Inside the Brain of E.C. Henry

Why Is It So Hard to Say I Love You to Someone Else; Exploring Issues in Rom-com Movies: Volume 57

My mother says it.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  And without hesitation.  My 7-year-old nephew says it to me all the time, and I NEVER feel like I deserve it.  Three simple words.  Yet with them such power to warm the soul.

I Love You.

Now in the rom-com world, what I hold to be true is that the prevailing, common belief is that for a member of a given coupling that's being explored this declaration must be earned, a.k.a. a character has to go through a metamophasis of sorts before they're ready to say those three, key words.   It's like every, "I love you," has to be earned.  And why is that?  Well, it's because rom-coms are manipulated stories designed to drive an audience to a given climatic moment  Like Hugh Grant's rambling confession of love to Andie McDowell in Richard Curtis' "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994), or Billy Crystal's confession of love to Meg Ryan in Nora Ephron and Rob Reinner's "When Harry Met Sally" (1989).  Both of these windy confessions came at the end of the movie.   

It's like once you've finnished working through your issues, then it's okay to tell that someone special that you love them.

I think we live in a society of "love supression" of which I'm actually guilty of being complicit to.  But should I?  

Fuck no!  I'm a pretty smart person.  Who is able to think independently, see the options available to me, and choose the the best one.  Sure, I'm a bit of a fucktard, but even with that held against me I can still choose wisely.  As such, I should be more like my mother and my nephew who freely say, "I love you" to other people.  

But do they understand the magnitude of what they're saying?  Who cares!  Stop being love's wet blanket.  Isnt' there enough bad stuff in the world today?  Couldn't we all use a little of love's brightening yellow magic that revives and makes the sould feel like it's flying around.  Sure, I'm talking about romantic love too.  I've actually felt that cool feeling of vertually flying arround when I thought I was in love a long time ago, but then again that was a long time ago, and memories fade and darkness can replace the light where love once lit up the room.

Can love light up the room?  You betchya!  And that's why I'm an advocate of lettin' 'er rip and telling other people that you love them.  Doesn't matter if they love you back or not.  Send out those magical, positive vibes and make the world a brighter place by the love you're sending out.  Cynacism and sarcasm are like the battery acids that errode and distort the radaince that love leaves so watch it when those words are in your mouth.

Point: it's better to be naive and have genuine love in your heart then to be world-weary and cynical.  

I guess the geneis of this post came from a 4th viewing of the Schumer/Apatow masterpiece rom-com they made in "Trainwreck" (2015), where at the end of the movie, Amy Schumer's character joins the NY Knicks cheerleaders, and puts a lavish dance skit to impress and win back her estranged boyfriend, Aarron.  At the end of her performance Amy confesses her love to Aarron by saying, "I love you."  Then moments later the movie ends.  Perfect.  Good job, Schumer/Apatow.  Nailed it.  THAT'S how you end a romantic comedy well.  Never say a pro in the industry can't grow in his craft and deliver in the clutch.  'Cuz that's what Judd Apatow did here.  Sure, I was disappointed in the last scene of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with the ensamble sing-and-dance to "Age of Aquarious", but here in "Trainwreck", Judd proves beyond a shaddow of a doubt that he is capaple of delivering a memorable and moving ending to a romantic comedy.  

Earlier in the movie their is scene where Amy's character opens up to her sister, and ends up getting hugged by that sister and her husband and step son.  Arms up, Amy "exits" that hug because she's uncomfortable, uncomfortable with group expressions of genuine love and good will.  

That kind of shit bothers me.  Makes me wonder how much of that stinking thinking resides in me.  That being pushing away from others who seek to love me.  

Weird how a rom-com can make you think about issues like that.  But that's what a GOOD rom-com will do, it gets you to think.  Now the EASY thing to focus on after watching "Trainweck" is the affect a divorce and a promiscious parent can have on a child, OR the self-destructive habits of sexually loose woman.  But after watching "Trainwreck" a fourth time, my mind drifted over to another, more suble issue that is raised in this movie, that being how some of us out there can actually push away from the people who are trying to love us.  And that's just wrong!

So why do some people behave that way?  Well, I think it's because for a lot of people saying I love you is seen as a sign of weakenss.  Some people see themselves as bastions of strength that don't need other people.   

But saying, "I love you," IS a necessary thing.  And it's something we shouldn't be stingy about either.  Acting on this newfound boldness, and not-giving-a-fuck-anymoreness here's a brief list of people I would like to say, "I love you" to:

