Loving The Savage

Frank Bill’s The Savage feels like the desperate now. It’s not just 21st-century geopolitical fears as two world leaders seem hellbent on taking us down a real Fury Road, it’s also families throughout the American landscape being gutted by the opioid crisis, facing anxieties over losing health care, and befalling the horror of psychotic cretins shooting up music concerts and halls of worship.

Into this nightmare, The Savage doesn’t have the luxury of a slow start with the Picasso poetic likes of “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Yeah, goodbye to all that. Frank Bill delves right into it, storming the ravaged, scorched fields with these opening lines...

Please click over to Macmillan's Criminal Element blog for my full review.

I May Get Some Flak...

I may get some flak for this one but its an issue that has been needling me for a while:
Book vs. Television: What TV's Sheriff Longmire Is Doing Wrong article is live at LitReactor.

Subversive, Expressionistic, and Harrowing

“Gotta Light” is a subversive, expressionistic, and harrowing episode with prolonged scenes—even by Lynch standards—of no dialogue. “As soon as you put things in words, no one ever sees the film the same way,” he was quoted as saying in The New Yorker. The sobering result: we hear the eerie, discordant “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” by Penderecki as we bear witness to the first atomic bomb test at White Sands, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, and are pulled into the mushroom cloud among the swirling atoms of hellfire and destruction.

Rest of my thoughts on The Return Parts 8,9, and 10 at Criminal Element.

Lemon Scented

Without exception, the opening vignettes to American Gods are mini-masterpieces destined to be viewed time and again as inquiring minds seek to know more about these nearly forgotten fables—expect lots of YouTube hits.

In a compelling animated segment, the very first god comes to America circa 14,000 BC. A tribe of people crosses the land bridge from Siberia, following the wooly mammoths in hopes of finding food for their starving people. Atsula and her clan carry an effigy of their god, Nunyunnini, while they make the treacherous journey across the frozen, barren landscape. Her baby dies along the way, and when they finally arrive in the new land, she becomes the ultimate sacrifice to a bison-like spirit so her people can live—only to confront a tribe that had come before them. They defeat the newly encountered rivals and take their food, and then they leave behind Nunyunnini to be forgotten over time. The scene, like other Coming to America sections, was in variance from the novel.

My second article of the day posted at Macmillan's Criminal Element blog. Hope you click over to keep me in the freelance business. 

Ay, dios mio!

If there was one thing that stood out in this week’s episodes, it was those regurgitation scenes. Ay, dios mio! More than once as Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is passing from the Black Lodge back to the land of the living.

In what can only be described as a surreal trip for Coop, he gets sucked through an electrical outlet and rides the current until he switches bodies with a lookalike named Dougie Jones. The hapless Dougie was enjoying the company of a lady of the evening, Jade (Nafeesa Williams), who is washing up when Coop arrives and takes Dougie’s place. And there begins possibly the vilest puke scene ever delivered on camera (and if you can point to more disgusting exhibits, I’ll just take your word for it). Dougie is swept away to the Black Lodge, where the one-armed man, Gerard (Al Strobel), explains, “Someone manufactured you,” and bears witness as the doppelgänger disintegrates into nothing more than a little round ball.

Hope you click over here for my review of episodes 3 and 4 of Twin Peaks: The Return. 

Twin Peaks: The Return

Ahead of David Lynch’s revival, I went back and binged on the original series, interested to know if it would still capture me like it did 27 years ago. I was only a few years older than the fictional 17-year-old Laura Palmer when I sat with my mom and best friend Erik each week, religiously invested in Special Agent Cooper probing Laura’s grisly death. My mother didn’t laugh at the dark humor that Erik and I enjoyed over the slain girl’s mom wailing long past when other directors would have yelled “cut!” We had grown up on Lynch’s Blue Velvet and were more than prepared for the dramatic swings—after all, Dennis Hopper snuffing up oxygen through a mask is practically normal. Still, both generations were glued-fast to the intrigue.

My full review is at Criminal Element.

Head Full of Snow

American Gods is losing me and I try to explain some of the issues in my coverage of the third episode.

“Contrapasso”

There’s a lot of underhanded business going on in the park that seems to be trickling down from the corporate top. Secrets, deceptions, and inappropriate behaviors are making the rounds. We’ve seen it from the upper levels, and now we’re getting more from the lower levels. 

The two techs—Lutz (Leonardo Nam) and Sylvester (Ptolemy Slocum), who had a run-in with Maeve after not putting her in sleep mode—are back. (I agree with Lutz, he probably did place her in sleep mode … she had just used her count-to-three trick to wake herself up.) They are again with Maeve, and Lutz is feeling a little more than creeped out by her presence because of last time.

*Rest of my review for Westworld's "Contrapasso" can be found here.

Hold a Scorpion by Melodie Johnson-Howe

Diana Poole has split with her egocentric boyfriend, Peter Bianchi, who had chided her to take a good look at herself. So she does—by going to a movie theater and watching her larger-than-life image on the silver screen.

