Mladen and Del review ‘3:10 to Yuma’
“3:10 to Yuma” Starring Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda. Directed by James Mangold. 122 minutes. Rated R.
Mladen’s take
The good guy died and I didn’t care.
The bad guy lived and I didn’t care.
There wasn’t much to care about “3:10 to Yuma,” a cowboy movie bullet-holed with silliness.
The plot: A hapless rancher somewhere in Arizona stumbles into becoming part of a posse delivering a murderous, Bible-quoting outlaw to a train depot. There, the bad guy is supposed to be put on the “3:10 to Yuma” for delivery to a federal prison.
Almost from the get-go, the well-received (for reasons beyond me) movie starts to smell like a roadkill mule basking in the desert sun for two weeks.
For starters, the posse planned its escort of the intelligent killer much like the Bush administration planned for the Iraq invasion.
No kidding, there must have been at least a half-dozen opportunities for bad man Ben Wade, portrayed by Russell Crowe, to escape or just plain old stab, strangle, blow up or shoot all the men taking him to the train. He only kills a couple and that was because one took his horse and the other insulted his mother.
Wade faced a hangman’s noose but acted like he was taking a horseback tour of a playland inhabited by greedy railroad barons and bloodthirsty Apaches.
Oh, he’d mutter something now and then about his gang coming to save him but I kept asking, why?
My children’s guinea pigs could have saved themselves from the posse guarding Wade without intervention from our backyard squirrels, so why did the mastermind behind dozens of stagecoach robberies need his band of baddies to rescue him?
Throw in standard Hollywood fare such as really good looking women always being attracted to murderers, as well as absurdness like a father’s need to impress his son by dying and the movie almost cascades into farce.
By the way, the 3:10 train to Yuma is about five minutes late, so the director could squeeze more loony violence into the film.
Dang and dadgum, the movie was rotten as a polecat in heat.
The DVD box claimed “3:10 to Yuma” was the best Western since “Unforgiven.” All that must mean is that no one had made a cowboy movie since Clint Eastwood’s bone fide award-winner in 1992.
Del’s take
The way I see it there are five basic movie western plots:
1. Ex-gunslinger forced to strap on his six-shooter.
2. Mysterious stranger rides into town, agitates locals.
3. Ornery land baron steals water/land/cattle/women, must be made to pay.
4. Cowpokes drive cattle through injun territory and bond.
5. Sheriff jails bad man; bad man’s gang lays siege to jail.
Fortunately, “3:10 to Yuma” does not embrace any one of these hackneyed plots. Unfortunately, it embraces ALL of them in a Frankensteined pastiche of cliches, revisionism and logic flaws that left me wondering if Hollywood will ever again tell a decent story.
In “Yuma” we have English actor Christian Bale tasked with bringing Australian actor Russell Crowe to Yuma, where he will board a train and be taken to jail. What’s the matter, Hollywood? Couldn’t find an American actor?
Bale is a milquetoast kinda guy disliked by his bloodthirsty 14-year-old son, who wishes Dad would grow a pair and blast the bad guys to smithereens. Crowe is a hard-drinkin’, stagecoach-robbin’, murderin’ varmint who somehow gets caught and shipped off to Yuma in a long and perilous journey fraught with escape opportunities and conniving Native Americans. Close behind is Crowe’s gang, led by his eerily amoral No. 2 who bears an uncanny resemblance to every James Bond bad guy’s triggerman.
Let’s do a cliché check:
No. 1 – check. Bale is a former soldier who wants to spend his golden years cowpoking. No. 2 – check. Crowe is the menacing bad guy who rides into town, runs everyone out of the saloon, corners the local hooker … you get the picture. No. 3 – check. Bale is just a poor rancher who needs money or his ranch will go under. No. 4 – check. We get lots of philosophizing and empathizing on the hegira to Yuma. No. 5 – check. Two sieges – count ’em – TWO!
The movie ends with a totally unbelievable moment of moral clarity that could only have been dreamed up by a scriptwriter who wears peach-colored Polos to yoga practice.
This stinker was more aggravating than entertaining. I give it 10 yawns.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
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Scene from SUNSHINE
“Sunshine” Starring Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh. Directed by Danny Boyle. 107 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
I read the hype for “Sunshine” and was prepared to have my socks blown off. When Kari offered to let me borrow her Netflix rental I jumped at the chance, even splurging on a pizza for what was pitched as the reinvention of the science fiction movie.
