One day, Not-A-Good-Movie strolled into a costume shop and flipped through the racks looking for something to wear. There, nestled in between The-Vietnam-War and The-Holocaust, it found a cute little number that fit perfectly—9/11. At the checkout register, Not-A-Good-Movie stumbled on the pièce de résistance for its new costume—a golden plastic badge imprinted with the words BASED ON TRUE EVENTS—and it was even on sale. So Not-A-Good-Movie slipped into the 9/11-Movie costume, pinned on its TRUE-EVENTS plastic badge, whipped open the door to the costume shop, and stepped out onto Critical Avenue, where all the cars honked and their drivers cheered at the sight of a 9/11-Movie-Based-On-True-Events. Not-A-Good-Movie smiled and waved and skipped off in full masquerade.

 First, to the ruse—which I admire and admonish from behind the wheel of my psychedelic 1968 Chevy Van, where the windows don’t roll down and the horn only works when I thrust all my weight into it. It’s from this vantage point I notice that True-9/11-Movie is wearing bright orange Crocs that clearly clash with the rest of its ensemble. Now where have I see those Crocs before? It’s coming to me. Ah, yes, Not-A-Good-Movie wears shoes just like that all the time! And as meddling kids are prone to do, I was about to rip off the costume and reveal the imposter’s true identity when I saw the badge. ZOINKS! Trouble ahead, gang! But never fear, I will do just about anything for a Scooby-Snack.

 I’ll just have to be extra careful about pointing out how the brutal torture in Zero Dark Thirty looked more like a gym-class depantsing with an inside-out version of the old “ask a guy a question, dunk his head in the bathtub, rinse, and repeat,” because water-boarding is a true event you know—seriously. I have to tread lightly because 9/11 is charged with emotion, and there’s a debate about the ethics of using torture to gain crucial evidence, and it was nominated for Oscars, and… Ah, screw it.

 Zero Dark Thirty is not a good movie, and here’s why:

 The main character, Maya, is a 2-D cardboard cutout of the typical Hollywood female protagonist. She is a pretty, young, awesome-at-her-job, “girl,” tossed into a story bleeding bull-headed testosterone to the quiet snickers of “she’s just a girl.” And how do all movies with Maya clones end? You got it, with a big fat “I told you so.”

 Maya’s character is a fearless, friendless, humorless, sexless, emotionless CIA agent hell-bent on catching the 9/11-masterminding, American-killing, real-life, Islamic extremist symbolizing the abstract concept of “terror,” which the most powerful country on earth has been at war with for a decade. Maya is a machine that’s been on an “I’m 100% certain,” mission for ten years. She’s kind of like the Terminator—except the Terminator is likeable—and an actual character—and, thank the gods, Maya won’t “be back.”

 The director must have known Maya wasn’t likeable because she somehow made room in the nearly three hour movie dramatizing a three minute event for a humanizing scene at a cafe that went a little something like this:

 JESSICA (the not-as-young, not-as-pretty, not-as-awesome-at-her-job, woman that was snubbed by Maya): Hey, Maya, did you bang your boss yet?

 MAYA: No! I work with him.

 JESSICA: You really should let loose and have some fun.

 MAYA: Mmmhmmm. [SIPS WINE]

 JESSICA: Do you have a boyfriend?

 MAYA: Uh…

 JESSICA: Any friends at all?

 [UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE]

 <DIRECTOR’S NOTE: God, just blow up the damned cafe!>

 [CAFE BLOWS UP]

So the director gave up on helping viewers relate to the protagonist. Happens all the time. At least she gave us one salty little tear in the last scene, one droplet of human emotion showing some sort of life-changing growth, right? Nope. It’s a drop of oil leaking from a robot that has served its purpose and doesn’t know what’s next. Maya is not a character. Or is she? The movie’s BASED ON TRUE EVENTS after all. Real-life Maya, if you’re really out there, I’m sorry—I know being a cyborg sucks.

