Del and Mladen review ‘Jurassic World’
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
“Jurassic World” Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Vincent D’Onofrio. Directed by Colin Trevorrow. 124 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Del’s take
Mix equal parts “Jurassic Park,” “The Lost World” and “Jurassic Park III.” Boil for two hours. Voila! You’ve just prepared an inoffensive addition to the Jurassic canon, one that breaks no new ground but commits no great sin.
“Jurassic World” is the vanilla custard of the series, meaning it is a simple dish that offers a taste everyone can love. It presents an everyman hero; a beautiful damsel in distress; children whose peril reunites their parents; and a big, scary dinosaur, all of it frocked in a thin cloak of subtext about the hubris of genetic engineering and corporate greed. In other words, just another day at the Democratic National Convention.
Chris Pratt’s Owen is an animal trainer who is brought to the new Jurassic World theme park by Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), his former love interest who serves as a kind of Effie Trinket for the park. Seems their newest creation, Indominus rex, has broken out of its paddock and is eating the tourists. Very bad for publicity. The hope is Owen can figure out what Indominus will do next so they can recapture the beastie and return it to its cage.
But as everyone but the characters in all Jurassic movies have learned, things go awry as Claire’s nephews, Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) became stranded in the weeds with Indominus in hot pursuit, and a slyly amoral Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio) maneuvers and manipulates to take over the park from its helicopter driving CEO, Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan).
Pratt manages his role with minimal swagger, and Claire transitions from a sweet corporate mouthpiece to somebody who has discovered the benefits of work/life balance. D’Onofrio walks a thin line between evil and ambition. Of the kids, Simpkins evokes the most emotion, from his energetic embrace of the park to a heartbreaking acknowledgement that his parents may part company. Robinson is an unlikable, selfish teen who only comes around once the teeth snap a little too close.
I could nitpick this movie to death. Claire spends her time running through the jungle in a dress and heels, which my female friends assure me is about as likely as balanced budget. Some of the flying reptiles feature a T-rex head, a weird and unexplained departure from previous movies. And we have yet another set of siblings with parents either divorced or on the verge, and somehow their experience of being dinosaur kibble is supposed to mend the frayed bonds of their parents’ relationship.
Overall, the movie serves up nothing new. In fact, it seems frankensteined of scenes and themes from the previous films. But for some reason that did not bother me much. The Jurassic movies have never been anything more than an amusement park thrill ride, and this one certainly provided its share of stomach-looping chills.
Throughout the first and second acts we are told the park must offer a new “asset,” aka a new dinosaur, to stimulate the public’s interest and spike ticket sales. That could be said of the Jurassic franchise as well. And while “Jurassic World” is no Indominous rex of a movie, it has just enough of its DNA to take a huge chomp out of the box office.
I give it a solid B.
Mladen’s take
Websites dedicated to movies fail to list the most intriguing actors in newly released “Jurassic World.” They are: Charlie; Echo; Delta; and Blue, the velicoraptors. More on the hunter four-pack in a moment.
“Jurassic World” is good enough to be entertaining.
There’s a bit of suspense in the film, though, unfortunately, no jump-from-your-seat moments.
The human characters are likable, though not enthralling. Owen (Chris Pratt), the animal trainer, is charming, if not hypocritical. Claire, the corporate number cruncher and Jurassic World theme park manager, is beautiful as hell, but stiff. The two boys incorporated into the movie to draw one of the demographics that tends not to watch this sort of flick – teenaged girls – do an OK job. But, frankly, if any of the folks mentioned above had been eaten, I wouldn’t have cared.
There’s the obligatory animal rights morality tale. The dinosaurs, de-extincted through genetic engineering or not, are creatures worthy of respect and compassion, not merely assets owned by a big mean corporation that runs the amusement park that erupts into mayhem when a hyper-predator escapes to threaten 22,000 well-healed guests.
And, there’s the old adage, don’t fool with Mother Nature unless you want to get the horns, or something like that. Here are people manufacturing dinosaurs as though nothing had happened 20 years earlier (see “Jurassic Park”).
The visual effects are excellent approaching terrific. If only them CGI folks would have given the theropods and sauropods in the film color and patterns. No stripes, no spots, no feathers, no counter-shading. There was nothing to give the dinos a pinch of flair.
Still, the raptors. It’s all about the raptors from my perspective.
About the height of a man and smarter, the bipedal predators are imbued with a whole lot of character. Yes, they were trained by our hero, Owen, to respond to commands, but he could never quite be certain that Blue will follow orders. All the pack’s matriarch had to do was snort or bark and, bam, Charlie, Echo, and Delta would have Owen carved and ready to swallow in the blink of their reptilian eyes.
The scene in “Jurassic World” with the raptors being used as bloodhounds is absolutely stunning. Man, if these bad girls were half the hunters in real life as they’re depicted in this movie (and the three that preceded it), they were the Mesozoic era’s apex predator. Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, the toothy saurischian with the big sail on its back my ass. Velicoraptors are the bee’s knees of evolution. Damn that asteroid.