I can sum up my opinion of “Sunshine” in five words: Stupid people doing stupid things.
“Sunshine” is like that gorgeous blond you admire from afar until you work up the courage to introduce yourself … only to realize minutes later this is perhaps the dumbest person you’ve ever met in your life.
What a disappointment.
In “Sunshine,” the sun is dying. But humanity has scrounged every bit of its fissionable material to build a bomb that will create a “sun within a sun.” (What a stupid premise – even if a bomb the size of Earth itself were hurled into the sun the effects wouldn’t be significant. But don’t get me started.)
Our crew must fly the spacebomb (like this movie) into low solar orbit, launch the bomb and skedaddle before their butts are fried. They represent the second such attempt; the first ship mysteriously disappeared.
As they approach the planet Mercury they detect strange radio signals – it’s the first spaceship, adrift in that charbroiled region of space. Should they change course and attempt a rescue? (No!, you’re screaming at the screen. The fate of humanity rests on the success of your mission! Don’t sacrifice an entire planet for the eight-member crew of another spaceship who are probably dead anyway!)
But OF COURSE they change course (stupid). Then, one of the engineers forgets to reorient the shields and the spacecraft is threatened with incineration (really stupid). In order to fix it they must go outside and manually lower the shield plates. In the process the captain gets incinerated (beyond stupid) and the greenhouse, which generates their oxygen, is burned up (conveniently stupid). So they’re forced to rendezvous with the other ship … which just happens to be haunted by the insane spirit of its microwaved captain … he manages to find his way to the second ship and wreak havoc. …
I won’t tell you how “Sunshine” ends because (a) you shouldn’t care, (b) you should have switched off the DVD player and tuned in “Extreme Home Makeover,” and (c) it’s stupid.
My advice is stay away from this train wreck of plot holes, logic flaws and non sequitors, and use your time for a more meaningful pursuit … like watching ice melt.
“Sunshine” gets five yawns.
Mladen’s take
The pizza Del ate watching “Sunshine” must have gone down wrong. But, instead of getting heartburn, Del fell victim to brain-burn.
“Sunshine” is a fine movie with very good special effects that don’t overwhelm the plot.
The movie has a purpose.
It’s about sacrifice and conceit. It’s about hope and despair. And it has a couple of cute and brainy ladies as co-stars.
Slowly unfolding mishaps, each more consequential than its predecessor, transform the 90 million mile journey to save Earth from amiable boredom in the beginning to a tense, other-worldly sci-fi thriller toward the end.
Del mocks the scientist that forgot to reset Icarus II’s sunshield, which jeopardized the mission, after changing the vessel’s course to rendezvous with a derelict spaceship.
But Del, a rabid space exploration enthusiast, has conveniently forgotten a real-life incident Sept. 23, 1999.
Hyper-trained scientists working to put NASA’s $125 million probe Climate Orbiter in orbit around Mars confused each other when one team used English measure units — inches, feet — and the other, metric units — centimeters and meters.
The likely result was an expensive machine plummeting through the Red Planet’s atmosphere and burning up.
People do make mistakes — I mean look at what the Supreme Court did when it put Bush into the White House nearly eight years ago — and that’s a fact.
“Sunshine” doesn’t have the majesty or grandeur of, say, Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
But, its ending is intelligible and, ultimately, redeeming.
“Sunshine” is good enough for me to consider adding it to my DVD collection, right there next to “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.”
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
“Transformers” Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Voight, John Turturro. Directed by Michael Bay. 144 minutes. Rated PG.
Mladen’s take
It’s becoming a habit, one I must shed, or, before I know it, it’ll end with me finding something redeeming about the Bush administration.
“Transformers” is another movie — “Bug” falls into the same category — that does one brief thing right: forcing me to temper an otherwise bitter review that’s based on the dozens of things that went wrong.
The film’s nearly saving grace happens toward the end.
Bad-bot Megatron, sprawled on a crushed roadway after falling from a skyscraper during battle with good-bot Optimus Prime, finds itself near a human.
The four-story-tall robot utters, “Disgusting” and, using its index finger, flicks the human dozens of feet into a car.
Hilarious, because that’s the way I feel about humanity.