I’ve been safe so far because I know Maya’s a falsie. Now to tread on ground I haven’t swept for mines. So I apologize in advance to anyone out there that may have actually lived through the possibly-true scenes I’m about to mock—actually taking part in a conveniently implausible, completely cliche, Hollywoodized event must be excruciating.

1. “Ok everyone. This guy claims he’s a mole and he sent this video of himself talking to bad guys to prove it. I think he’s legit, so let’s gather all our top guys and stand by our headquarters tent to greet him. Now we don’t want to spook him so let’s tell all the guards to turn their backs and open the twenty gates so two unknown Arabic men can drive their dusty, oddly low-riding, Ford Festiva right up to our doorstep.”
2. A random soldier shouts, “Hey! There’s no reason I should know this but I’m pretty sure this guy’s not supposed to have a limp! He’s got a limp guys! Guns up! We have to have a moment of tension and then horrible realization because us just getting blown up out of the blue is–” BOOM
3. A high-ranking desk-jockey at the CIA walks into an open hangar in Area 51 and addresses a bunch of commandos. “Men, you’re probably wondering why a high-ranking desk-jockey from the CIA came down here to talk to you. Well, I’ve been watching a lot of CSI and I like how those guys are always hands-on and in the thick of it. So I came down to introduce you to the person who’ll brief you. She’s a girl.” Commandos huff and roll their eyes. “Maya, you brief’em while I go make sure the rotor-nuts are tight on these choppers over here.”
4. The guard on sentry duty waves to Maya as she gets in her car. “Let me just buzz you out there, Maya. Now, I know my job is to guard you and watch the gate and stuff. And I probably should be telling you about the two creepy guys in the green Mercedes parked right outside the gate here for the last hour, but…”
5. “Okay SEALS, let’s move in fast and silent. And let’s blow all the doors open with C4—I love the little shot of adrenaline I get when I’m watching a scary movie and there are sudden loud noises covering for the fact there’s nothing really scary in the movie. So go ahe–” BANG. BANG, BANG. BANG.
6. “Honey, I think I heard a noise.” A Pakistani woman shakes her unresponsive husband. “There it is again. And Again! It’s like loud explosions or something. You need to check it out honey.” The husband mumbles and rolls over. “Crap! Honey! That sounded almost as if an experimental military helicopter crash landed right outside our door! Please check it out.” Begrudgingly the husband rolls out of bed, pulls on his slippers, and flips on the light. “Alright, woman! If it’ll make you happy. Now where’s my cricket bat…”
7. The likeable American torturer (he’s American and a torturer—he doesn’t torture Americans—I think) coos at his caged monkeys and feeds them bits of his snowcone then, later that day… “Maya! They killed my monkeys! Why? Why, oh why did I even have those monkeys? Why did I feed them my tasty frozen treat? And now they’re killed! My purposeless monkeys, that were probably just a bumbling attempt to symbolize torture, are killed, Maya!” Torturer cries then looks up. “Oh, and Maya, I’ll see you in a few years when I’m inexplicably invited to a high-level CIA meeting just so I can ‘softly’ shoot down your ideas for no apparent reason. You should have banged me, Maya.”
8. “So, where do ya want to go lady?” Long introspective moment. “Uh, lady? I asked you where you’re headed…” Long introspective tear rolls down Maya’s face. “Listen, lady, you got me standing here just looking at you and we ain’t going nowhere till you say where and, frankly, it’s getting a little uncomfortable. You know, kind of like when you’re at a cafe and someone asks if you have any friends and you don’t say nothing and then

BOOM!

Zero Dark Thirty presents us with 160 minutes of shallow, unlikable characters, traversing the contrived, implausible Hollywood spin on an emotionally charged subject—a subject that just happens to be capable of drawing patriotic American blood from a Communist potato. That 9/11-Movie is protected by the badge of being based on true events. It’s exempt from criticism because viewers think they are watching an unusually action-packed documentary. We can’t see the film’s flaws because we are blinded by that cheap plastic badge. If only we had something that could nullify the power of that badge—a wet rag maybe. A monkey could toss the rag over that badge and then I could rush in, yank the costume off, and reveal to the world that Zero Dark Thirty, the 9/11-Movie-Based-On-True-Events, is actually that crotchety old Not-A-Good-Movie looking to pull a fast one. If I could do that then maybe spending the last three hours writing yet another review for a movie I didn’t like would be worth it.