I could see why one of the characters, Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio), in the movie wanted to turn raptors into … never mind. Don’t want to spoil it for you. By the way, Hoskins can also be credited with one of the most obscure references ever placed in a movie. Quick, why is Tora Bora significant? Thought so. You have no idea.
“Jurassic World” should be seen at the theater. The film is a solid B, but don’t spring for the 3-D version. All the panoramic shots look silly. A blue helicopter flying low above a lush green jungle looks like a 1/48th scale UAV buzzing in front of a painted landscape. Thousands of people walking along the amusement parks main boulevard look like a bunch of figurines with operating legs. A 2-D viewing will be satisfying enough. Use the money you save, $3, to buy a 1.5-ounce drink at the concession stand.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Disney Studios.
“Tomorrowland” Starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, and Hugh Laurie. Directed by Brad Bird. 130 minutes. Rated PG.
Mladen’s take
I disliked the film “Tomorrowland,” but it’s my fault. I’m a bigot. There’s nothing anyone can say or do to make me like people. Del’s influence, in that regard, by the way, only feeds my bigotry.
That’s the task the actors and actress in “Tomorrowland” were given. They had to convince me – for I am Audience – that humanity was worth saving, that a society can choose its destiny, that we can reverse climate change, end food deprivation, and stop fighting wars. It was something about deciding which “wolf to feed,” the one of darkness and despair or the one of light and hope, according to this Disney sci-fi adventure.
In the film, Frank (George Clooney) and Casey (Britt Robertson), both humans, and Athena (Raffey Cassidy), a robot, struggle against the governor of Tomorrowland and his tachyon-fired machine, which sees the future. According to the orb with blue streams of light that attach it, I assume, to spacetime, Mankind will expire in roughly 59 days.
My response to the countdown was, “Hallelujah, about goddamned time humanity took it full-fist on the chin.” It’s vital that we kill ourselves before infesting space with our spore. Let us end ourselves before we end everything else.
But, no.
Do-gooder Casey, a STEM whiz kid of the first order, ends up cajoled by automaton Athena into trying to reverse mankind’s headlong plunge into the abyss. Along the way, Casey meets Frank, who was once like her – an optimist and believer in the wonderfulness of technology, which could turn savages (us) into hearts of gold and empathy. Frank, like Casey, also used to never give up. The vibrant youngster and disillusioned old timer, protected by Athena, go on a spectacular adventure that includes an epic scene involving the Eiffel Tower and battles with cyborgs wielding sound-pulse handguns and beam rifles. I must confess I was amused by the terminator that smiled at all the wrong times.
Does the trio save mankind? Eh, it doesn’t matter.
You should drop a dime to see “Tomorrowland” at the theater, not because the film is intelligible or uplifting or leaves you with a sense of wonder and hope. See the movie to support two fine young actresses – Robertson and Cassidy. There’s a risk that if the film bombs at the box office, it’ll slow their ascent in Hollywood. Moore and Bullock ain’t going to be around forever.
And, yes, Clooney does pull off something remarkable in the film. He’s his usual charming self even when playing the role of a curmudgeon exiled from a spit-and-polish utopia embedded somewhere out there in another dimension.
Del’s take
The world is going to hell in a handbasket – yes, we get that. But what are YOU doing to fix it?
That is the message, delivered with blunt force trauma, of “Tomorrowland.” The movie, a two-hour 12-step program for recovering Negative Nellies, correctly asks us to believe each and every one of us must take action to ensure a golden future. But the message is delivered with such clumsy ham-handedness I wonder if “Tomorrowland’s” target demographic isn’t that 12-year-old whose brain has been damaged by “Grand Theft Auto.”
In “Tomorrowland” a young woman (Britt Robertson’s Casey) who is trying to make the world a better place catches a glimpse of a bright and shiny future complete with jet packs, levitating trains, rockets to the stars and a multi-cultural, egalitarian society consisting of peace-loving PhDs who have figured out how mankind can live in harmony with nature. But the accidental snake in this garden of Eden (George Clooney’s Frank), conjures a machine that sees the past and the future. It’s vision of what follows becomes self-fulfilling, and the countdown to mankind’s extinction has begun.
The two young female actors deliver excellent performances, as does Hugh Laurie as Gov. Nix. George Clooney delivers George Clooney, and while that’s not objectionable it doesn’t do a lot to advance the storytelling planchette.
“Tomorrowland” is typical Disney fare – wholesome and uplifting. You’ll hear no cursing, and most of the violence is robot on robot. The only deviation from the Disney credo is our young heroine’s penchant for committing acts of vandalism, all in the name of good, of course.
“Tomorrowland’s” problems are its complexity, with stories within stories that must be worked out. At times it was hard to connect the dots and I simply went with what was on the screen, hoping realization would dawn.
