(1) MOVIE MEME. Mari Ness’ contribution brought the #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly meme to my attention…
Construction workers find themselves caught in the middle of an explosive war they never asked for. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
— Mari Ness, still masked (@mari_ness) December 13, 2015
Some others –
https://twitter.com/saladinahmed/status/676098003741052928
https://twitter.com/TheFienPrint/status/676155312173408258
https://twitter.com/markmcdsnp/status/676127648976920576
https://twitter.com/kraker2k/status/676121261366489088
Woman is removed from a corner by hotel staff #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly pic.twitter.com/uvownHOWZt
— Sean Cisterna (@seancisterna) December 13, 2015
(2) THINGS TO DO. Mary Robinette Kowal, who uses Habitica as a productivity tool, invites others get the benefit by participating in her guild, “Ink Slingers” –
For science-fiction and fantasy writers and editors who are actively working in the field and trying to improve craft. But who also need peer pressure to be productive.
We have some challenges with habits and dailies that you might find helpful.
The way Habitica works is that you break the things you ought to be doing into three types of things.
- Habits: which are things you ought to do, but not necessarily on a regular basis. Like “3 minute stretch break.”
- Dailies: which you do regularly. Like “Write three sentences.”
- To-Dos: which are one time things. Like “Complete revisions for episode 2.”
To use it, you need to create a Habitica account first, then join Ink Slingers.
(3) WENDIG. Locus Online has an excerpt of its interview with Chuck Wendig.
“We’re either moving toward evolution or the ruination of humanity. There’s an angel and a devil. Both of those are manifest in every single technical jump we make. Which one of these do we bet on? Are we going to destroy ourselves with technology, with a nuclear bomb? Or are we going to get nuclear energy? Even a knife can be used to feed my family, or to kill you and take your food. Even the simplest, tiniest technology has a massive polarizing effect on humanity.”
(4) MAXAM PASSES AWAY. SF Site News reports Bay Area fan Felice Maxam died December 1. Maxam, then Felice Rolfe, participated in the Society for Creative Anachronism from the beginning. She was present at its first Tournament in 1966. She also belonged to the Peninsula SF Association in those days. Co-editor of Niekas with Ed Meskys, she was nominated for two Hugo Awards, and won the Best Fanzine Hugo in 1967.
(5) FUTURE OF EASTERCON. Caroline Mullan is publicizing the Future of Eastercon questionnaire one more time. By Novacon, 207 responses had come in. Another 40 have been submitted since. “We’re mailing round to see if there is anyone else out there who would still like to fill it in before we have another go over the responses,” she says.
The Eastercon Options website has been busy over the last month — here are some of the most interesting posts.
A questionnaire was open on the website during October 2015. We had 207 responses, about half from people who do not usually attend Eastercon bidding sessions…. https://eastercon.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/novacon-presentation.pdf
At the Novacon presentation, someone in the audience asked for a general restatement of what problems we’re trying to solve here. We have a number of problems, some more significant than others, some are not problems at the moment but may well become so. It’s fairly obvious from the results of the questionnaire, that we also have a whole bunch of problems that we didn’t really consider to be problems at all, until we started asking questions….
Fans are often bad about communication. We tend to be rubbish about talking to other people, and even worse about understanding them when they talk back. That’s a bit strange for a subculture that is largely based around forms of communication, from letters to fanzines to films to blogs to conversations and panels at conventions. Historically though, the record of fans communicating, misunderstanding each other, followed by “all Fandom plunged into war” is pretty consistent. So it’s no surprise that here we are in 2015 and the results from our questionnaire show that we’re still doing a lousy job. I’d like to understand why, though the folly of doing this through the act of communicating via yet another written medium has not escaped me….
(6) Today’s Birthday Boy
- Born December 13, 1925 – Dick Van Dyke
Fans help Dick Van Dyke kick-off his birthday weekend celebration with a flash mob at The Grove in Los Angeles on December 12, 2015.
(7) SITH STATUARY. The BBC profile “The Man Who Turned Lenin Into Darth Vader” tells about Ukranian sculptor Alexander Milov, who got the Odessa city council to allow him to turn a Lenin statue they were threatening to melt down into a Darth Vader statue. It even has free Wi-Fi!
To create his new sculpture, Milov strengthened the original structure and added a helmet and cape made out of titanium alloy – he also inserted a Wi-Fi router in Vader’s head. Despite the statue’s apparent glibness, it serves as a reminder that we can’t control which memories last and which don’t. “I wanted to make a symbol of American pop culture which appears to be more durable than the Soviet ideal.”