Good thing I have a monkey. Now where’s my damn Scooby-Snack?

Though I have been a Radiohead fan for thirteen years, since 1999, I have never been to a Radiohead show before, something I had always sought to remedy, I wouldn’t miss this for anything, even the long drive, and the fact that my next day begins at 5:00am.

Radiohead: June 10, 2012 setlist. (You can listen to the songs via this website too)

The Show: From the stellar 24-song setlist to the vibrant LED lighting apparatus and twelve moving screens the show was as amazing as I had hoped for. Thom Yorke is the focal point for the whole show, as he spreads himself across a fantastic range of moods and styles. Always transitioning between guitar and keyboards, and if engaged with neither, he gyrates, shimmies, and boogies while he sings his heart out. The other members on stage simply do their thing, always a presence but not the focus. The dual percussionists, consisting of the band’s drummer Phil Selway, and the new addition on this tour, Clive Deamer (plays with Portishead) positioned on either side of the bassist Colin Greenwood, are engaging for the whole show as well. The two other guitarists, Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood, remain on each side of the stage providing backing vocals, and other various instrumentation. The complexity of many of the songs is amazing to witness when performed live. I simply must try to see them every time they come around from now on. I had heard they were playing a few songs I just adore, “Paranoid Android”, “Pyramid Song”, and “Where I End and You Begin (The Sky is Falling In)” this time out, but they did not play them tonight. Totally doesn’t matter though because we got the full songlist from King of Limbs (2011), two new songs—”Identikit” and “Full Stop” which got its live debut tonight, and the show closer “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” from as far back as the band’s second album The Bends (1995). This vid is from the night after (it has a better view I think).
I thought I could help my faulty memory by bringing my voice recorder and call out the setlist, but I assumed I would never get it into the place. So I brought a notepad. Holy crap, not only were my entries wrong, but they were illegible and for the most part written all over each other. I didn’t even notice the first encore. I swear only Thom left the stage and it was for about thirty seconds. I hooted my head off for the second encore though. This was an amazing experience for me. I was surprised we could get tickets for this and I would say for anyone who is a fan of this band, get to see them live.

The Venue: The experience at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater was excellent. I would imagine it may vary from act to act, but Radiohead fans seem a most laid back, and non-raucous bunch. In the VIP area, and throughout the venue, every employee I encountered or had any conversation with was exceedingly friendly, polite, and seeming to be enjoying themselves. The VIP bathrooms look like a large port-a-potty, but they are very nice inside with finished walls, and a sink with running water, I wasn’t expecting anything like that so it was a nice addition to the experience. Other than the sound up in the second level skybox, and the prices of refreshments, I have zero complaints about the place.

The Drive: Was nothing. 75 miles, straight shot, no traffic.

The Value: The skyboxes are a little too high and far away for the high price of these seats. Our box was the highest and farthest over to the left of the stage before you can’t see the stage anymore. This may have something to do with the muddy sound quality. When I hear the sound quality of the videos taken of the night, “Full Stop” in particular, it’s clear the acoustics all the way up on top and to the side are very muffled. I couldn’t understand one word Thom Yorke said all night. If I was unfamiliar with Radiohead, I wouldn’t have been able to differentiate much from song to song. I realize seeing Radiohead is expensive regardless of where the seat is, but I won’t try to see them anywhere but on the main floor from now on.