A middle-aged actress who is on the back burner of Hollywood, Diana mulls the ended relationship and career mistakes that has brought her to this empty, darkened movie house. As she views herself, she insightfully ponders, “… narcissism is as demanding as an unpaid drug dealer.” Driving back to her Malibu home (after being lulled to sleep by her own hues), despondent thoughts are temporarily erased when she notes a woman waving boisterously in her direction. A fan? Someone she knows? She’s not sure as the brief encounter turns to horror.

My further two-cents on HOLD A SCORPION can be found at Macmillan's Criminal Element blog.

Chapter 5: The Gunslinger and the Man in Black

Roland finally catches up with the man in black!

Chrysalis

I'm up to reviewing the third episode of Longmire's season 5. I'm hoping you click over and deposit your two cents when you get a chance. Here's a sample:

Longmire selects some of the best music to punctuate scenes that require no dialogue. Kaleo's mournful “I Can't Go On Without You” plays as Walt (Robert Taylor) gives Dr. Donna Monaghan (Ally Walker) a phone call. The camera’s eye segues from bullet holes that have ventilated Walt's house to Donna reading a paper, “The Psychological Effects of Violence.” She notes, with apprehension, the “Cowboy” is calling but doesn't pick up. In just a little over a minute of screen time, we see the strain of the relationship played out before the opening credits. Kudos to director Adam Bluming for haunting, poignant filmmaking.

My full recap of Longmire 5:03: "Chrysalis" can be found here.    

Longmire Season 5

Longmire season 5 landed on Netflix. Ten new episodes that I will be binging and reviewing over the next week.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, Chapter 3

I’ve been thinking that Jake’s safety is hanging by a thread. First, we know that he has died in our world when the man in black pushed him in front of a moving car, and then he just happens to be residing, a little too conveniently, at that way station when Roland came along. King writes that Roland feels love for the child but his Captain Ahab obsession for the Dark Tower—well, let’s just say, I don’t see this eleven-year-old slowing down Roland from his goals.

More of my thoughts on chapter 3: The Oracle and the Mountains at Criminal Element. Hope you stop over there and join in the conversation.

Dundee Frayed Review

It is always nice when a reader takes the time to leave a thoughtful assessment on something you have written and a bigger reward when that reader is someone you greatly admire. In this case, Wayne D. Dundee has reviewed my Torn and Frayed novella on Amazon. Thanks, Wayne!

Face Blind

I’ve always thought two of the more intriguing protagonists finding themselves in a world of mierda were from the 1966 stage production of Wait Until Dark (later adapted into the Audrey Hepburn film), featuring a blind woman going up against three men who have invaded her home, and Jonathan Nolan’s 2001 short story “Memento Mori” (also made into a movie—Hollywood knows a good thing), where a man with backwards amnesia continually tattoos himself to remember imperative details related to his wife’s murder. Both of these individuals persevered without the benefit of certain functions that most of us take for granted. In Face Blind, Lance Hawvermale should have Hollywood warming up their keyboards because he has tapped into a different, brilliant deprivation plot device: prosopagnosia. 

That is the start of my review for Lance Hawvermale's FACE BLIND. Please follow the link here for the rest of my review. Comments are always welcomed... and make my boss super duper extra happy.

The Return of Sheriff Dan Rhodes

I’ve been routinely traveling to the fictional town of Clearview in Blacklin County, Texas to spend a few reading hours with the amiable Sheriff Dan Rhodes. Though I’m a Yankee, it’s not as far of a metaphysical journey as you would think because I grew up in farm country in a picturesque village in Tompkins County, New York—so I can relate.

As a youngster, on any given Saturday, Dad would take me with him to some place in town, say, Mr. Whyte’s garage, when the sheriff pulled in for whatever reason. Still can see that gun riding high on his belt and the so-very-serious look on his face. “He’d arrest his own mother,” Dad warned. 

The rest of my review can be found here. 

The American Girl

Here's a book I thoroughly enjoyed: The American Girl by Kate Horsley. C'mon over and see how I inserted the mathematical icosahedron into the proceedings. :)  

“A” Is for Alibi

I've been a long time aficionado of Ms. Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries and jumped at the chance to say a few words on the first in the series. Here's a sample of my article:

Would you indulge me in some California dreaming? Thanks.

So, “A” Is for Alibi, featuring Sue Grafton's private investigator Kinsey Millhone, debuted in 1982—a year before author Ross Macdonald died. Macdonald had created the fictional town of Santa Teresa where his own PI, Lew Archer, routinely patrolled throughout an eighteen book series. The wealthy area (described by Grafton as “a haven for the abject rich”), which—more than a little—resembles the real Santa Barbara, is where a good chunk of the setting of Alibi takes place. I can picture both detectives sitting down at Rosie’s Tavern, Archer laying his fedora on the table, thoroughly entranced by thirty-two-year-old Kinsey Millhone—she a reflection of his younger self—in a symbolic passing of the torch. Nice to envision, right?

Please click here for the rest of the article at Macmillan's Criminal Element.

Tony's Frayed Thoughts

Well this week is starting off rather nicely thanks to Tony Lane. Bottom line: He liked it. Whew! *wipes forehead*

Bemoaning The Good Assassin

I was asked to evaluate a book and didn't particularly care for it. So for my review, I pulled back to first take a look at the 'good' assassin in film and literature—something I find most of the time to be annoying.