The bigger problem was the movie’s lack of subtlety. At times the characters seemed to be saying, “This is what the movie is about.” All this was capped off by a Gov. Nix soliloquy toward the end where he does tell us what the movie’s about. That’s when I decided I was watching “Tomorrowland” the wrong way. As a children’s movie it works just fine.
My thinking is “Tomorrowland” may find a place in the digital libraries of illegally downloaded movies among the John Green crowd, but for adults it’s thin gruel.
I grade it a C+.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Enviornment American Research & Policy Center by way of a Creative Commons license
Confession: A couple of weeks ago I committed the high crime of sharing a photo to the job’s Facebook page of a young girl feeding a Goldfish cracker to a seagull. You would have thought I had nominated Charles Manson for the Nobel Prize.
The epic outpouring of rage and hate almost compelled me to delete my FB page and swear off social media. Only your feedback prevented me from doing so.
Today, the first batch of stories in a package about the fate of the monarch butterfly appeared on the job’s website. The monarch migration, if you didn’t know, is in danger of extinction. Monarchs could become few and far between in the Florida Panhandle if the situation doesn’t change.
Apart from a very few messages from friends (which I appreciate, by the way), you could have heard the crickets chirping.
I ask myself, “Why would so many people care about the possible arteriosclerosis of a single seagull when an entire species is in danger of extinction from our local area?”
I can only conclude that people no longer read and process information anymore. They merely react to Internet memes and photos and ideas presented to them by their keepers.
That’s a shame, because while that seagull is probably just fine, the monarch is not. And the monarch is deserving of an equivalent level of concern.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.
“Jupiter Ascending” Starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, and Tuppence Middleton. Directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski. 127 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Mladen’s take
Ignore the critics – except me and Del, if he agrees with me – on this one. “Jupiter Ascending” is a good movie. You just have to be patient.
Like another solid film, “Cloverfield,” with a crappy beginning, “JA” starts poorly, but makes up for its first 15 minutes with good acting and spectacular, if sometimes overwhelming, visual effects for the duration.
The plot: Housekeeper Jupiter Jones, portrayed by Mila Kunis, becomes a pawn in a power struggle between three well-heeled siblings. Rather than agreeing to share, each sibling maneuvers to gain legal ownership of Earth. Why is Earth important? Us. Mankind is valuable to the feuding House of Abrasax because we’re the essential ingredient of Fountain of Youth baths that the siblings, and others who can afford the gene-repairing topical, use to live forever. Each sibling wants Earth to himself, or herself, to harvest Homo sapiens for a profit. The problem? Jupiter, a “recurrence,” is technically Earth’s owner. She has to sign over the rights before anyone can start distilling people for their life forces. Add Caine Wise, played by Channing Tatum, as Jupiter’s guardian and, eventually, main squeeze, and you’ve the ingredients for a raucous, FTL-traveling, city-busting movie that hits the Bull’s Eye more often than it misses.
“JA” owns its watchability to Kunis. She’s wonderful. Along with a pretty face and lovely voice, her acting renders the movie’s silliness and science implausibilities perfectly acceptable.
When Wise explains to Jupiter how his airskates work, she retorts with a straight face that all she heard was “gravity” and “surf,” or something to that effect. With a throaty giggle, Jupiter wonders at the beauty of a swarm of bees becoming an extension of her arms so that they look like wings. Her ability to playful neutralize an event’s absurdness comes into play throughout the film and it works every time.
The film’s principal weakness, one shared today by all movies of the sci-fi kind, is its CGI battles. So much happens so fast and each component of the battle rendered in such fine detail that the contrast between elements of the fight disappears. Sound effects, however, are superb. Also helpful would have been a battle between capital ships, but that ain’t a big flaw.
I found it goofy that the Wachowskis decided to keep Wise’s shirt off as he fought mercenaries on Earth, traveled through space in a dimension-busting vessel’s cargo hold or something like that, and then fought a squad of palace guardians on another planet. He’s buff, but come on. In the name of gender equality, the script writers could have devised a reason to put Jupiter in a bikini for 20 or 30 minutes.
Finally, I wasn’t entirely enamored with the film’s fusion of sci-fi with mythology-like creatures. It was sort of Thor-ish and Lord of the Ring-esque. The movie also had bits of “Brazil,” lots of machines shape-shifting Transformer-like and a couple of other movies that slip my mind.
“Jupiter Ascending” is frenetic and worth seeing. It’s been unfairly, and spitefully, panned like one of the Wachowski’s other good films, “Speed Racer.” “JA” is an epic for the big screen, but I plan to add it to my Blu-Ray library. I imagine I’ll find something fresh every time I watch it, which is typical of Wachowski productions. The grade? B for Better than Bargained for.
Del’s take
They hate Channing Tatum’s eyeliner.
The plot, they say, is too complex.
One of them called the movie a “hot mess.”
Another suggested the Wachowskis should be banned from moviemaking.