• I love you, Billy Mernit: for giving me good, intellecual fodder to muse over, which is stark contrast to the mindless dipshits I am forced to deal with on a daily basis.
• I love you, Amy Schumer: for being awesome, crafting a kick-ass 1/2 hour comedy show, and making a memoroable rom-com that got me to think about issues I love thinking about.
• I love you, Judd Apatow: for growing in your directoral and movie-making prowess.  Keep being awesome and making movies with your friends and breaking-in new talent.
• I love you, Brycen.  My 7-year-old nephew who is learning to cope with his own emotions, allthewhile teaching world-weary assholes like me how to unabashedly say, "I love you" to other people.
• I love you, Danny O'Neil of 710, KIRO a.m., for growing into an awesome, sports talk radio host.  This guy was a news paper reporter for YEARS, then transitioned to radio, where he brings a fresh and unique dynamic.  Thus proving some writer are actually capable of carrying on a conversation.
• I love you, Jim Moore of 710, KIRO a.m., for being the WSU slacker turned curmudgeon, who doens't take himself too seriously and knows how to have fun, and playoff being the butt of the joke.  A rare skill in today's society.
• I love you, aunt Denny.  Proably the holiest person I have ever met--and she lives in the room right next to mine!  At one point in her life she applied to be a nun in convent.  They rejected her, but the Lord has since used her for a far greater ministry and impact in the world around, whether she sees that or not.  I guarantee you this, you haven't met anyone like my 66-year-old aunt.  She's a trip.  Unique.  A once-in-a-lifetime person, and I love her!
• I love you, my mom, Donna.  Hard on my nephews?  You bet!  This gramma doesn't take shit from her grandsons.  But she knows how to love me very well, and I'm not an easy person to like.  Show what's my mom like?  Ever seen someone with their arms open ready to give you a hug before?  Well, THAT'S what my mom's like.  Ready to love at the drop of a hat.  Totally sold-out believer in Jesus Christ--so if you ever met her, you better be ready for that!!
• I love you, my dad, Eric Sr.  Despite all the golf bullshit he forces me to listen to on a day-in, day-out basis.  There is no one quitle like my 70-year-old father.  In his retirement years, the smiles keep coming.  He's happy and content now.  Thank you Jesus he got healed from cancer about 10 years ago and was able to enjoy his retirement.  He deserved it.  I'm so glad he got out of his job and was able to enjoy some of the fruits of his labor.  Ever wanna hear about golf, OR have a golfing buddy to go out with, my dad's the man for that.
• I love you, Jimmy Fallon, for having the gift of gab and helping to make Hollywood's stars shine all the more brighter.  

Well, I guess I'll end this post here.  On a high note.  All lovey/dovey.  

- An E.C. Henry that's TRYING to be more loving in a world that's not as condusive to the transformational power of love as it should be

Anything but a Trainwreck (2015) Movie Review; Exploring Issues in Rom-com Movies: Volume 56

Just saw the most iconinc heronine in the history of the romantic comedy genre--and it was created by a FIRST TIME writer!  I'm talking the character of "Amy Townsend" in  Universal Pictures' latest gem which is entittled,  "Trainwreck" (2015: written by Amy Schumer, directed by Judd Apatow).

Laudy praise from a rom-com enthusiast, but is that justified?  Well, lemme just say, we've come a long way since Meg Ryan set the bar back in the day.

Amy Townsend BETTER than "Lucy Elanor Moderatz" as played by Sandra Bullock in "While You Were Sleeping" (1995), better than "Marie" as played by Juliette Bincoche in "Dan in Real Life" (2007), better than Jenna Rink as played by Jennifer Garner in "13 Going on 30" (2004), BETTER than even Andie Anderson who you previously cited as the best female lead in the history of romantic comedies in this post!  Well, yeah... in a way "Amy Townsend" IS the best. Not the funniest.  Not the best acted.  But CONCEPTUALLY the best and most daring rom-com staring heroine of all-time.  I.  LOVE.  AMY TOWNSEND.  CONCEPTUALLY.  First time "feature" writer Amy Schumer really nailed this character.  The movie starts out with her father explaining to his two pre-teen daughters that "monogomy isn't realistic" in leau of his divorse to his mother due to his straying ways.  Then flashforward 23 years where we pick up his oldest daughter's destructive lifesyle of getting smashed and doing a littany of mostly one-night stands with a plethora of guys.  

That's the starting point of this character.  But as the movie plays on we follow Amy as she loses her most consistent boyfriend and makes a connection with a stable guy who just could be her "one"; a guy she could have a good and meaningful relationship.  The probelm is she has YEARS of baggage and bad thinking which risks sabotaging her budding romance.  So will Amy Townsend overcome her shortcomings and land the guy that we the audience are rooting for her to be with?  Well, that's a typical rom-com female heroine character arc, and the central question raised in this gem of a movie.

For my money this character is spot-on, intersting and cavalier.  Having prevously fallen in love with Amy Schumer from her 1/2 hour comedy show, "Inside Amy Schumer" which airs on the cable station Comedy Central, perhaps I was precondition to love Amy Schumer's character in this movie...?  Well, I'd buy that to a point.  But having seen this movie, I LOVE Amy's dramatic acting in this movie, "Trainwreck".  For my $$ that was the biggest suprise here.  I was moved by her eulogy speech at her father's funeral.  And some of her facial expression during her "cute meet" with Arron (Bill Hader's character) was top notch too.  

But it all goes back to concept, and how the concept relies on a "smart audience" to fill in the gaps between a promiscious father trying to justify his own infedelity to his daughter and the affect that had on his oldest daughter and to much lesser degree the affect it had on the younger daugher as played by Brie Larsen.  Kinda reminded me of the bridge that "28 Days Later..." (2002: writen by Alex Garland, directed by Danny Boyle) asks the audiece to make between the first onset of the "infected" outbreak, and its eventual devestation of all of the United Kingdom.  Do you get what the parallel I'm trying to make? Yes, "28 Days Later..." and "Trainwreck" are radically different movies.  BUT the jump they make from there opening scene to how it sets up the rest of the movie is kind of the same; it requires the wheels in the mind of the audience to turn.  True, that turn is one of uter horror in "28 Days Later...", but it one of character affect in the rom-com that "Trainwreck" is.

