person you are reviewing would be more honest.  Yep.  But Amazon has made it known that LOTS of reviews for a book help bump up the visibility of that book and positively affects the book’s ranking.  So, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some authors and their street teams are using the reviewing tool to help boost the chance of their book being discovered by more people.  I am told that the “LIKE” button and book tags also bump a book’s visibility.  I’m not sure if Amazon plans on dealing with LIKES and tags in the same way they are dealing with reviews, but I think it will be interesting to watch and see.

Another book story has been the disappointing sales for the big titles that have been released this fall by the traditional publishing arm of Amazon.  They bid high and hard for a number of titles, but due to the lack of stores carrying the books, many titles have underperformed.  Perhaps that is the reason for the earnings stories we have been seeing where Barnes and Noble has actually increased their earnings and Amazon’s earning have declined.  Got me. 

Third, if you have been paying attention at all you will have heard about the Random House/Penguin merger.  If it goes through, the big six publishers will become the big 5.  Or maybe the medium 4 and the REALLY big 1.  Regardless of what they will be called, the merger will cause some ripples in the publishing industry.  Imprints could be consolidated.  Some editors and staff may no longer have a home.  Authors could find the editor they love shifted to a different department.  And that’s just the beginning of the internal workings of a merger.  However, I have seen speculation that the consolidation of these two publishers – two publishers with the largest mass market programs – is designed to combat the ever-growing power that is Amazon.  (Funny how that name keeps cropping up in publishing news!)  A publisher with so many books listed on the retailing giant’s website could possibly have more negotiating power.  I have even seen it argued that it would be much harder for the retailing giant to pull buy buttons for so many titles without causing a major disruption to their clients and possibly directing discontent from those clients to themselves.  That argument is made more interesting after the glitch that was seen Thursday night to Friday morning.  A glitch which made the buy buttons for a lot of big 6 titles to disappear.  Maybe it was an honest glitch.  Technology is not always my friend, so I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.  But I do find it interesting that only those 6 publishers were impacted by the technological bug.

Regardless, I find the state of publishing fascinating and would curious to hear your take on the news we’ve been seeing.  What do you think is next for publishing?  What do you think the book world will look like in ten years?  I’ll put the observations in a time capsule and dig it up in 2022 to see if you are right!