Noah, a review

I think this could be titled Noah, The Man Without a Clue.
As a blockbuster movie I think this ranks about even with John Carter. I happen to like both of them. Okay I admit it, I liked Noah as entertainment, as having first class CG (especially when they showed the planet covered in hurricanes), a decent story and morality play. That said here's my take, drum roll if you will...
Weaknesses:

• The Watchers are irritating. Come on Transformers in a biblical movie? it's about as bad as the mechanical owl in Clash of the Titans. Deus Ex Machina has to have a purpose and be crucial to the story. These guys are misplaced in time add nothing to the story that couldn't be explained through natural means and are just plain creepy. Hint to script writer and director: fallen angles stay fallen and are called demons. Genesis 6:4 doesn't call the Nephalim fallen angles, they are referred to as son's of God that interbred with women. The Watchers, if the Nephalim is what they represent, would be giants humans not anthropomorphized rocks.
• Noah never figures anything out on his own. He has a vision, but has to travel to Methuselah for interpretation, and is given a magical seed that when planted grows a whole forest in a matter of seconds. His "failure" (not explaining because it would be a spoiler) gives a good reason for him to drink himself to the point of lying naked on the sand and hints at the Curse of Ham, but it takes his adopted daughter to explain to him why he didn't fail.
• The constant flashbacks to the serpent and the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil then the silhouette of Cain slaying Able. Once was enough, we got it.

Strengths:

• The Ark. It ranks up there with the wooden horse in Troy as a realistic construction of that time period. They both broke the mold of all the drawings and pictures of them that the audience is prepared for. It's covered in tar to keep it water tight, nice realistic touch.
• All the animals hibernating. It answers much speculation over the centuries and I'm sure solved a lot of problems in the story.
• Jennifer Connelly as Naameh, she should get a role as Russel Crowe's wife more often. She deserves another Oscar.
• Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah, not much of a stretch from his previous role as Odin, but this time he didn't have to wear an eye patch. He lends credence to any move he's in, I'm biased here.
• Russel Crowe. I don't think any other actor today could play this role convincingly. He's the master at myopic stoicism.
• No booming voice of God. They use the creator when speaking of the divine being which may piss off some people, but still gets the point across.

The Way We Were, flop or a hit?

One of my wife's and my favorite movies. Recently we watched it again, and afterwards we watched the bonus dvd with an interview on the making of the movie.

Sydney Pollack said something that hit me as a writer. He said they had a viewing of the movie on Friday night and it was a flop. The people hated it. He cut two scenes and on Saturday night it was a hit. They showed the first scene cut and I agreed with it because it didn't advance the story. The second scene he cut was brutal, but necessary to make the movie a hit.
If your familiar with the movie ( and I don't have the patience to write a summary) Hubble and Katie get divorced because Hubble sleeps with his past girlfriend (played by Lois Childs)
That's not the original reason for the divorce. The scene that is cut has Katie being named a communist to the House Un-American activities committee by a former boyfriend played by James Woods. Hubble is the writer of a novel being turned into a movie and he would be blacklisted in Hollywood for being married to a communist. Katie divorces him not because he was unfaithful, but to save his career. It was an act of love, not spite.
Pollack said the audience wasn't ready for that kind of ending. It was a bucket of cold water at the end of romantic movie. Forty years later he's been proven right. It's still a big movie and made lots of money.
As a writer he cut the guts out of what the author was trying to get the audience to feel. This was the theme, the message, what he wrote the whole story for in the first place. He intended that bucket of cold water to wake up a complacent public to how witch hunts like congress did back in the 1940's and the senate of the 1950's destroyed people's lives.
After this movie other movies and TV shows were made on the Hollywood blacklist, but none of them had the impact that this movie would have made, but marketing killed.

Print book in hand

I have my first novel back in print. Five copies on hand and more to come. It is still available at amazon.com as an e-book for only .99. Newly revised and updated.
The original version is still available as used book for varying prices.

This is my other book now in print and at amazon.com as an e-book for .99. The first of a trilogy about the impending explosion of Yellowstone.
This tells the tale of the Drake/Eastman dynasty from the 1920's to the 70's

This one's not in print yet, but it is available at amazon.com as an e-book for .99. This is the continuing saga of the Drake/Eastman dynasty getting things ready for when it hits the fan.
Their motto: When it hits the fan you'd better have a plan.









Still working on Fan Plan Countdown it will be out shortly. The third and fourth generation of Drake/Eastman/O'Neals await the day when it hits the fan and the scientific secret police are being prepared to preserve civilization against superstition in the aftermath of the fan.


I'm going to revise Vander's Magic Carpet, Human Sacrifices and a compile a few of my short stories into an anthology. Now I have a printer and I can publish books that sell around ten dollars it will be worth my while to start doing book signings again.

My problem is that while I'm doing all this revising and getting books ready to print it leaves little time to write new stuff and I have got to get busy on the Stephanus, the sequel to Optimus.