(8) COOKING FOR WHO. Chris-Rachael Oseland, author of Dining with the Doctor (recipes inspired by Doctor Who), is interviewed by Salon in “Geek food for the geek soul: ‘As society gets increasingly secular, we need to fill the social void’”.
Oseland will bring out a second edition of her Dr. Who book next year, as well as “Geek Breads,” which includes the “Dune” recipe. If you’ve seen the image of a “Dune” sandworm made of bread that went viral last week, that’s her work….
So it came out of your interest in history, more than fiction or something?
Yes – and I think that’s reflected in most of my cookbooks. “An Unexpected Cookbook,” my hobbit one, is a straight-up history cookbook: It’s all recipes from Tolkien’s childhood in the 1890s.
I’m doing the same thing with my Dr. Who cookbook – anytime where they go back in history, it’s an excuse for me to tuck in a few historical facts… I feel this obligation to make sure I’m historically accurate with these things.
(9) SENSE OF HISTORY. Adam-Troy Castro read Castalia House’s first two blog posts about pedophilia in sf and he challenges the relevance of its entry about David Asimov.
(10) SOUND FOOTING. Star Wars socks from Stance.
(11) OUT OF THE BOX. This Saturday Night Live faux commercial spoofs toy collecting nerds.
(12) RUCKER RECOMMENDS. Rudy Rucker’s book picks for 2015 ends with four books from this year (the others date earlier). His enthusiasm is contagious, so brace your TBR pile for incoming….!
(10) Paul Di Filippo, A Palazzo in Space. 2015. Paul Di Filippo writes SF stories, a lot of them, and he’s had a zillion collections come out. I collaborate with him on stories sometimes, so I’m very sensitive to the pleasures of his style. He has this jovial voice and an extreme love of words, with a real knack for SF neologisms. Like one of his stories communication devices is said to be “uebertoothed.” And there’s a gang of reality hackers called Los Braceros Ultimos. In one of his stories, “Pocketful of Faces,” he gets into an insane riff about people switching their faces, storylet after storylet, topping himself over and over—its’ like watching some mad juggler. And in the denouement, someone is wearing a fake face on top of a fake face on top of their real face, and who even knows why, but it just has to happen. And the doubly buried faces is like a pale grubworm inside a rotten log. Great stuff. Write on, celestial scribe!
(11) ONE LORD A-LEAPING. Legend of Tarzan official teaser trailer.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, and Steven H Silver for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Snowcrash
Thank you. If there were an award for the finest delivery of one line Karl Urban would, in my view, win it hands down.
In this morning’s kitten news, breakfast was harmonious. 🙂
@snowcrash
Wow, there was so much jumping. And falling. And jumping then falling. And then some more falling, plus some jumping.
When a suspected federal agent investigates the alien abduction of a former student and his fiancee, he experiences paranormal phenomena that prompt him to question his own identity.
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
– Elaborate presentation to CEO nearly goes astray due to project coordinator’s former wife. Answer.
– Hard working janitor finds love with uptown girl, and invites her folks back home Answer
– Trip goes badly wrong due to over-reliance on computerized navigation system. Answer
– Visitor just tries to fit in with scientific crew, but is hurt by their rejection. Answer
– Corporate representative gradually comes to better emphasize with refugees, helps them repair their vehicle. Answer
Tormented by the memory of his late wife, a psychologist travels to a remote sanctuary where he can meditate on the meaning and purpose of life.
Scientists hope to determine whether dissolved humanoid DNA will, billions of years later, evolve into more humanoids, and whether alien parasites can gestate inside organisms they haven’t coevolved with, but their diabolical experiments are foiled thanks to the ingenuity of American crony capitalists.
RDF: Your answer referrals to IMDB don’t work.
You’ll just have to count on your bad explanations being good enough. 🙂
@snowcrash:
Looks like J.J. Abrams has done an impressive job turning Star Trek into a clone of Guardians of the Galaxy.
I won’t ever forgive him for what he did to Uhura, anyhow.
Ah the late arriving prequel to: man on cruise gets a tummy bug after an onshore excursion.
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
On a more meta note, I liked:
Symbiotic blood-borne microbes called midichlorians give some people magic powers.
::godstick::
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
Crippled soldier bonds with his aborigine captors after an out-of-body experience, leads them in overthrow of corporate masters.
answer: Ningne
Bea Arthur’s bar gets closed.
Pre-AirBnB entrepreneurial physician and film enthusiast opens his home to ungrateful strangers.
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
Woman is kidnapped by an escaped suspect while experiencing a unique form of human-machine interaction.