Bottom line? As usual, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
The folks who write reviews on Airbooks as they sip Merlot from soap bubble-thin crystal fairy goblets are having a hard time embracing “Jupiter Ascending,” the raucous actionfest engineered by the Wachowskis. That suits me fine. Sometimes you just want to be entertained, not edified. That’s the kind of movie the Wachowskis have given us.
Mladen summed up the plot nicely. You do have to wade through some explanation before things kick into gear, but so what? Are we no longer capable of embracing complexity? I do every time I sign into my phone.
“Jupiter Ascending” is gorgeous to look at. Virtually every frame is a visual extravaganza that will leave you swooning amid its depth and color. In terms of its visual composition I’d compare it to “Casshern,” another beautiful movie.
And it continues the Wachowskis’ assault on the oppressive, soul-smothering system they believe enslaves us all, a theme they explored in the “Matrix” movies, “V for Vendetta” and “Cloud Atlas” (which, by the way, was another criminally underrated Wachowski project). Jupiter is an individual trapped between forces much larger and stronger than her own puny self. She fights back with pluck and virtue, and in the Wachowskis’ universe there can be only one outcome.
Mark your calendars, folks, because on this date Mladen and I agree: “Jupiter Ascending” is well worth seeing in the theater, then owning once the DVD is released. Everyone in our group enthusiastically embraced the movie, the fairy cup sippers notwithstanding.
I too give it a solid B, maybe a B+, for sheer entertainment value.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
My 1987 Nissan Pulsar is parked in front of my old townhouse, Unit 3F at 215 Hughes Avenue in Fort Walton Beach behind Uptown Station. I lived there 24 years. Image by Del Stone Jr.
I’m gone from the townhouse.
It was a sad moment. I spent the morning hauling boxes of books and photo albums from the upstairs bedroom, what was once my office where I wrote “Dead Heat,” “Black Tide” and “I Feed the Machine,” among many other works of fiction. I vacuumed the place, swept the floors, scrubbed the toilets and cleaned the oven.
When I moved to the townhouse, way back in June 1990, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. For the first time in my adult life I had central air and heat. A swimming pool. Wall-to-wall carpeting. A dishwasher! I didn’t use the dishwasher the first year I lived there. I was not accustomed to such luxury.
As I vacuumed, I studied the dimples in the carpet. Memories flooded in. There sat the love seat, where I sobbed when it finally sank in that Dad was dying. I lay on that love seat one night, praying for the telephone to ring as I died of a broken heart.
The sliding glass door still bore faint imprints of masking tape I used when Opal smashed ashore in October 1995. The upstairs toilet had a padded seat with a small tear from the cats using the toilet as a drinking fountain. I owned a set of barbells that left trenches in the carpet. One night, Chris and I lay next to those barbells and oohed and ahhhed as an electrical storm fizzled and popped outside.
My cats lived their entire lives at that townhouse and today as I cleaned I found a spot where Pavlov threw up when he was so sick he’d retired to a spot behind the TV, waiting for death.
I remember coming home on the night of Sept. 11, 2001, exhausted and horrified, and turning on HGTV because I could not stand to watch another building explode. I remember coming home one night in 1993 and finding a letter in the mailbox from Bantam Books, what I thought was a rejection of my story “The Googleplex Comes and Goes.” It was not a rejection. It was an acceptance. And after I finished whooping and hollering, I got in the car, drove to Whataburger, bought a chocolate milkshake, and drove around town at 1 in the morning, chair dancing to the radio and basking in a glow of relief and satisfaction. It was my first professional sale.
The townhouse was my shelter, my refuge. I stayed there during the awful days and nights of Opal and Ivan. I was there when the economy tanked in 2007, and when the 1990s became the 2000s and nobody knew what to call them. I moved to the townhouse when I was 35 and moved out when I was 59. You can’t live in a place for 24 years without some of it rubbing off on you, and some of you rubbing off on it.
I am not the same person I was in 1990. I hope I am better – smarter, wiser, more patient. But who knows?
As I vacuumed, I spotted something lying on the carpet. A cat claw. The cats, they were always chewing their nails. Maggie died in 2005. Pavlov in 2009. Yet here, on this day in 2015, I found something they left behind, a little piece of DNA that would mean nothing to nobody but me.
I finished cleaning the oven. I put the cleaning materials in the car, and cinched up the ties on a plastic bag of garbage for the long walk to the Dumpster. I was finished.
As I headed for the front door for the last time, I stopped in the hallway and looked back to the living room. I said, “Well, goodbye little house. I sure did love you. I sure did.”
And then I went outside, locked the door, and left.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
My final memory of that training day – Saturday, May 26, 1979 – was Jim Shoffner handing me a fat three-ring binder to study. It was the instruction manual for the ECRM 7600 (today they’re in PDF form online and called “documentation”).
As I was heading home, driving my dad’s truck down Denton Boulevard in Fort Walton Beach, who should I see but Scott Jacobs, a member of my boy’s tennis team, running along the roadside carrying his saxophone case. I think he was in the Pryor Junior High School Band and was heading to some band event. He stopped and waved; I waved back and kept going. It didn’t occur to me until days later that maybe he thought I’d give him a ride. Sorry about that, Scott!