Some extra commentary: I gave this show a few days to percolate, and I am glad I did. My interest in Radiohead waned a touch after the 2000 release of Kid A, and sadly, it was for superficial reasons. Luckily, things don’t go away just because I think I don’t like them anymore. I shallowly surmised that OK Computer (1997) was the band’s pinnacle, and they should embrace it as such. I still dutifully purchased their new albums as soon as humanly possible. On October 10, 2007, I charged to their website with furious glee to purchase In Rainbows, and pay what I thought it was worth—I was immeasurably flattered by this daring gesture and gracious opportunity from such a creative group of people whom I respected greatly enough already. Here in Chicago, I remember the old days of the Annoyance Theater and their production of “Co-ed Prison Sluts” when they let you in to see it for free, and you paid what you thought the play was worth on the way out. Well, at the Radiohead website, I must have gotten my currency conversion tables confused, and while in my head I thought, “Shit, I’m going to make their day,” and pay something crazy like $20 for In Rainbows, an extra thank you right into the band’s deserving little hands—damn straight! Oh and from the mountaintops did I brag—until I saw my credit card bill… Wait for it—how much do you think?—nope, more—I paid $45 bucks for In Rainbows! After a brief “holy shit” moment, I was still pleased as pie, and tremendously thrilled to be part of their experiment.

I know I liked Kid A, but it was weird. Its electronic notions were cool and it helps that I like a lot of Brian Eno, in particular his ambient stuff (compare Ambient 4: On Land (1982) with “Treefingers”), so I could appreciate this more experimental approach, you know, briefly. Now with Amnesiac (2001), an extension of Kid A, and then Hail to the Thief (2003) I had the feeling the band had gone too far from what I thought I liked about them. I dismissed the albums, and I am irritated by my shortsightedness. Both Nicolai and I kept saying to each other, “Maybe they’ll just grow on us.” I don’t remember exactly when it was that I realized how much I loved Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief, my guess is around late 2005. I’d call that a huge amount of wasted time when the treasure is sitting right in your lap! So the real point to all of this is, upon seeing Radiohead live, I have a whole new and much stronger perspective on them and what they have done. I can be as hard on myself as I want about my lack of vision, but from here on out I know how to view this band, and it is a wonderful feeling. It would be easy for fans to say that King of Limbs is another Thom Yorke solo album (check out The Eraser (2006), it is awesome!), but when an artist’s voice is so indelible from an already passionate mindset, irrational comparisons are inevitable. This could be perhaps a whole separate article.

In the last few days, I have tried to play catch-up on my time of dismissal by immersing myself in everything I can find by Radiohead, and have come out of it with an appreciation for an artist I haven’t felt in a long time.

Here’s to many more years of new stuff from Radiohead!

Fratto 6 14 12

P.s. 6 16 12

Well wishes to all involved with the tragedy tonight in Canada. What a terrible set of circumstances.

**If it’s possible to spoil something already rotten then I suppose I should warn you that this review contains spoilers.**

Why?

That one word is the theme of Ridley Scott’s summer lackluster, Prometheus. It’s a great question too—one I have been asking myself all afternoon. Why didn’t I follow suit when the kid from Powder—who apparently got all jacked up on steroids—offed himself before the title sequence ended?

This question must have also played a crucial role as the committee of scriptwriters—cloistered in the choicest  booth and chugging the choicest coffee Denny’s has to offer at 2AM on a Tuesday night—Frankensteined Prometheus’ plot and dialogue together in a manner reminiscent of children gluing Jelly Bellies and little green army guys into their diorama on cloud formations because Jelly Bellies and little green army guys are cool.

A decade ago, M. Knight Shyamalan’s movie Signs taught us that “everything happens for a reason.” Little girls don’t just leave dozens of half-full glasses of water around the house for no reason—they do it because they are going to need a glass of water handy to exploit the alien invaders’ Achilles heel—water—and save the world. Duh. Like Signs, all the happenings in Prometheus have reasons—lots and lots of unimaginably stupid reasons.

Why did the android sneak a can of alien goo onboard the ship unbeknownst to anyone? Because he needed some alien goo to poison a member of the crew.

Why did he poison a member of the crew? Because the main character’s boyfriend needed to be infected so he could impregnate the main character with an infected baby.