It’s too bad my index finger isn’t large enough to flick a grown man through the air. Then again, I’d have to use the finger ceaselessly for years to flick everybody that needs flicking.
“Transformers” is visually glorious crap. The movie is a vast advertisement for toys, GM vehicles that never get dirty and the Air Force. See it for no other reason than this: It’s cheaper now that it can be rented on DVD than when it was in theaters.
Del’s take
You’ll have to forgive Mladen. A big walrus of a guy flicked him off and he’s still hanging from a branch by the waistband of his Hanes.
It’s cut off the circulation to his brain.
Of course “Transformers” is crap, Mladen. Were you expecting “Anna Karenina”?
I too was expecting to hate “Transformers,” for the following reasons:
It was directed by Michael Bay, who managed to turn Pearl Harbor into a thrill ride at Universal.
And I could never keep track of who’s who: Is Vomitor a good robot or a bad robot?
Finally, if nature called at 3 in the morning and, on your way to the bathroom, you stepped on one of the approximately 10,000 pieces of Transformer toys left on the floor by your nephews, well, you can forget making it to the toilet.
But I was pleasantly surprised by “Transformers.” It’s a fun story told in a fun way.
The pace is fast, the dialogue snappy, the special effects mind-blowing and it never, ever takes itself seriously.
Casting Shia LaBeouf in the lead role was smart – his Ritalin-deprived approach plays nicely with the movie’s other parts. And Megan Fox is sufficiently sexy to compel LaBeouf’s romantic fantasies – clumsily adolescent fantasies – without posing any serious threat to what I’m assuming is his virginity.
If you accept “Transformers” for what it is – a bit of innocent fun that requires 144 minutes of your life – you won’t be disappointed.
Now, somebody help Mladen down from that tree.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Sony Home Entertainment.
“Ice Spiders” Starring Vanessa Williams, Patrick Muldoon, Thomas Calabro. Directed by Tibor Takacs. Amazon Prime. 90 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
Dude, didn’t we just review this movie?
Ski bums, bimbos and crazy old coots trapped at a ski lodge by a band of marauding. …
Wait … wait … it’s coming back to me. …
Sharks! That’s what I was thinking. “Avalanche Sharks.”
Except this isn’t “Avalanche Sharks,” not by a long shot, which is not a criticism of “Avalanche Sharks” though the movie deserves every bit of scorn I can shovel on its wriggling carcass.
This is “Ice Spiders,” an equally wretched presentation that nonetheless comforts me. All those bad feelings about none of my books being picked up by Hollywood? It ain’t because they suck. Maybe they don’t suck enough.
I’m trying to figure out who plagiarized whom because “Ice Spiders” and “Avalanche Sharks” are essentially the same movie. Change a few character names and you’ve got “Avalanche Spiders” or “Ice Sharks.” I actually prefer “Ice Sharks” as a title.
The plot goes something like this: Dan “Dash” Dashiell (Patrick Muldoon) is a ski instructor at a hidden mountain resort watching newbies to the slopes crash into each other on the bunny run. Once, he was an Olympics downhill hopeful, but a dreadful injury dashed those aspirations.
Dr. April Sommers (Vanessa Williams) is a biologist at a hidden military laboratory who is trying to make spiders bigger so they’ll spin more silk, which can be used to make bulletproof vests for the troops. But her boss, Professor Marks (David Millbern), has secretly amped up the growth hormones being fed to the spiders. See what they did there? They de-eviled Dr. Sommers, so that when the spiders escape the lab and start devouring the bunny run bumblers, she can sermonize about the evils of ambition (too bad it wasn’t corporate America – THAT I could believe).
Did I say something about spiders eating people? Oh yes, it’s a bloody arachnabuffet as killer spiders the size of Saint Bernards gallop across the ski runs, munching on those who aren’t aspiring Olympics downhill racers. You can see where this is going.
“Ice Spiders” has another quality in common with “Avalanche Sharks”: It too is a lo-fi cash grab by producers with modest aspirations. The script is dreadful, as is the acting (with the exception of Williams, who struggles gamely through the train wreck of dialogue as if she were trying not to laugh). The special effects are crappy even for CGI. And the plot is thoroughly, reprehensibly predictable.