Then I went home, spread out on my bed, and studied the manual. By today’s standards it was fairly simple – how to copy a file, route a file from one queue to another, create and delete a file, and how to mark up copy for typesetting. Headlines used a code (delta) h (delta) p and then the typesize. Body copy codes were formatted into simple markup codes – (delta) f1, f2, f3 with default widths for each. If you wanted a different width you had to tack on a “set-measure.” For instance, for the width to be 16 picas instead of 12.3 picas, you used (delta) f3@sm1600@ .
Good lord. I can’t believe I still remember that.
Somehow I learned the computer system. New hires were terrified of the computer system and later I would become responsible for training them, a job I still perform, although there’s much, MUCH more to teach these days. Luckily, most people come into the office already knowing how to use a computer.
Back then, never!
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesyof 20th Century Studios.
“Taken 3” Starring Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, and Maggie Grace. Directed by Olivier Megaton. 109 minutes. Rated PG-13
Del’s take
There were three of us and we wanted to see three different movies. The candidates were “Blackhat,” “The Imitation Game” and “Taken 3.” Guess which “mindless entertainment” prevailed?
Watching 63-year-old Liam Neeson beat up half of Albania isn’t mindless entertainment for this geezer, who remembers playing tennis from dawn to dusk, and could no sooner do that now than pass a high school algebra test. It’s validation that if I really, really wanted to do it, I could lose the gut, get back into shape, and menace the bad guys in ways that don’t involve flashing my AARP card in their faces.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
In “Taken 3” we return to the world of Bryan Mills, an ex-covert ops specialist who’s family has been favored by kidnappers. This time the action takes place in a version of Los Angeles that does not feature traffic-choked freeways and cynical journalists – clearly we’re talking science fiction. Mills is framed for a murder he didn’t commit and after beating up a sizeable contingent of cops he escapes to a bolthole where he’s able to refresh, replenish, and re-apply the Grecian Formula. Cars crash, fists fly and guns blaze. Somehow Neeson comes out of it with nary an adult diaper mussed.
The first act is excruciatingly slow, prompting Mladen to ask if “Taken 3” was a documentary. No, Mladen. It’s a frightening representation of most people’s lives. But I agree to an extent – I’m tired of the soap opera theatrics between Mills, his ex-wife and her current husband. And I hope the daughter, now enrolled in college, is majoring in something other than Being a Victim because her sullen helplessness grates on my nerves.
Acts two and three are where “Taken” earns its stripes as “mindless entertainment.” The action is almost non-stop as Neeson gallomps (not “gallop” … he’s too old for that these days) from one cliffhanger to the next with Forest Whitaker in tepid pursuit. The Big Reveal is telegraphed fairly early in the story, and one plot element fails spectacularly – I won’t say what except it involves the functionality of a certain device.
Neeson still rocks as Bryan Mills but I’d say “Taken 3” is the weakest of the three. Everyone and everything is limned in a kind of drabness that suggests the vein has been mined, and it’s time to move on.
If the menu calls for mindless entertainment, “Taken 3” might by worth a taste. Be sure to ask for the senior citizen discount.
Mladen’s take
Del has done you a disservice. “Taken 3” isn’t mindless entertainment. For me it was very thought-provoking as I developed the list to mock the movie.
“Taken 3” is partly a sensitive chick flick-like film. The director gives you lots of tight face shots that amply demonstrate it’s better to be young than old. Less wrinkles. Better teeth. Sparklier eyes. Megaton infects a large chunk of the film with ordinary life dialogue to try to force viewers into liking the characters. What? Was he thinking the Academy would give him the nod with a best director nomination for an Oscar? No. Megaton has created a megaflop.
The movie also goes to great lengths to explain itself. I counted at least three plot summaries or, maybe more accurately, plot-gap fillers. And, unfortunately, the ending suggests that “Taken 4” is on the way.
Other weaknesses:
- A decent supporting villain … until the end. First, the Russian thug, a former Soviet Union special operations soldier, is unable to hit Mills at close range with a submachine gun. When the Russian finally drops Mills – apparently the old man just got tired running from bullets that always missed – what happens? The Russian gets talkie instead of shooting the American several times in the head and chest. Mills recovers, takes two well-placed shots with a pistol, etc.
- Cliches. There are plenty of stupid cops. There’s the now obligatory scene in Hollywood’s films of a woman sitting on a toilet with her panties pulled to her knees. And, of course, there’s a water-boarding torture scene. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques have become fashionable as a way to give movies that touch of reality. Nice. All that was needed in the background was a picture of Dick Cheney hanging on the wall.
- The car chase scenes were Transformer-like. You know, the machines switch between robot and vehicle in a blur of detail-less, almost nauseating sequences. The same trick of cinematography applies to “Taken 3” road action, flashes of cars crashing, a truck jack-knifing, pieces flying, all without connection to spacetime or gravity.