Now, don't get me wrong I loved this movie, "Trainwreck", but it will never crack my top-10 rom-coms of all-time list.  I think currently I have it at # 30.  Why so low?  Gave you the impression that I LA-OVED this movie?  Well, I do like this movie, "Trainwreck", but it also has some big warts.  Biggest strike against this movie, the excessive sexual situtations.  Like the time Amy's boyfriend is pumping away on her, then later afterwards turns to face the camera with a hand towel drapped over his cock.  Straight-up gross!  Straight-up execessive.  Straight-up something that should have never been filmed in the first place.  But then again, "Trainwreck" is clearly a raunch-com.  

Okay, so "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was a raunch-com, AND yet it made my top 25 rom-coms of all-time list.  Well, from my perspective "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is a far superior overall movie to "Trainwreck".  "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" has a supporting cast that is a once-in-a-lifetime mix: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Elizabeth Banks, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen.  Now while "Trainwreck" does have a great supporting cast, the overall humor generated from that mix isn't worthy of cracking my top 10-list.  Sorry.  Raunch-coms are tricky beasts, especially for someone with more conservative taskes like I have.  

So how did this movie score romantically?  Well, I a HUGE propent of Amy's forward sexuality (totally works for me), but her pairing and love affair with Arron is really only good at the end when Amy does a dance number with the NY Knicks cheerleaders and she FINALLY makes a profession of love to him.  And then the movie ends!  Yeah, and so Judd Apatow proved A LOT to me; he showed me he can end a romantic comedy on the right note.  The first time last weekend when I saw this movie for the first time, I actually cried out in the parking lot, lamenting the fact that it wouldn't be one of my scripts that Judd finaly proved this, but rather was Amy's script.  

In any reguard, I have unending respect for Judd Apatow--especially now after he's proven beyond a shaddow of a doubt that he can end a romantic comedy on the write note.  Amy's dramatic acting prowess and chops was the greatest revelation for me in this gem of movie, but Judd Apatow's top notch directing was a close 2nd.  Known for long and bloated dramatic scenes from past movie he's helmed, this movie was a lot tighter.  I was especially impressed by the bar scene that leads to sexual leaison with Donald the intern.  I loved how it starts out with Amy dancing and trying to force herself back into her old ways, then end up getting in over her head with Donald, a character that she riddiculed and domintated for much of the movie earlier. 

I just like Judd Apatow's instincts.  He's won me over.  And like whatever Amy Schumer does next, whatever Judd does next will have my immediate attention as well.  And if you're like me and you just can't get enough Judd Apatow, he's got a new book out, "Sick in the Head" which you can buy here at this amazon link if you want.  I'm going to buy a copy for sure, but then again I have eyes to work with guy someday...

Speaking of which, this movie "Trainwreck" had ONE guilty pleasure that I can't let slide.  It was the movie-in-a-movie called "The Dogwalker", which was the movie playing in the theatre when Amy was on her date with the bodybuilder.  In this movie Daniel Radcliff played a smoker who was walking a bunch of dogs, and being engaged by Marisa Tomea who had her own poddle that she put out there with overt sexual overtones.  

Why is this a guilty pleasure?  Dude, a few years ago I wrote a movie called, "Puppies.    Puppies?  Puppies!!!" that dealt with a geeky guy who had a crush on a girl who worked at pound, which got him saddled with with three dog that added unneeded complications to his life.  

I've often wondered if people like Judd Apatow get access to and read scripts that come in to competions.  Who knows MAYBE somewhere along the line Judd took a liking to what I wrote there, and was having some fun with it in this movie.  If so, COOL!  Dude, would LOVE for you to do it, if you want, though for YEARS I thought it would be "Give It Up for Chimpy" that brought us togther.  

Fuck, I'm doing it AGAIN!  Getting myself all worked up for something that'll probably never come true.  Judd's a pro.  Fuck, he's best friends with Adam Sandler for crying out loud.  No shit, those two were buds from college.  How fun would it be to party with those two guys back in the day!  Babes galore...

Anywho, the "dog walker, movie inside a movie really scrambled my mind.  HUGE crush on Marisa Tomea.  Think she's soo gorgeous.  And Daniel Radcliff.  Never saw him as the slacker type before, such as Rupert Toadman is in "Puppies.  Puppies?  Puppies!!!"  But now with his brief role in "Trainwreck" I totally get it.  That is so cool how an actor or actress can take a small bit roll, and then when other people see it, their perception of them changes.  Gotta be hard for Daniel Radcliff to carve out a new identiy for himself post "Harry Potter", where he played the title character, but thanks to Amy and Judd, at least in my case, my perception of his HAS changed.  Daniel Radcliff won't be the next Maucoly Caulkin or Edward Froung (who was was GREAT in "Termininator II", but isn't remembered for anything else).