I spent 90 minutes constantly checking the status bar to see how much time remained of this stupid flick. It was that bad.
Don’t blame me. Mladen chose this clinker. I give it a D-, which if memory serves is what I graded “Avalanche Sharks.”
I get to choose the next movie and if Mladen doesn’t step up his movie review selection game, I will punish him with another “Jane Austen Book Club.”
Mladen’s take
Del, you’re so off the mark with your review of “Ice Spiders” that I’m forced to conclude the following: You must think Trump is intelligent and human.
The difference between “Ice Spiders” (IS) and “Avalanche Sharks” (AS) is akin to the difference between Star Wars Episode 4 and Star Wars Episode 1. AS is a poor script wrapped by horrible acting and zapped in a microwave oven until everything explodes into a big, fat mess. IS is, well, not.
And, the star of IS isn’t Vanessa Williams. Hell, Vanessa Williams isn’t even Vanessa Williams. When the acting credits rolled at the beginning of the movie and Vanessa Williams’s name popped up, I thought, “Woohoo, it’s that Vanessa Williams. Miss USA. Singer. Model.” A 1980s bombshell, she was. Instead, I got a Vanessa Williams, the crappy actor and millennial, or whatever her generation moniker is, with, I must concede, decent cleavage.
IS avoids becoming AS because of the acting by Patrick Muldoon, who portrays Dash the ski instructor. He had, oh, panache. Muldoon converts dialogue that could’ve been utterly banal into something that seems close to plausible. His facial expressions and ever so slightly effete gestures as he delivers his lines adds a lighter mood to the film without turning it into a joke. Well done, Muldoon. You carried the day.
Muldoon’s performance is strong enough to overcome the movie’s weaknesses. But, Del, in one instance, is correct. The CGI spiders in this film are terrible. All six of them. They look like shitty animation added to a live-action film. Plus, the cockroaches in my kitchen are bigger than the spiders in the movie. I was far from terrified by the suspense of people placing themselves unknowingly in position to get attacked and dismembered. I take that risk every time I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. My cockroaches are as big as helicopters and fly just as well. The practical effects in IS aren’t much better either, but they sure as hell are better than those in AS. At least the fake blood in IS was the color of blood. In AS, the blood was, I don’t know, a subdued fluorescent pink.
Also, you can’t overlook the political message in IS. The mad scientist uses the fascistic argument of national security to justify the spider mutation program, rationalize the deaths of fellow Americans, and openly threaten the lives of the survivors, if they said anything about the dangers they faced. Huh. Sounds like Trump and his justifications for his miserable COVID pandemic response.
“Ice Spiders” gets a B from me because of Muldoon’s acting, the production company’s insight to steal the plot from the very good movie “Deep Blue Sea” – enlarge an animal to get it to produce more of the substance you need to make a lot of money … I mean help humanity – and its R rating. Del gets an F for being Del in his review.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
“Bug” Starring Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr., Lynn Collins. Directed by William Friedkin. 102 minutes. Rated R.
( Warning: Spoilers follow. )
Mladen’s take
Aside from seeing Ashley Judd naked and one moment of exquisite acting, I’m hard-pressed to find anything good about the movie “Bug,” recently released on DVD.
Granted, I’m no Einstein, but having to turn to the director’s explanation of the movie to figure out its meaning is reason enough to dislike the depraved, violent effort. Then, as it turned out, not even the director sounded like he understood the movie.
“Bug” is incomprehensible because there’s no reference point.
Is Peter Evans, played by Michael Shannon, really an Army soldier gone AWOL after being injected with some experimental concoction that makes him believe he’s being attacked by nearly microscopic aphids? Or is he just crazy?
And, how could he persuade Judd’s character, Agnes White, that she should help, and stay with him, after he contaminates her and her grungy motel-room home with the “bugs”?
Yes, White is vulnerable emotionally because the memory of her 6-year-old son disappearing while they grocery shopped shadows her every move, but would that make her gullible enough to self-immolate, with Evans, to end the movie?
The most sympathetic character in the film, ironically, is White’s abusive ex-husband played beautifully by Harry Connick Jr. in the role of Jerry Goss.
There’s a scene — it’s about two seconds long —where Goss, the wife-slapping ex-con, becomes more sympathetic, even human, than White or Evans ever could.