“Taken 3” could have risen to semi-good, but no higher, with a simple touch.
The movie should’ve been made with an R rating in mind. There were plenty of opportunities for hard-core cussing and graphic violence. Instead, the viewer gets a slit throat that leaves a couple of drops on the floor and a blouse its original color. When a hit man blows out his brains through the mouth rather than fess up about his boss, there’s no gray and white matter splatter or remains on the glass of the convenience store refrigerator behind him.
The line at the theater box office was long. Kari, I saw “Taken 3” with her and Del, got to the theater first and bought our tickets. Because she, colluding with Del, forced me to strike 109 minutes from my life to watch this silly movie I have no intention of paying her back.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Queer Culture Cinema.
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“Last Summer” Starring Samuel Pettit, Sean Rose. Directed by Mark Thiedeman. 1 hour, 13 minutes. Rated TV-13. Streaming on Vudu.
Del’s take
Director Mark Thiedeman’s tone poem about two high school lovers, bound together over the course of their short timeline and doomed to inevitable separation, wanders somewhere between touching and maudlin before seeping through its layers of its meaning to reach a final, love-torn conclusion.
Told through a series of loosely connected and artistically crafted images, “Last Summer” articulates the final, dying weeks of the relationship between Luke (Samuel Pettit), and Jonah (Sean Rose), who are nearing the end of their high school days and headed on different trajectories in life. Luke is a “slow learner” who struggles with schoolwork and will never leave their rural Arkansas town, while Jonah is a “gifted” student who fails at prep sports but succeeds at everything else.
The two have been together since they were 4 years old, Luke’s mother having passed when he was a child and Jonah having been adopted by his parents – both sets of circumstances functioning as archetypes for the boys themselves, Luke as the hometown boy struggling with limitations of family and book smarts, and Jonah as the outsider who was always destined to become an outsider again. Now, the two are going separate ways and nobody knows if their love will survive.
The movie is not about homosexuality; in fact, both boys’ families and the community at large seem to accept and encourage their relationship with no judgment passed. The larger imperative is the tragedy of departure and love lost. Jonah tells Luke to ask him not to leave but Luke, who understands Jonah could never be satisfied with the limitations of small town life, refuses to make that gesture, and Jonah refuses to remain despite his obvious affection for Luke.
The pacing of “Last Summer” is languid to the point of glacial, which must be the point. But it all comes across as at least a little pretentious, with Thiedeman’s lingering close-ups of plaster patterns, or a spider web decorated with dew, framed against Schubert piano solos. That, and the lack of narrative, or even dialogue, make for a solemn, sleepy communiqué about lives diverging and the cooling of ardor that had once been so strong.
Thiedeman’s vision is stylish and poetic, but viewers hoping for an actual story will not find that here. “Last Summer” is more about a mood, and in this case, the mood is sadness.
I grade this movie a B-.
Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.
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“Fury” Starring Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, and Jon Bernthal. Directed by David Ayer. 134 minutes. Rated R.
Mladen’s take
Remember Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush administration’s principal civilian architect of the disastrous and destabilizing ongoing war in Iraq? He once sniped, if my tired old memory serves, something like, “You don’t go to war with the Army you want. You go to war with the Army you have.” Well, maybe America didn’t go to World War II with the tanks it wanted, but the ones it had – Shermans, as the opening narrative of the film “Fury” suggests.
Fury is the name of the Sherman crewed by the movie’s imperfect protagonists. The setting is April 1945 in Germany, where an American tank platoon is fighting what remains of the Wehrmacht and SS.
“Fury” stars Brad Pitt as war weary tank commander “Wardaddy,” Shia LaBeouf as superstitious gunner “Bible,” Michael Pena as unflappable driver “Gordo,” Jon Bernthal as savage mechanic and main gun loader “Coon-ass,” and Logan Lerman as idealistic and baby-faced assistant driver and hull machinegun gunner “Machine.” Fury, by the way, could just as easily refer to something burning inside each of the tank’s crewmen. Aside from newcomer Machine, they had been fighting together in North Africa and then Europe since 1942.
I have a hard time rating the film. It’s good, but something is missing.
An obvious plus is the movie’s grit, gore, and cussing. Another big plus is that it portrays warfare from a tank crew’s perspective. We’ve seen Hollywood depict WWII from the viewpoint of infantrymen, tin can sailors, and airmen, but not tankers. Also noteworthy are the visual effects. To me, it always looked like real Shermans in column churning muddy dirt roads or squashing hedges or trying to avoid the 88 mm gun of a Tiger tank during a point-blank showdown in a clearing.
LaBeouf as “Bible” was very good as the tank’s scripture quoting dead-eye gunner. For me, no war movie is complete without a character who sees God’s grace amid the carnage and upheaval of hellfire that is bullets, shells, bombs, and rockets. His faith was unshakeable as it tends to be, I imagine, among people desperately trying to make sense of whole-scale, legal murder and destruction of property known as war.