Well, this post was a long dousie, eh?  But that what happens when you dive in and boast about a movie that you really, genuinely loved.  AND I didn't even get into a lot of other stuff that was on my mind...  Like how closely "Trainwreck" mirrors "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days", and to a lesser degree, "13 Going on 30".  O-kay, bear with me for one last bit, becasue this comparison/contrast is deserving of further explorations.

Ways in which "Trainwreck" is similiar to "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days"

1. Use of a heroine who is working at a magazine trying to advance in her career, and finds herself finding a potentially life-changing romance.
2. New York Knicks and the basketball, subangle.  In "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days" that manifests in the NBA finals which influences both Benjamin Barry and Andie Anderson during their romance.  In "Trainwreck", there's the cheerleading scene and the links back from Aarron to sports stars LaBron James and Amare Staudemire.
3. Going from Statin Island back to New York.  In "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days" this is when Benjamin takes Anide back to see his parents, which really cements the genuine love that is blossoming between these two characters.  In "Trainwreck" it's the opening where Amy wakes up in Statin Island and make her trek of shame back to New York via ferry.

So was it overt?  Did "Trainwreck" feel like a rip-off of sorts of "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days"?  Hardly.  IF Amy Schumer was influenced by that gem of a movie, that's up to her to say.  Some of the similarites are obvious, at least by me who has probably watched "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days" twenty times now.  I know, I'm a hopeless romantic.  Well, not really.  IF you ever got to know me, you'd learnt that there's a whole a different reason althogher of why I watched that rom-com movie and several others of a selct few that much.  But I digress.

If you haven't already done so, so see Amy Schumer and Judd Appatow's gem of a movie, "Trainwreck".  Outside of "Inside Out", this is the 2nd best movie I've seen this year.  (Sorry Amy and Judd, I just think the inner concept of "Inside Out" was just so genious I can't help but gush about how good it is.  A whole story dedicated to helping a pre-teenage girl deal with an emotional move across country just gets me.  Gets me at the heart level, and I would be remiss if I didn't say that "Inside Out" is the best movie of 2015 that I've seen so far.)  "Trainwreck" comes in second.  And 2nd isn't such a bad place to be.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Swoshbuckling Approach to Romance; Exploring Issues in Rom-com Movies: Volume 55

I am very excited about what I'll be rewriting soon and very soon.  The 3rd--and hopefully best romance in the epic fantasy novel that I'm currently in process of rewriting.  My male in this romance is probably my favorite original character of all-time--and he's a good guy to boot!

I think why I like this male character so much is that he's so different than I am.  So much for all that addage, "write what you know".  What a load of crap!   Anyway, this character I'm so geeked about starts off as a kind of mentor, then makes what he feels is a HUGE, life-changing, bad descion that he can't reverse, then goes off sulking.  But this leads to swoshbuckling adventure like no other.  Kind of Errol Flynn-esque swashbuckling meets Liam Neeson of the "Taken" series bad-assness, all centered around a budding romance to boot!

O-kay, Romeo, slow your roll.  Do you even know who Errol Flynn was?  Well, to be quite honest, I've never even seen a movie starring Errol Flynn, BUT I have a hunch what his appeal was about. I asked my 66 year old aunt about him, and she said that her mother (my grandmother) had a thang for Errol back in his heyday.  I THINK he was known for swoshbuckling films... Yeah... Lemme check IMBD.  Yeah, with oldies like "Robin Hood" (1938), and "Captain Blood" (1935) ; precusor of sorts to the whole "Pirates of the Carribean" movie series, maybe even "Star Wars", "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", and even an  rom-com entitled, "Romancing the Stone".

What I'm getting at is the use of heroic swashbuckling in the movies, which I BELIEVE got off to a start with movies starring Errol Flynn in the 1930s.  How's that for a bridge between using a star from the past, bridging him to the rom-com genre--and even what I'm working on right now.

Who is this guy?

This guy is E.C. Henry and he's pretentious as all fuck!!.     

Anyway, I think it's safe to say this guy, Errol Flynn, was a swoshbuckler. The original Hollywood swoshbuckler.  AND he was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.  Anything from Tasmania has to be adventerous, right?  Remember the tasmian devil from the cartoon?  

Okay, getting serious again.   I just wanna say I feel very stongly abou t swoshbuckling and their use in romance.  Why, pray tell?  Because in swoshbuckling guys get to be heroic, and girls get to be feminine and be rescued.  I asked my 66 year old mom about "swoshbuckling" and she was VERY instant that there was a romantic componet.  I ventured on to ask her IF she thought Luke from George Lucas' "Star Wars" was a swoshbuckler, and didn't think he was, but she was insistant that that Hans Solo was.  And why was that?  Becuase he was a pirate, AND he had a swoshbuckling, budding romance with Leia.  

Don't undervalue the value and use of swoshbuckling as pertains to romance and the movies. It's all over the place, and in different forms and accents.  But at its core, a swoshbuckling romance has physical battles amidst some form of ongoing romance.  Hans Solo and Leia, the couple in the "Transfomers" series, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly in "The Pirates of the Carribean" saga.  Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in "Romancing the Stone", Daniel Day Lewis and Madeline Stowe in "The Last of the Mohechians".  