The moment is played with such stunning heartbreak that, all by itself, it damn near saves the film … damn near but not quite.
Del‘s take
Somebody hand me a can of Raid. I’m gonna spray this vile movie until it curls up and dies, like an invading midnight cockroach.
“Bug” is shocking because it highlights the kind of crap that passes for art these days – gratuitous violence inflicted by unsympathetic lunatics on self-appointed victims.
It’s one of those spiral-into-insanity kinds of films that invites us along for the ride. But after seeing this wreck weave back and forth across the center line I bailed and called the cops.
The Judd character is an unlikable victim whom we’re led to feel sorry for – sorry, I didn’t – because her kid was abducted. Her solution: stay drunk and beaten up.
The guys in her life are slimeballs who should be put away in cells – one, prison; the other, padded.
The story is … well, there IS no story. It’s just an extended vignette drenched in mayhem, madness and murder.
No law requires that a movie edify or enlighten. But it MUST entertain, and I ask: What’s so fun about watching two nutcases dissect each other?
Nothing – unless you’re a fan of hernia exams.
Don’t see “Bug.” Spray it. Step on it. Sic the cat on it.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
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“Pan’s Labyrinth” Starring Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, and Sergi Lopez. Directed by Guillermo del Torro. 119 minutes. Rated R.
Mladen’s take
Beautifully shot, captivatingly acted, the film “Pan’s Labyrinth” has to be more complex than what appears on the surface, as gripping as the surface can be.
At face value the movie is about a smart, upstanding 12-year-old girl descending into a fantasy world below and about the abandoned mill where she’s staying with her desperate mother and vile step-father, a captain in the Spanish army of fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
It’s 1944 and the captain and his unit are mopping up communists hiding in the mountains. As he flattens a less-than-subservient suspect’s nose with a beer bottle, shoots others with his pistol and tortures a captured partisan, the captain’s pregnant wife ignores the bloodshed and prepares for child birth.
Her daughter tries to escape the horror through imagination. In her thoughts, she encounters Pan, the tattooed, goat-like guardian of a utopian kingdom long dead. He promises the girl eternal life and happiness, as long as she executes three deeds.
On the surface, “Pan’s Labyrinth” is about a girl turning inward to forget the brutal world engulfing her. Trouble is, her adventures in fantasy land aren’t all that wonderful. During her quest, the girl encounters all sorts of creatures – one beast, with drooping skin and eyes in the palms of its hands, eats two of the girl’s dainty fairies.
“Pan’s Labyrinth” strongly suggests, if not outright screams, that even the imaginary places we contrive for peace of mind are tainted by exposure to civilization. We’re viciously human even when we don’t have to be, though in this case the girl eventually journeys to a happier land.
Del’s take
What’s to understand, Mladen? This girl’s life really, really sucks.
Her name is Ofelia and she’s the quintessential stepchild – her real father was murdered by fascists, her mother has taken up with those very same fascists and Ofelia’s only escape is the brutal and scary fantasy world of Pan’s Labyrinth, which is about as much fun as a two-for-one root canal.
While performing the three tasks to prove her worthiness to Pan, Ofelia makes mistakes, disobeys orders, and brings pain and even death into her life … wow, sounds like a shopping adventure at Wal-Mart.
But what matters is where she’s at when the movie ends, and I guess it’s safe to say she’s in a better place.
What I took from this movie is that life – even a fantasy life – extracts its pound of flesh. Sometimes you have to go through hell to get to heaven. Sometimes it’s worth it.
“Pan’s Labyrinth” is dark by American standards but it reminded me that even a can of Spam can taste like a banquet when you haven’t had anything to eat in a long time.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
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“The Host” Starring Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon and Hae-il Park. Directed by Joon-ho Bong. 119 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
I was told to expect a monster movie, a “Godzilla” sans cheesy rubber suit and toy airplanes. I was not told to expect humor, a dysfunctional family and biting political commentary.
Yet that’s what director Bong has delivered with “The Host,” a modern fable that calls upon classic storytelling and genre tropes to deliver its subtextual punch. “The Host” gives us a monster, yes, and it is a monster that gallops through its CGI-energized paces with the crazed recklessness of a 20-ton tweeker.
But worse monstrosities await victims of “The Host,” from the disaffections of life in the 21st century to conspiratorial governments that treat the helpless as cannon fodder for shrouded strategic aims.