Bernthal as “Coon-ass” was sincerely unlikable. Uneducated and mean-spirited, Coon-ass was hardcore badass until an out-of-character lapse toward the end of the movie. But, he cared for his fellow tankers on the battlefield and that’s all that really mattered.
Pena as “Gordo” was pleasant but memorable for only one reason: He tells a weird story about slaughtering horses while Fury’s crew is occupying a German woman’s apartment. The woman is Romanian actress Anamaria Marinca, In the film, Marinca as “Irma” tries to protect her young, voluptuous cousin, “Emma,” portrayed by German actress Alicia von Rittberg, from the invading horde of GIs. (Check below for Del’s Take on the director’s take of Yankees during the late-war push into Germany. I didn’t realize it until Del and I had our usual movie post-mortem analysis session.)
Lerman as “Machine” did a decent job of losing his humanity as Fury pushed farther into Naziland. He went from avoiding killing to taking part with the best of them.
Let me start by noting Brad Pitt is one of my favorite actors. So, it’s tough to rap his knuckles, but, if “Fury” misses its target even a little, it’s because of him.
Pitt’s effort to portray “Wardaddy,” the Sherman’s staff sergeant commander as a man torn by, or wallowing in, what he has seen and done fails subtly. Wardaddy offers neither good-natured evil like, say, SS Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s and Eli Roth’s “Inglourious Basterds” nor bad-natured goodness like, I don’t know, Schwarzenegger’s T-101 in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” Wardaddy is arbitrarily menacing, which may leave some filmgoers unsatisfied.
“Fury” feels authentic. The acting is proficient, the story plausible. “Fury” is a good movie and should be seen on the big screen. But, I felt little sympathy for the main characters. To me, the film’s most moving moment was the tank crew’s encounter with Irma and Emma, two souls protecting each other amid a world at war until their building is blown apart by their counter-attacking, fellow countrymen.
Del’s take
“Fury” follows a long tradition of war movies with a conscience, starting with “All Quiet on the Western Front” and following more recently with “Platoon,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Saving Private Ryan.” It avoids Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick’s politics and pretty much adheres to the theme “War is hell – for most folks.”
I say pretty much.
I think that’s where Mladen is hung up. The movie wanders from its thematic impetus, pulling in tendrils of meaning from a variety of predecessors, from Stone and Kubrick to Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” so when it’s over you’re left wondering what to think.
It’s a nice bit of storytelling, though. I enjoyed the unique perspective – a tank crew. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a war movie. Nor do I remember a war movie from that time period, the waning days of World War II. By April 1945 the war in Europe was pretty much over and everybody knew it, even the Brown Shirts and lizardly SS henchmen who went scuttling to their burrows in South America.
The characters were nicely flawed but a tad overdrawn for my tastes. Each seemed almost a caricature of his “type,” the possible exception being Shia LaBeouf, who impressed me with his pathos. He pulled off a neat trick – reconciling his religious beliefs with the necessities of his job. And when somebody he loved was killed he showed convincing grief. I felt for him.
Jon Bernthal played virtually the same character he portrayed on “The Walking Dead.” If Bernthal isn’t careful, he’ll be typecast as a redneck. Logan Lerman as the innocent clerk dragooned to shoot Germans and drive the tank if necessary is nicely callow if just a little too good to be true. His conversion to killing machine struck me as slightly suspect – was he trying to save his hide or fit in with his tank crew? Doesn’t matter; the result is the same.
Brad Pitt? What can I say about his role? On the one hand he was the rock solid killer who loved being in his tank, calling it “the best job I’ve ever had” with barely an aftertaste of sarcasm. He was the most amoral of the bunch. But at the same time he showed odd lapses into humanity that didn’t seem to fit his “Wardaddy” persona. I’m not sure if he were a hero, a psycho who loved war, or just didn’t care whether he lived or died.
Nor am I sure of the movie’s politics, if it had any. All the immoral acts we saw on the screen were committed by Americans. Ordinary German soldiers and civilians were portrayed as victims; only the SS committed similar acts of inhumanity, and they were presented as after the fact. I don’t know if that was intentional or merely a figment of my imagination.
The movie is structured similarly to “Saving Private Ryan” and there are similarities in characters, although “Ryan” masterfully tones down their flaws.
In the end, I’d give “Fury” a solid B. I enjoyed the action sequences and special effects, and the attempt to tell more than just a story. I was put off by some of the character extremes and the apparent dilution of thematic consistency.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Roadshow Films.
“The Rover” Starring Guy Pearce as Eric, Robert Pattinson as Rey, Scoot McNairy as Henry, and others. Directed by David Michod. 1 hour, 43 minutes. Rated R. Streaming on most major platforms except Netflix.
Plot summary: It’s the end of the world and Eric’s (Guy Pearce) car has been stolen. He wants it back and sets off to find the thieves. Along the way he encounters the brother of one of the thieves, Rey (Robert Pattinson), who says he knows where his brother Henry (Scott McNairy) is holed up. The two embark on an unlikely adventure across the post-apocalyptic Australian Outback, one in search of justice, the other in search of company.