What I LOVE about swoshbuckling romances is they hit at the core of romance and a woman's inner desire for a great adventure and love in her life.  Regular life is so mundane.  People crave spice.  Excitement.  Women crave romance and desire.  Ever heard of it put like that? Just think about it.  When a woman describes the way her man won her over isn't it like a swoshbuckling ordeal has been done?  You really need to look into the reasons why.  

Women have a desired to be romantically prized

Men have a desire to be active and achieve things  

Put this together and I think you see it leads to...  Dunt, dunna, dunt.  Swoshbuckling!

(Stop being a dipshit and start playing along!) 

I don't know about you, but I like to see women happy.  I like to see them happy in their own given romance.  Real glad Taylor has found her guy in Calvin Harris, from all the pictures I ever seen of them they look so happy together.  I want ALL romances to be satisfying ones.  And that's at the core of why I like watching and writing rom-coms so much.  Because at their core these movies are all about pleasing women.

Celebrating Women in Games of Courtship

THAT'S what I believe is at the heart of the rom-com genre.  And swashbuckling is a key element of that.  The element of bouts of contest, where the woman is the ultimate prize.

Can't wait to rewrite my heroine for the guy in the 3rd romance in my epic fantasy novel.  I don't think I've written her as well as I can.  Going to really work on her character arc and backstory this week.  Trust me, when I'm done with her she's going to be something special, I've already got a capstone image scene of how this girl sees herself.  Anyway this heroine has be special, because the guy I'm giving her is special; best character I've ever written.  Right now I'm projecting the actress, Rachel Bilson, as this girl.  A beautiful brunette.  But the girl in my story has some major baggage, and she desperately needs to be rescued and be protected...  Ahhh yes, the swoshbuckling element!  And of cource, thanks to Errol Flynn, toast of this post who even though I don't really know him, got me thinking about how the role of swoshbuckling plays into romance, both in the movies, in my beloved rom-com genre, and in practicle areas of our own lives.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

P.S. Did see Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow's movie, "Trainwreck" this weekend.  1st on Saturday night, then again on the late show on Sunday night.   Will post something on this EXCELENT rom-com later this week so stay tuned!  

P.S.S. Took a break from being a total asshole today and took my parents out over the mountains to a place in eastern Washington called Tennaway.  We hung out in a mountain stream for a couple hours together.  I litterally sat in the middle of the stream and started to read James Clavel's "Noble House."  Will definately post on its review when I'm done reading it.

Re-Reading Steven King's "The Stand" Some 30 Years Later

I was really currious what my reaction to Steven King's "The Stand" would be some 30+ years after I originally read it as an impressionable, growing and still maturing teenager.  YES, today I am a pre-pro screenwriter who has written something like 18 scripts that I still wanna sell, AND am now getting back and trying to bring completion to an epic fantasy novel that I origninally dreamed up back in the 90s.  But back then, in my early-to-mid teens I did go through a phase where I read A LOT of Steven King books.  Back when I was a youth there was a time were I would EVERYTHING Steven King.  And of all the book I ever read of his, "The Stand" was always his best story.  

A few months ago I got to thinking "I need to read more", so why not revisit some old stories that when I first read them struck me as being very good, and re-read them to see if I STILL have the same feeling about them now, as I did then.  So at a Barnes & Noble I bought two of my old favorites.  James Clavel's "Noble House" and Steven King's "The Stand".  

Since I knew off the onset that King's book closerly mirrored what I'm writing now, I started with "The Stand".  The funny thing is I started reading this book in late June, when in King's story the "super flu" takes off and begings to ravage and depopulate the world.  Nothing like reading that and seeing your own mother have a touch of the flu that the same time, but then again I did too.  Very weird.  But I'm pretty good at seperating the real world from story world, so I didn't let that coinsidndece derail me.  And just last night I finished reading "The Stand".  

So how did it hold up against the sands of time and how I remembered it?  Is it still a classic story?  And now that I'm a writer myself how do I view Steven King?

Well-p, lots of stuff to talk about.  Let's start with the story itself.  I almoast set this book aside.  I'm reading the "uncut and complete" edtion of this book, which Steven says in his preface to the novel is an "expansion" of the original story that was origninally released in the late 70s.  But I found the opening of this book to be very boringly writen.  I mean you have a plague beginning to ravage America and have it be so boring!  About 400 pages and TOTALLY BORED I almost set this book down.  

Thankfully, I stuck it through, and yes, Mr. King's story did get better.  But in re-reading this story I found that his characters were only interesting in spots.  I think I only laughed once or twice reading this story.  And found most of his writing to be uninspired--especially the "Freezone" council meetings in Bolder.  Almoast none of his character dialog is interesting.  At.  All.  And that suprsiced me.  BUT the plot points for this story, especially after the ragages of the super flue are done, are VERY STORY and well crafted.  I really liked how Steven's instincts worked keeping the reader in Bolder for a long stetch of the book while Harold and Nadine Cross are slowly succombing to their unltimate destiny as traitors and pawns of Randal Flag.  Then at the end of the book almoast all the action is in Los Vegas where the Randall Flag's group is.  Then the three appointees on their pilgramage arrive and face this community.  That's some GREAT instincts on display.  