In “The Host,” a family broken apart by selfishness is united in a quest to free a young girl who has been taken away by a monster that sprang from the Han River, which flows through Seoul, South Korea.
The family members must confront not only the monster but also resolve their personal differences and deal with a bureaucratic apparatus that has been set up to conceal the truth about the creature.
“The Host” is sure to befuddle the ADD-addled brains of many Americans but it is a fine piece of moviemaking that does what all good stories should do – entertain and provoke.
Mladen’s take
Sure, the people in “The Host” are important.
There’s the fractured family with its only functional constituent a middle-school girl. There’s the meek, bureaucracy-poisoned government of South Korea and there’s the omnipotent U.S. Army illegally polluting the Han River.
But it’s the creature spawned by the toxic Han that steals the show.
A cross between the quad-jaw worms in “Tremors” and the tadpole phase of the smog monster in a classic pro-environment Godzilla epic, the Han beast is ferocity and guile in all its computer-animated glory.
Smart monsters are appealing because they’re alarming. It’s not that they kill you because you’re unluckily at the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s that they’re going to figure out where you live, case the joint, organize an attack plan and then follow it to kill you.
“The Host” is appealing because it makes the absurd premise of a mutated beast rising from shallow river depths near a metropolis believable.
And, it’s believable because of the way Bong portrays humanity’s reaction to the creature.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
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Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
Monday night, I bought a coffin for Maggie.
I chose a white satin-finish hatbox, the right size for a 4-pound cat.
I wanted to bury her in Mom’s back yard so she could be outside. We lived near a busy road and she never got to be outside when she was alive.
Maggie came into my life in 1991. She was a companion for my other cat, Pavlov. Little did I know she would steal my heart.
I found her at PAWS. She was snuggled with a littermate and I took her home with me. Over the years I wondered what happened to that littermate. I hope somebody took him home, too.
Maggie was the cat Pavlov never became. While Pavlov grew fat and earthbound, Maggie lolled in the window, drinking the sun. She preferred high places and once disappeared on the roof, reappearing on a neighbor’s patio. That prompted a midnight visit from Mom, Dad and Dad’s extension ladder.
But her favorite place was my lap. Summer or winter – it didn’t matter. She would climb aboard, make biscuits with her claws and abruptly plop down, sleeping for as long as I cared to sit still. I can’t count the times I remained on the couch long after I needed to use the bathroom because I didn’t want to disturb the cat.
I knew she would live forever.
In July, Maggie began to act strangely. She refused the litter box, using the mat in front. I thought she was upset over the hurricane. I laid out plastic sheeting and newspapers.
She began to lose weight. Her hip bones showed and her fur, which had always shone a lustrous tabby orange, became dull and scruffy. Something was wrong. I took her to our longtime vet, Kelly Haeusler at Airport Vet in Destin.
The diagnosis shocked me. Her kidneys were shutting down, a common malady among older cats. Her life could be prolonged by IVs but the end was inevitable.
I opted for the IVs. It became our daily ritual – a session in the bathroom with a needled hooked under skin. The fluids would form a comical pocket around her shoulders, giving her the look of a lion with a mane.
At first she gained weight and I was hopeful. But then she began to slide downhill. I watched her go from 7 pounds to 6, then 5. Her throat was so dry she could not meow. Toward the end, it hurt too much to lie down.
On her last day, I took her outside and let her stand in the grass. She made little squeaking sounds and bobbed her head, as if trying to take in the entire world in a single moment. I had to hold her up. She was light as a soul.
Then we made the long drive to Destin. I held her as the needle went in and her life floated away from me like a dandelion seed on the wind, something beautiful and irreplaceable lost to me forever.
I know that someday I will be happy again, but never in precisely the same way and that makes me cry.
But at least she can lie down now. And she will always be outside.
I hope I gave Maggie a good life.
I hope she knows how much I love her.
This column was published in the December 28, 2005 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
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 .
Mom always said: “Never tangle with anybody who’s got access to 100,000 watts of FM power.”
I thought that was barrels of ink, but whatever.
Some mornings I listen to 99Rock’s “The Morning Movement” with Murph and Galvin.
They describe themselves as “Murph and Galvin.” But it’s really Murph, Galvin AND Jessa.