Grezvangbe
Hunter encounters difficulty navigating his prey’s natural environment. His friends leave a memento from a previous trip behind.
Cerqngbe 2
After assisting him in running illegal scams for years, an accountant turns on his client.
Funjfunax Erqrzcgvba
Man steals WMD, which he then loses to a known terrorist. Later, with assistance, he uses the weapon to kill the terrorist.
Thneqvnaf bs gur Tnynkl
These are fun.
Bruce Baugh, is Brother significantly smaller than Sister, or is it just an illusion caused by the bob-tail?
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly: Petit-bourgeois landowner and his gardener join with the forces of reaction to destroy a powerful rising industrialist and restore the monarchy.
@Cassy B: She’s a touch bigger, but mostly it’s the tail and my position making her look significantly bigger.
Joe H. on December 14, 2015 at 7:11 am said:
I think you’ve just nailed DC’s problem relative to Marvel. Marvel has making their stuff character-driven, rather than just relying on the fact that the characters are iconic bits of pop culture. DC seems stuck on the idea that “Well, he’s Superman” is sufficient character development.
I wonder who was behind the Dick Van Dyke flash mob, but the video was charming and Dick Van Dyke certainly enjoyed himself!
@ rob_matic
re: Quarter Share
Glad you liked it. I did rate the series at 3.5 stars, so hope you weren’t expecting a lot more. If you have any interest in continuing, the next 3 books are in a similar vein. The last 2 books have a bit more action, tension and character development, but they stay in the “light, enjoyable read” category. And, yeah, don’t pay that kind of money for them, I got mine for around $2 US each on sale.
CF:
Which was, of course, followed by beleaguered solo mother fights for her family’s survival against ruthless alien extermination squad with its downer ending that she failed and the family all died. The reaction to this was probably why they followed THAT child improbably survives and seeks refuge in religious community
Whereas ironically I think the problem with Star Trek isn’t that they don’t understand the characters — it’s that they don’t understand the kinds of stories those characters should be used to tell.
RDF: Your answer referrals to IMDB don’t work.
Darn.
– Elaborate presentation to CEO nearly goes astray due to project coordinator’s former wife. Vaprcgvba svyyre jbeqf
– Hard working janitor finds love with uptown girl, and invites her folks back home Jnyyr ab ulcura gb nibvq fcbvyre
– Trip goes badly wrong due to over-reliance on computerized navigation system. Tuvf lrne zvahf sbhegrra n fcnpr bqlffrl
– Visitor just tries to fit in with scientific crew, but is hurt by their rejection. Anzr bs benatr thl sebz snagnfgvp sbhe
– Corporate representative gradually comes to better emphasize with refugees, helps them repair their vehicle. Qvfgevpgavar
The funny thing is that, as I recall it, Marvel and DC used to have reversed tones to what they have now.
Marvel comics used to be dark and serious and psychologically tormented, while DC comics tended to be bright and optimistic and sometimes just a bit silly.
At Marvel the X-Men were forever moaning about their pariah status as mutants. The Black Widow was ruthless and efficient and I don’t think she ever smiled. The Incredible Hulk lurched from one misunderstanding to the next. The Scarlet Witch had a painful and complicated family. Spider-Man couldn’t get no respect. Captain America, perhaps Marvel’s sunniest character, was a man out of his own time. Elektra, oy!
At DC by contrast, despite the presence of the Green Lantern / Green Arrow social justice issues and the X-Men-lite Doom Patrol and the somewhat campy (pre-Alan Moore) Swamp Thing, most of the heroes seemed a bright, happy, well-adjusted lot. Even Batman, pre-Frank Miller, seemed to be basically optimistic.
And now Pa Kent is a nihilist and Superman is all dark and self-pitying and stuff, and Batman is, well, the character from the LEGO movie, pretty much, and Wonder Woman can’t even get a line of dialogue but she looks scowly.
Really, the only DC properties that don’t look horribly depressing right now are the TV shows “The Flash” and “Supergirl.” (And they are, both of them, delightful, credit to their creative teams.)
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
Vermont inn is overrun by Army at Christmas.
#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
Orphan takes out his frustration from his parents deaths out on clown
Maverick cop teaches robots valuable life lessons.
It takes a man thirty years to reach an incorrect conclusion about pasta toppings.
(TbbqSryynf, also known as TbbqSryynf: Guerr Qrpnqrf va gur Yvsr bs gur Znsvn.)
A man helps married terrorists escape, then befriends a corrupt cop.
Pnfnoynapn
After engaging in kidnapping and grand theft to get his dream job, an inhuman monster quits and returns to his old job. (holiday-themed!)