Some characters in this story are completely ridiculous however, The Trashcan man, the Kid who is a drunkard and has gay sex with Lloyd, who ends up being Randal Flagg's right-hand man.  Steven King doesn't write very erotic sex scenes.  He tends to be rather brief there, but SOME of the places he took me to as a reader, I didn't wanna go.  The whole gay sex stuff was yucky.  And there were some other sexual stuff that I could have done without.  

One key thing I got out of reading Steven King, maybe just reading fiction again, period.  Was how willing I was to skim over so much.  I think a lot of that is because this is commerical fiction, and I don't think Steven King spent enough time going into his descriptions and elevating them to the iconic level as the premice of this story has. 

"The Stand" has a BRILLIANT and unique premise.  Hats off to Mr. King for working out a truely outstanding, post-apocalytic plot.  After a slow start, and especially towards the end this story "hooks" you in, and your vested to see how it end.  At a high concpept level this story works: after a post-apolapytic event surviors find themselves drawn to one of two camps and potential final squareoff between the good and evil.  

On a concept level the master villian of this story is great.  I really like a dark, demonic figure roaming the land waiting for its opportunity to strke.  Conceptually, Randal Flag works.  But the tiered villians underneath Flagg aren't as strong as they need to be.  Lloyd is somewhat interesting in his prison cell, where he's wating to die, and then at the end when he's considering his life and what his allegiance to Randall Flagg really means, but at the beginning and inbetween he's not that instresting.  And the Trashcan Man pretty much sucks throughout.  Did like Harold and Nadine at the end, but I was confused by them early on.  

Most all of the "good guys" in this story were boring.  Really never got into Fran and her delemma of being pregant with child.  Stu was very one note and didn't seam like he a real past.  Did like the character arch of Larry Underwood: who goes from a buddy pop star to stable man with a woman who is actually counted to to be pilliar in a growing community.  The Nick Andros character never really worked and was quite a stretch.  Seams like he begins as a bullied teenager, picked on for being deaf and mute, and then goes on to be one of the pillars in the Boulder, Colorado community with a love interest of his own.  Big stretch.  Did like the Mother Abibail characher.  She worked.  

Lots of takeaway after reading re-reading this book, "The Stand".  And MAYBE I'm being too hard on Steven King.  He is aferall, a "commerical" paperback writer.  Maybe it's unfair to expect great descriptions and iconic, well-written descriptions.  Mabye that's not even what you should be aiming for as paperback writer.  As I say this I harken back to what a lady at a breakfast retaurant on the Washington coast said to me last year.  When I told her that I was writng a novel, she made an off-comment that she didn't like a lot of description when she read fiction, she just wanted to follow the act.  

Point: in paperback fiction artistic exellence doesn't matter as much as a PLOT that keeps the reader engaged and turning the pages.

And in truth THAT'S the groove I feel into when re-reading Steven King's "The Stand".  I wanted to know what happened next.  Would the community in Boulder survive the tretcherous Nadine and Harold that were slowly succombing over to the dark side. THAT'S where this story was at its best.  And gues what, it was all plot point related!

I think it's safe to say, I NEVER want to be the next Steven King.  I don't wanna be known for writing horror.  And I don't wan't to write like him period.  I wanna write better than Mr. King.  Yeah, you heard me right, I wanna right beter than him.  I was very unimpressed by his descriptions, and dialog.  Plot-wise however, I wanna be on the level as that of a great writer, such as Steven King is.  Dude can deliver on the goods there.  All these characters involved a greater outer story.  THAT my friends is what I'm working on now!  My novel has an outter story, and A TON of characters which happen inside of it.  

So I'm resolved to be a better writer than Steven King was with this book, "The Stand".  And it's a good lesson for me to take note of; you can have all the characters you want, but it's up to you, the writer, to make them interesting.  And to do so takes time.  I wonder if Steven King had to do it all over again, if he would have liked to take more time and make his characters inside the story of "The Stand" better.  I feel for him in this reguard, he is an established writer who has pressure on him to crank out new books to satisfy the reading desire of his growing follow.  That mean a new book every year or two, or else he risks losing some of his following.

Plot Trumps Artistic Description in Mainstream, Paperback Fiction

E.C. Heny is NOT going to fall into that trap.  The novel I'm writing on now is going be greater than commerical fiction.  It's going to be more on line with classic fiction, which will bridge off and attract readers of mainstream, paperback fiction.  And I'm going to work my ass off untill it is so.  So before I sign off on this post, on final tip of the hat to Steven King.  I really loved that story, "The Stand," I just wish you wrote a litle better.  I learned so much about chacter tiering from reading how all characters in this story come together to form a much bigger whole, as that's one of the chief issues I have to deal with concering what I'm writing now.  

Moving on I'm going to start reading James Clavel's "Noble House".  Don't think I'll read another Steven King book for as long as I live.  He's just now where I'm at.  His books were for a time in my life where as a young man I was just starting to form ideas of how stories work.  Steven King is part of my past, NOT part of my future.

 

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

More of a Little Kid Than an Actual Little Kid

That I am folks.  Proved it to myself on Friday, July 3rd when I took Obo to "Wild Waves" in Federal Way, Washington, and I was waaayyy more outta control than my 7-year-old nephew. 