And before I go any further – NO, this isn’t a cheap attempt to get myself on the radio. Truth is I’m scared to death of radio. They don’t call me “Dead Air Del” for nothing. Ask Scratch and Lauri at Z96. Ask Woofy. Ask the guys at MIX 103. Ask that Marconi guy.
Anyway, Murph and Galvin are pretty darned clever, funny, blah blah blah – OK, tribute paid and now I can get to raggin’. Actually I won’t rag on those two. They’re too fast and too jugular-oriented. I wouldn’t stand a chance.
But there is this one thing they do almost every morning that bugs me so much I can’t keep my big mouth shut any longer.
They rag on Jessa.
I mean, they REALLY rag on Jessa.
Sweet, innocent little Jessa, trapped in a tiny room with two … um … extremely talented and witty fellows who nonetheless ran on her without mercy.
And before I go any further – NO, this is not a cheap attempt to get myself a date with Jessa. The only place I’d feel right taking her is a Cradle Robbers Anonymous meeting.
Anyway, I sneaked a peek at 99Rock’s Web site and the photos of Murph, Galvin and Jessa. Now guys, I’m not trying to insult you. Believe me, I’ve got no room to talk when it comes to issues of appearance. For instance, I don’t have to wear a costume on Halloween. Depending on how much conditioner I put in my hair I can go as either Gandolf or Gollum.
But guys, after looking at your pix I gotta say: You need Jessa. Believe me, you NEED her. It’s like those moments of peaceful relief in a horror movie … you need that. Otherwise, the audience dies of fright.
Yeah, I know. The audience CAN’T SEE Jessa unless they browse the 99Rock Web site. But they can HEAR her, and I gotta say, Jessa’s got a great voice. She sounds like she looks.
Jessa’s job is to read the news, the stupid news and other stuff, and that’s where she runs into trouble with Murph and Galvin … she occasionally stumbles over a word and they give her hell for it.
Well, who wouldn’t stumble over a word when you’re stuck in a room with two psychos – did I mention they’re extremely talented and witty psychos – that have to be watched at all times lest they do something weird (maybe carnal) to you?
All that aside, Jessa is a pleasant force of moderation who makes the whole thing work, so guys, lay off! You need her.
And believe me, so do the rest of us.
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 .
I don’t get it.
How can a Jack Kevorkian be thrown in jail for helping perfectly lucid people with terminal illnesses commit suicide, when a comatose Terri Schiavo is inhumanely starved to death with the active consent of the courts?
Could it be the judicial system in this country believes nobody – but it – is allowed to play God?
This isn’t about Terri Schiavo. This is about how a person who hears death knocking should be allowed to open the door.
Let it be known: If I ever end up like Terri Schiavo, for God’s sake, pull the plug. I can’t imagine how awful my life would be under those circumstances, but I do know how awful it would be for the people left to take care of me. I wouldn’t want to inflict such a burden on them.
Nor do I wish to suffer a horrible lingering death with my wits and dignity intact.
Why can’t I do that now? Because euthanasia for the most part is illegal in the United States, due to outmoded and irrelevant moral and legal “standards” that uphold primitive notions about propriety regarding end-of-life issues.
Euthanasia isn’t wrong and it isn’t right. It simply is – or should be – an issue to be decided by the person to whom it applies.
But the terminally ill person isn’t allowed to decide when he’s ready to pack it in for the day. He must continue on, suffering miserably until “natural” death overtakes him.
I don’t get it.
Typically opponents of euthanasia fear “abuses” where people are put to death against their wishes or allowed the suicide option when they aren’t in command of their mind.
Also, the notion of “life at all costs” pervades our thinking – even it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
Any right-thinking person has no wish to die. It’s wired into our being that life is precious and must be preserved at extraordinary cost. Anything less becomes something monstrous.
But what happens when the issue of imminent death is a certainty, and the intervening weeks between the present and that dark future are know to be fraught with debilitating pain and suffering? Might some people choose the alternative to sticking it out until the awful, inevitable conclusion?
How, in a world where a person who has no voice in her fate is handed the death option, can another person who is able to make his wishes known be forced to suffer?
Could it be the lens of justice has become fogged by high clouds enshrouding that ivory tower?
I just don’t get it.
This column was originally published in the Saturday, May 7, 2005 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
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 .