Spoilers quotient: Low
Del’s grade: B
Mladen’s grade: A-
Del’s take
“The Rover” takes place in Australia, “10 years after the collapse.” I read that and thought, “Hot diggity, a new Mad Max movie.”
Alas, “The Rover” is no Mad Max. It’s one of those “long-stare” movies – you know, the kind where the characters perpetually stare into the distance, at times squinting, like me trying to read the fine print in my homeowner’s insurance policy. Those long stares should be accompanied by something Nietzschean – an abyss, a monster, just some expression of Teutonic fatalism. Alas, there is nothing, which means things have really gone downhill.
What we do get is blood, violence, and cynicism, which is not to say “The Rover” is a bad movie. For what it is, it’s pretty good. But if I want to give up on humanity I’ll watch the 6 o’clock news.
And that’s the thematic imperative of “The Rover” – people are scumbags and the world is for shit. The viewpoint character, Eric, sees people in one of two ways – expendable impediments, or means to an end.
That is until he meets Rey, brother of one of the trio who stole his car. Rey is simple-minded and as such, he functions as an archetype for mankind in its undiluted state, innocent and corruptible, the perfect Petri dish for Eric’s contagious cynicism. And that’s what Eric sets out to do – make Rey as hardhearted as he is. He calls it “learning to fight,” but it’s nothing more than learning not to give a shit about anyone but yourself.
It’s at this point we see a chink in Eric’s armor. As he watches Rey descend into scumbaggery he seems to regret what he’s done, a theme later reinforced by Henry, Rey’s brother, who screams at Eric, “What did you do to him?”
In the final scene we learn why Eric was hellbent on finding his car, offering yet another peek at his shredded humanity while simultaneously illustrating his decline into spiritual suicide. I was hoping for a gesture of redemption and I guess it could be seen that way. More likely it was a final middle finger to the human race.
Framed against the dusty wastes of the Australian Outback, “The Rover” delivers a more depressing statement about the nature of man than many other post-apocalyptic tomes. Everything in its universe is violent, bloody and cynical – in other words, what America will be when the Republicans get through with it.
“The Rover” was well made but it’s depressing as hell. Like I said, if I want a dose of bleakness I’ll watch the 6 o’clock news.
Mladen’s take
This is a chicken-or-egg question. Did the first John Wick movie release before “The Rover” or after? I ask because both films are 2014 cinema and both revolve around the plot point of a man, his car, and a dog, albeit under different conditions. For a moment, I wondered if “The Rover” was a riff on “John Wick” but I dismissed the idea for a couple of reasons. This allowed me to dwell on the austere beauty and simplicity of “The Rover.”
I empathize with the notion that a man’s car is his castle. Where Wick wanted his ’69 Ford Mustang returned, our “The Rover” anti-hero Eric wanted his stolen Holden Commodore back. The Commodore is a sleeper, clean ovoid lines with only its quad exhaust suggesting there are serious newtons – using horsepower to measure engine output is primitive – under the hood.
As Eric roves the Australian outback searching for his Commodore and the contents of its trunk, he finds Rey, the brother of one of the thugs who stole the Holden. Their unlikely partnership serves as the backbone of the movie, which unfolds per my motto in life, “Steady as she goes until you have to pull the trigger.”
Del complains that “The Rover” is a long-stare movie. Sure, in some instances. But you must always keep in mind that it’s staring straight at mankind’s future. And, it’s clear Del wasn’t paying attention when he wiggled his arthritic index finger back and forth at those moments in the movie when very little, if anything, was happening. The disquieting quiet in “The Rover” is backed by a terrific score. When Eric’s broken and nearly remorseless heart allows stoic calm, the score provides the heat.
The acting in “The Rover” is very good even when the script falters here and there. Pattinson as Rey is perfect. Del described Rey as simple-minded and the film’s Eric as a half-wit. Not the case. As it turned out, Rey had a hard time making decisions but, when he finally decided on a course of action, it was executed very effectively. Rey sure as hell had a keen instinct for survival.
“The Rover” is bleak. It is punctuated by violence. The way Eric concluded his first business-like transaction surprised the hell out of me. But, the movie’s atmosphere is plausible. Though the Collapse had occurred, some level of social organization was still present. The norm that killing people was bad still had some sway. The Australian government was trying to enforce laws. Cargo trains still ran. Food, water, and gas were available for the properly denominated payment.
I give “The Rover” an A-. There are a couple of notable bits of dialogue. The movie isn’t too long and, as I already mentioned, the acting is very good and the score top notch. The high rating, a portion of it anyway, might be an artifact of the trauma Del dropped on my head with the last two movies he had me watch. Compared to “Leave the World Behind” and “Saltburn,” the version of dystopia portrayed in “The Rover” seemed uplifting.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.