We're talkin' handstands in the wave pool.  In the "Konga River" ride, jumping out of my tube so I could pirate board other tubes.  Sometimes not even remaining in a tube at all, but going all river monster on Obo and attacking his raft.  Playing bumber cars with the tubes.  Running from ride to ride.  Going backflips off the concreate wall so I could reverse dive back into the water.

These were the antics of the little kid.  No, these were the antic of a 46 year old, who was acting like a little kid.

And whyyyy did I feel the need to do such a thing?  Well, to be perfectly honest with you I would have rather stayed in the beer garden and gotten shit-faced on over-priced beer or at least testing the limits of what they would be willing to sell me, BUTTT I had to show Obo a good time.  Yes, THAT'S why I acted the way I did, I thought I was showing him how to have a good time.  

So did it work?

Not really.  On all the rides I had to put my nephew in the tube.  He only wanted to ride in tubes with me, never going alone.  It took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on, but after a while it hit, Brcyen had NO in-water skills.  He didn't even know enough to hold his breath when he went underwarter.  I found that out when I purposely capsized his raft and he went under the 3' tall Konga River and didn't hold his breath and try to paddle his way to the surface.  Now, when I capsized him I have him warning, but he still acted paniced in the water--even when I told him ahead of time that the water level wasn't over his head.  

The boy has NO water skills.  

It's not that Obo had no fun the whole time.  But though he never told me he definately has a fear of the water and lacks the basic skills even 7-year-old boys SHOULD have when it comes to handling themselves in the water.  

I guess the answer is get Brycen into some entry level swiming lesson is a local pool.  Unfortunatly right now his dad (my brother) is laid up in the hospital with a serious ulcer condtion.  And even if things were fine and dandy my brother and his wife are dirt poor.  Sooo should I spring for swimming lessons for the boy?  Well, I'm inclined to do so, but with that I'd also be on the hook for taking him the Sumner pool, and I have a job to do.

Hmmm...  Would like to get Brycen some swimming skills.  I don't give a shit if your 7 years old or not, you should act so overwhemmed in the water as I saw Brycen behaving.  It's just not good.  I told my mom and aunt about this, and now it sounds like my aunt is going to start working with Brycen in a kid's pool that we have.  And I'm all for that.

I'm starting to learn that today's kids are a TOTALLY DIFFERENT breed of kids than the one like I and the other kids arround me were when I was growing up.  They're about 200 times whimpier and less apt to challenge themselves.  Sorry, I'd love to say something differently, but the kids of today are soft.  Shit, when I was kid I doing all kids of crazy shit.  It's not that I want to place Brycen in a place where he could harm himself; I just want him to have fun and make good memories OUTSIDE like I did when I was younger.

One side-note to the day's activities that really irked my hide was all the play little Obo was getting with girls his age.  Shoot I watched this little cutie flirt with Obo, and he just hid behind me!

Youth is wasted on the youth

Wait a few years, Obo.  Wait till you get my age, you'll be wishing--no begging you had times like that. You know why kid?  Because after you leave school things change.  The dynamic of your world romamtically changes for the worse.  Of that I can attest.  Don't worry though, Obo won't turn out like me.  I won't let him!  He'll get girlfriends--boatloads of them!  

 

Other than that, life goes on.  Still have a job by some miracle of the Lord.  Went to church today, and it wasn't as bad as times past, but I'm still not crazy about the place, and hope to move on to a more spirit-filled church soon.  Still writing, did get some good work in today typing in red-line edits to chapter 1.  Still got some work to to do on the prolog.  Haven't been as disciplined as I need to be hopefully next week I'll get back on track.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Ted 2 (2015) Movie Review Amidst a Shriking Surf City

Every once in a while I like to mix it up.  This time I reviewed my "Surf City" links and decided to add one entry and remove a bunch of others.  I added a link to Amy Schumer's cable TV show, "Inside Amy Schumer".  As for the past 5 days or so I keep checking back with the Comedy Central cable station, hoping to catch re-broadcasts of Amy's 1/2 hour comedy show.  Right now THAT'S my favorite thing to watch on TV, that and ABC's "Modern Family"; I feel in love with that show over my vaccation to Long Beach a couple of weeks ago.   

Kinda feel bad about dropping all the Christian links I had: one, to my church, two to Chris Tomlin, three to Sprit 105.3, the local Christian station out here in the Seattle area.  Not giving up on the faith.  Still love Jesus with all my heart, but I'm really not into where my family goes to church these days.  Been going through the motions for over ten years now in that regaurd: going to church but really into ANYTHING they're doing.  And I blame them for that.  They're not a Holy Spirit guided church like some others I've been through in the past.  They tend to "play it safe", and several of their leaders rub me the wrong way.  Don't wanna talk too badly about chruch, as I DO HONOR AND RESPECT the commitment those men made to Jesus to be pastors in the first place.  But like I said none of them reasonate with me, and I'm basically just going to church these days because that's what's expected of me.  See the disconnect?  Not going to church with a burning passion for what's going on.  What is this the dark ages?  The crazy thing is, I've been at chruches where the Holy Spirit was moving, this isn't one of those churches... 

Dropped the Chris Tomlin link because the time I went see him was back in April.  Dropped the christian music link because that website is boring and I never go there. 