Why did the main character need to carry an infected baby?  We needed to make use of the Surgery-O-Matic machine. And because she’s infertile. Isn’t it ironic?

Why did the Surgery-O-Matic machine need to be used? Because it’s cool. And because we need to have a fast-growing alien baby trapped in the Surgery-O-Matic section of the self-sustaining emergency escape townhouse.

Why? Because the main character needs to inadvertently lead the creator alien t o where he can be impregnated by the fast-growing alien baby.

Why? Because the whole damn point of the film is to show the miniature version of the alien from The Good Movies being born. It’s a frigging prequel you know.

Why did everyone in the film act like complete state-the-obvious idiots the entire time? Let’s not talk about that—wasn’t it cool when the Alien burst out of that guy’s belly at the end?

Why did I pay $13 to see Prometheus? Because it’s Ridley Scott. It’s Charlize Theron. It’s Aliens. It’s a summer blockbuster, baby, what could go wrong?

I would love to believe that Ridley and the Prometheus project started out with good intentions but, like many creations, the good ideas wound up going awry and turning into something unexpectedly awful. The buff Powder guy at the end of the film was just as spot-on as the one at the start. He saw that his human experiment had turned out bad and tried to do what any self-respecting creator would do under those circumstances—abort, abort. I want to believe that Ridley Scott saw the abomination he had birthed and tried to abort it as well. Perhaps the reason Prometheus wasn’t aborted was because an obnoxious, homely, plan-thwarting archaeologist was standing around with nothing to do.

The movie wasn’t all bad, though. Android-guy was well-played. There were eight seconds I truthfully enjoyed too. Five of those seconds were when Mowhawk Geologist-guy got acid sprayed on his helmet and it looked like someone had slapped a giant, half-baked Shrinky-Dink in his face. The other three seconds involved Charlize Theron’s clingy white robe and what happens to the human nipple when it gets a bit chilly. It’s a shame Charlize had to get squashed trying to run away from the skyscraper-sized rolling horseshoe. I wonder why she didn’t just hop a few feet off to the side like the homely, plan-thwarting archaeologist did.

Bah, who cares. I mean, did you see how that baby Alien came out of the giant albino’s chest at the end? Did you? I thought so. I wonder if Ridley has started the prequel’s sequel yet…

Author’s Blurb:

“On October 15 at 2:15 a.m. everyone on Earth vanished.
Well, almost everyone.
A scattered few woke alone in a world where there are no rules other than survival… at any cost.
A journalist wanders the wretched reality of an empty New York, in search for his wife and son.
A serial killer must hunt in a land where prey is now an endangered species.
A mother shields her young daughter from danger, as every breath fills her with terror.
A bullied teen is thrilled to find everyone gone. Until the knock on his door.
A fugitive survives a fiery plane crash. Will he be redeemed, or return to what he’s best at: the kill?
An eight year old boy sets out on a journey to find his missing family. What he finds will change him forever.
And there’s a few people who aren’t surprised that this happened at all. In fact, they’ve been dreaming about this day for years.
These survivors aren’t alone…
Someone or something is watching them.
And waiting…
Strangers unite.
Sides are chosen.
Will humanity survive what it never saw coming?
The only certainty is that Yesterday’s Gone.”

Empty-Grave Review

Let me preface by saying I had never heard of the writers or series prior to stumbling across them on Amazon. I read the first season of the serialized Yesterday’s Gone straight through, so I experienced no downtime between episodes. I am only giving the inaugural season three stars but that rating is solid and borders on four stars.

Yesterday’s Gone: Season One consists of six serialized episodes. The first couple episodes are strong and well-paced. I had initially downloaded the free first episode to my Kindle but I only made it about halfway through before shucking out the $4.99 and buying the whole season.  I’m living proof the “free-tease” marketing strategy works.