Gur Avtugzner Orsber Puevfgznf
An amputee and an escaped convict, both thirsty, bond on a road trip.
Znq Znk: Shel Ebnq
The Penguin helps Rambo lose a sporting event.
Pity for fool is misplaced
Cold War settled by boxing match.
@ Rob Sharpe – I once ran ran a Wold Newton campaign using Adventure and it is super easy to model any Wold character that way.
Three men build physical and emotional bridges in the American Southwest. Iconic film score.
@Stevie
Semi cheatingly, my favourite is:
10. I will admit to owning those Chewbacca socks.
A middle aged man takes the advice of a beautiful woman and leaves his family, only to meet an old friend.
Gur Vaperqvoyrf
A girl visits a small town, then takes a train trip with a troubled boy.
Yrg gur evtug bar va
Ultimately, It’s France’s fault that New York is destroyed.
Tbqmvyyn, Nzrevpna irefvba
Single mother sacrifices her life to protect her newborn twins from a wild animal. (Tbqmvyyn if Zbguen)
An elderly man fights boredom by going out and meeting new people. (Inzcver Uhagre Q)
Attractive young women invite some boys over to show off their cutlery. (Tnzren if. Thveba)
Two friends have a bad falling out before the Olympics. (Nxven)
Zoo escapees fend off an alien invasion. (Qrfgebl Nyy Zbafgref)
A flighty princess won’t stop wandering off into the forest. (Anhfvpnn bs gur Inyyrl bs gur Jvaq)
You think *your* kids act like animals? (Jbys Puvyqera: Nzr naq Lhxv)
One from a friend’s Twitter: An interracial couple search for their adopted son who has been framed by a horny terrorist. (Senaxrafgrva Pbadhref gur Jbeyq)
And not a movie, but…
Disaffected veteran tries to reconcile with his long-lost mother. (Svany Snagnfl IVV)
You might detect a theme here.
@Meredith and anyone else who likes dragons:
James Maxey’s “Bitterroot” series, in a four-book omnibus plus a prequel story, is on sale at Amazon for 99 cents. The blurb goes like this:
An epic tale of war between dragons and mankind! When the mysterious dragon slayer Bitterwood murders the son of the Dragon-King, the dragons respond with a campaign of genocide against their human slaves.
I grabbed this, needless to say.
I already posted this on Twitter, but:
Benedict Cumberbatch does not play Khan.
Thank you, RDF, for not using Rot13. I read yours.
@Jim Henley:
Er, me too. That much short ROT13 interspersed with unencoded text is too nuisancy to read, so I’ve been skipping it.
re: James Maxey: Oops, Bitterwood, sorry.
Mike, did you delete my last PlotBadlyExplained because I went all out to paint the movie as waaaaaay more salacious than it actually was?
Snowcrash
Your name lends a whole new meaning to that quote; it would be churlish of me to quibble about a trifling detail like a full stop…
RDF: That would be right.
I think DC learned the wrong lesson from their success in letting the movie Batman go in a darker direction — Batman was born out of a noir tradition, so “dark” feels like a return to the roots of the character. But they seem to have thought “dark, we’ll make everybody dark, it’s all dark, SO DARK.” But without character-based emotion to back it up, “dark” as a style choice just ends up feeling pretentious and dull.
Napping with a couple of kittens draped over and between your legs is really nice. I just thought you all would like to know.
Actually, I’m feeling fairly laid back this evening: the Carols by Candlelight at St Giles, Cripplegate, once we’d got past the acapella first verse of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, were pretty good, as one would expect of a group of professional singers, supplemented by people with decent voices who can sight read music.
I am perfectly willing to concede that I am completely biased in favour of my daughter, and that I greatly enjoy listening to her sing; on the other hand, when she is singing it I don’t have to worry about whether she’s going to hit the note, or even whether she’s going to hit the notes in the right order; I know she’s going to do it so I can immerse myself in the beauty of the music.
Sadly, I spent the first few minutes twitching as I endeavoured to establish a telepathic link to the soloist, to provide her with helpful and supportive advice along the lines of ‘don’t worry about it, happens to everyone, you might want to up the volume’ and so forth.
But after that I could chill with the music and the words, though I had to edit out a fairly large number for wanton abuse of the English language, and the happily brief sermon was about the irony of celebrating Christmas in the church where Oliver Cromwell was married. His attempts to abolish Christmas were rather more robust than those complained about today, and thus we come full circle…
Wow, it got really dusty in my house around 3:20 into that Dick van Dyke video.
(The ending of Mary Poppins just wrecks me every time.)
Rob
Sadly, Dyson doesn’t work with that kind of dust…