A couple other links were dropped not because I disrepect those sites, but because not much is happening there anymore, and they don't engage me like they used to.   

So all-in-all I shrunk my website surf links by a couple.  Willing to expand, but in order to do that, you gotta catch my attention.  Hey, Amy Schuler did it, so it's not an impossible feat.  The key is: be interesting, and be alive and generating new content.   

Okay, so like I mentioned in my last post.  I did go see "Ted 2" (2015: Seth McFarlene, Mark Wahlberg) last weekend.  So how'd it do?  Well-p, not so good.   

"Ted 2" is far from a classic.  (Right now I'd rank it a mediocre 5.5 out of 10)  I really felt the central storyline was NOT COMPELLING at all.  A teddy bear crusading for his rights as an a regular individual doesn't interest me in the least.  Civil rights for a teddy bear who magically came to life?  Really?  That's the best you can do!?  Snore.  

My point here is: the central conflict of this movie is not compelling or interesting.

O-KAY, so maybe if they just use that as springboard for comedic laughs...  Well, I'd buy that, that's certainly the case with movies like "The Naked Gun".  I mean who cares what case Frank Drebbin is trying to solve, all the audience carries about are the laughs along the way.  Still, even with that, "Ted 2" isn't funny enough, regularly enough to get me to buy-in to that kind of movie.   

Don't get me wrong, I did laugh in "Ted 2".  The whole farce and iconic character that Seth McFarlene created with the Ted: the cute teddybear with an odd Bostonian voice and outlook on life ALWAYS works.  I LOVE Seth McFarlene's Ted character.  I buy into him very easily, and he really doesn't hafta do to much before I'm primmed to laugh.  

 Besides the lack of a complelling central plot, "Ted 2" has some other problems too.  Most notably with its thin character arc and developlment of John Bennett, the man who at one point "wished" Ted into existence.  In this movie Mark Whalberg's character is woefully thin.  He's down in the dumps about his marriage ending, he helps Ted out along the way, and towards the end explores a potential romance with a beginning lawyer (Amanda Seyfried's character) 

The crazy thing about this movie is that for my money it's the biggest question I had going into this movie turned out to be the filmmakers of this movie's greatest triumph.  I thought the way that the filmmakers handled the trasition away from Laurie (Mila Kunis' character from the original "Ted") to this new girl was BRILLIANT!  State right off the bat that she and John got a divorce, then in the first scene we see of John with this female lawyer have her pull out a bong and smoke some pot with John and Ted.  Contrast.  Sets you up for a completely different dynamic and romantic trajectory.  Just with that dynamic was under the assinine pretext of Ted fighting for his civil rights.  

Also, Ted's cashier wife, Tami Lynn was also a disappointment.  Tami Lynn is one of these characters who is best taken as minor character.  She's not interesting enough to cary scenes.  She start off mad at Ted, then quickly changes to being a supporting wife.  Anyway, she's best suited as a wild card character who could fly off the handle at ay moment.  A tame Tami Lynn is a boring Tami Lynn, and in "Ted 2" Tami Lynn is very boring.  

Bringing back the creepy Donny, as a janintor who has dream of capturing Ted a second time to Hasbro can reverse engineer Ted's innards to produce a whole line of real life Tedy bears, sounds like it might be interesting when I report it, but It really falls short of delivering on its potential in the movie.  

In watching this movie I didn't see a whole lot of techincal changes which could have been made to make this movie better: like better shot stackings, or use of montage or stuff like that.  No, in that reguard this movie is technically solid.  The problem with "Ted 2" goes much higher, it's in the master plot selection and lacking character arcs for John Bennett and Tami Lynn.  

"Ted 2" is worth watching once.  It's a budy comedy with what I would deam two romantic b-storylines: John and the female lawer, Ted and Tami Lynnn.   The first "Ted" movie however is more of romantic comedy as the John/Laurie romance gets equal billing with the John/Ted buddy story.  

In the end I have to report that "Ted 2" is funny in spots, but it is no classic and a year from now my guess is most everybody will have forgotten about this movie.  What SHOULD have happened to help save this movie is put more emphasis on John Bennett's love life.  Hey, Mark Wahllberg is a total hunk.  What if in his post-Laurie state he got out and dated a bunch of women, THEN as movie wound down it became more and more obvious that the Amanda Seyfriend's chacter was "the one" for him.  For my money, that's where the story needed to go, further into John's perdicament as opposed to Ted's.  But what do I know, I'm just a pretentious fuck.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

P.S. A funny thing happened to me today.  I went to the dentist for teeth cleaning, then on to my 2nd shfit job.  Well the denitst gave me a bottle of liquid that was supposed help tighten my gums back to my teeth.  I left that bottle in the center console of my Subaru Imprezza and the shit blew up!  No fuckin' shit, man!  The dentist bottle of gum tightening fluid blew up and took my i-pod and douched the shit out of my cheekbook.  Can you believe that shit?  It's been in the upperr 80s to low 90s, but in the black leather cab of my car I've seen the temperature gaurge recording temeartures in the 90s up about 102 degrees Fareinheight.  Fuck that's hot!  Boom!  There goes the i-pod.  Boom!  There goes the checkbook.  

Real story, not lying, Holmes!