Platt and Wright use the same structure throughout the entire season. Episodes are broken down into multiple chronological segments, each told from the perspective of one of fifteen different characters. The perspective summary is:
Males – 9
Females – 4
Kids – 1 boy & 1 girl
Other – 2

Episodes consist of roughly twelve segmented perspective changes. In early episodes these shifts are divvied up fairly between characters but as the season progresses we see some characters and story arcs being overrepresented. My primary criticism of Yesterday’s Gone is that it promises, and delivers, fast-paced storytelling and cliffhanger episodic endings but the season as a whole grinds to a halt and fizzles out near the end. Each episode’s cliffhanger kept me reading but at the end of the first season I did not feel compelled to read season two. I attribute this fizzling to an excessive focus on the least-interesting characters and story-arc at the end.   Boricio, Charlie, and Edward represent 12 of the 24 perspectives in the first two episodes but in the last two episodes they show up only 8 times in the 28 perspective changes.

We should have encountered an oil slick at the end of the first season, sending us careening and out of control into season two, but instead we drove headfirst into a sand-trap. The perspectives at the end are the primary culprit for that slowdown but another contributing factor is that six main characters arrive at a motel at the end of episode two, are joined by two other characters, and the eight of them are still at that motel—and are even monopolizing the perspectives—at the end of episode six. To me that smacks of one thing—filler. And I’m not reading post-apocalyptic fiction to enjoy three episodes of the least-interesting characters playing Uno.

With the criticism out of the way, I’ll now address the positives. First off, kudos to Sean Platt and David Wright for working a serialized format and putting indie authors and publishers in such a positive light. They’ve taken an offbeat end-of-the-world scenario, dropped some exciting characters in, and presented compelling obstacles and challenges. The first few episodes suck readers in with ease and keep us clicking the next-page button.

The writing style is tight and I didn’t notice any points where it was glaring and obvious that the writer had changed.  The proof-reading is also excellent. From an editing standpoint, I see a moderate amount of filler that should have been left on the clipboard but I can see how a hectic writing schedule and deadlines result in filler, as it is evident in even some of the best-written television series.

Criticisms notwithstanding, Yesterday’s Gone (Season 1) provides a lot of bang for five bucks and it is absolutely worth reading.  It suffers from ebbs and flows but that is characteristic of serialization. I look forward to checking out season two and hope Yesterday’s Gone will avoid the other major pitfall of serialized fiction—a story that dallies about, loses itself, and only retires when executives carry it kicking and screaming from the building.

Author’s Blurb:

“Long after a pandemic swept the world, society has crumbled. A remnant of human civilization ekes out an existence in a closed community called Sanctuary. To control their population, the ruling brethren use a lottery, the winners of which join the new Gods that reside beyond the walls. But when her daughter is chosen, Anna Charles discovers the lottery is fixed by despotic church leader, Roman Quail. Now in a frantic bid to save her family, she flees into the hostile environment outside Sanctuary where only the strongest survive, and where all their Gods are dead. Literally.”

Empty-Grave Review

The Good:
1. The writing style was very readable.
2. The pacing was decent and kept us moving along.
3. The book was for the most part error-free. Great proofing.

The Bad:
1. For me, the characters lacked depth. The characterizations seemed random and heavy-handed. I found it very hard to care about any of them or their plights.
2. The author was clearly shooting for a moral but whiffed. What I got is that reading books instead of tending to the sexual needs of your spouse = major catastrophe.

The Ugly – There is more hole than plot: **SPOILER ALERTS**
1. To pull off an “everyone forgot” plot you need to establish why. There is no way a community full of parents is going to forget to tell their kids that zombies are bad–which is essentially what had to happen in this story’s premise.

2. A band of bloodthirsty marauders, that has been presumably ravaging the land for a long time, is completely unaware there is an entire city full of chumps less than a days ride away.

3. The self-contained Sanctuary has no problem providing food or water for all its people but the “savage” people living outside a major city–with easy access to canned food they can afford to trade–have resorted to cannibalism?

4. There are still people to cannibalize roaming the countryside when so much time has passed that an entire community has forgotten zombies are bad and established their own little religion.