by Jason Joyner | Jun 29, 2007 | Blog, movies, reviews
I’m a big superhero fan. I’ve always daydreamed of doing something extraordinary to help people. So I have been a long time fan of comics and superheroes. I had the Super Powers series as a kid. Basically I’m a sucker for the resurgence of superhero movies over the last several years.
I will admit to liking the first Fantastic Four movie. It wasn’t high art, but a fun enough popcorn flick. I think the fun was seeing them discover how to use their powers and to work together as a team. Some comic movies aim for dark and brooding. Some carry a powerful theme, like the Spiderman movies. Others are meant like FF, just fun summer fare.
Unfortunately, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, can’t seem to find a groove and stick with it. It tries to be light at times. It tries to show the importance of relationships and the value of self-sacrifice. It tries to entertain. It fails on all counts.
I like Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba as actors, but they really don’t have chemistry and don’t show much interest in this movie. Alba in particular shows up to look pretty, but the acting is mailed in. The actors playing the Thing and Johnny Storm don’t take things as serious and they are the main parts worth watching through the film. Because the film tries to focus on the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, it falls flat.
The Silver Surfer as the titular bad guy is amazing from a CGI aspect. Doug Jones does a great job with the movements of the Surfer, but the voice of Lawrence Fishburne only goes for gravitas without much else going for it. The action is fairly limited, and the payoff at the end of the movie with the arrival of Galactus is wasted, as we don’t really see the main baddie who threatens the Earth.
Doctor Doom wasn’t very popular in the last movie, but I thought he worked well until he started throwing one-liners. His return this time is pretty much limited to the one-liners, so he becomes a big disappointment in my opinion.
Overall, FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer will make an okay rental movie sometime this winter on a cold fall day (if there’s no football on, that is), but isn’t worthwhile as a summer movie experience.
by Jason Joyner | Jun 27, 2007 | Blog, fiction, writing craft
I didn’t realize when I started this journey that there are hazards involved. Sure, I could expect a few brave writers would be taken down by a cruel attack of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Others might succumb to Writer’s Cramp. Paper cuts can be pretty vicious in the right setting, mind you.
Undaunted, I proceeded. Unaware of the dangers awaiting me as I pursued this craft. Alas, I have fallen into this trap, and I am not sure how to free myself from its grip.
I’ve become a critical reader.
It seems that honing my craft has trained my eye for certain things to look for in a book. I do it unconsciously. I’m looking for active verbs, strong adjectives, and tired cliches. I analyze what I am trying to enjoy. I think it is a natural process-handymen usually start out by taking things apart to figure out how they are built. Novels operate under a similar pattern.
Before I tried to understand writing, I wouldn’t recognize a change in POV if you hit me with it (I wouldn’t even know what a POV was). The author could head-hop and hip-hop for all I cared.
Now I’m reading an otherwise really good book, but the POV changes in each new paragraph keep pulling me out of the fictive world the author is trying to portray. I have to stop and figure out where I am: “What? I thought it was Suzy who was the POV character. Now it is Joe.”
I’m really not trying to be so picky. It is operating under the hood anymore. I read, and I critique.
“Oh, that works.”
“What were they thinking?”
“Brilliant!”
Thinking back, there were sage writers who warned of this pitfall. Your reading may not be the same, they said. Ah, how I wish I could go back to the innocence of reading a bad novel and not knowing it…
On the other hand, I don’t think so-but be warned, you who strive to write. This fate could befall you as well!
by Jason Joyner | Jun 27, 2007 | Blog, fiction, writing craft
I didn’t realize when I started this journey that there are hazards involved. Sure, I could expect a few brave writers would be taken down by a cruel attack of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Others might succumb to Writer’s Cramp. Paper cuts can be pretty vicious in the right setting, mind you.
Undaunted, I proceeded. Unaware of the dangers awaiting me as I pursued this craft. Alas, I have fallen into this trap, and I am not sure how to free myself from its grip.
I’ve become a critical reader.
It seems that honing my craft has trained my eye for certain things to look for in a book. I do it unconsciously. I’m looking for active verbs, strong adjectives, and tired cliches. I analyze what I am trying to enjoy. I think it is a natural process-handymen usually start out by taking things apart to figure out how they are built. Novels operate under a similar pattern.
Before I tried to understand writing, I wouldn’t recognize a change in POV if you hit me with it (I wouldn’t even know what a POV was). The author could head-hop and hip-hop for all I cared.
Now I’m reading an otherwise really good book, but the POV changes in each new paragraph keep pulling me out of the fictive world the author is trying to portray. I have to stop and figure out where I am: “What? I thought it was Suzy who was the POV character. Now it is Joe.”
I’m really not trying to be so picky. It is operating under the hood anymore. I read, and I critique.
“Oh, that works.”
“What were they thinking?”
“Brilliant!”
Thinking back, there were sage writers who warned of this pitfall. Your reading may not be the same, they said. Ah, how I wish I could go back to the innocence of reading a bad novel and not knowing it…
On the other hand, I don’t think so-but be warned, you who strive to write. This fate could befall you as well!
by Jason Joyner | Jun 27, 2007 | Blog, CFBA, fiction
This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT (Howard Books June 5, 2007) by Jerome Teel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Jerome Teel is a graduate of Union University, where he received his JD, cum laude, from the Ole Miss School of Law. He is actively involved in his church, local charities, and youth sports.He has always loved legal-suspense novels and is a political junkie. He is also the author of The Election, another political thriller that we reviewed November of ’06. Jerome and his wife, Jennifer, have three children…Brittney, Trey, and Matthew…and they reside in Tennessee where he practices law and is at work on a new novel.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“They aren’t hiding just one something, but a bunch of somethings…”
Small town southern lawyer, Elijah Faulkner is a dying breed…an attorney that actually takes pleasure in fighting injustice by working hard for the little guy. But when he takes on a case to defend a philandering doctor with a pregnant wife in a seemingly open-and-shut murder trial, Eli is not so sure he is on the ‘right’ side.
Back in Washington D.C., supreme Court Justice Martha Robinson has died, presenting an unprecedented opportunity for conservative President Richard Wallace to impact the direction of the highest court in the land. He believes God put him in the presidency for just such a time as this…to make a Divine Appointment. Not everyone is thrilled with the president’s nominee, however. And some will stop at nothing, including murder, to prevent his confirmation by the Senate.
A lobbyist with a vendetta, a small-time Mafioso, an investigative reporter with a Watergate complex, and a powerful Washington political machine combine to create a fast-paced suspense novel that explores the anatomy of a murder, and the ripple effect that it creates across the country.
“Jerome Teel has crafted an intriguing political thriller…nice twists and turns to keep you reading. he paints vivid mental pictures that bring characters and locales to life.”–Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee’s 7th District
by Jason Joyner | Jun 27, 2007 | Blog, CFBA, fiction
This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT (Howard Books June 5, 2007) by Jerome Teel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Jerome Teel is a graduate of Union University, where he received his JD, cum laude, from the Ole Miss School of Law. He is actively involved in his church, local charities, and youth sports.He has always loved legal-suspense novels and is a political junkie. He is also the author of The Election, another political thriller that we reviewed November of ’06. Jerome and his wife, Jennifer, have three children…Brittney, Trey, and Matthew…and they reside in Tennessee where he practices law and is at work on a new novel.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“They aren’t hiding just one something, but a bunch of somethings…”
Small town southern lawyer, Elijah Faulkner is a dying breed…an attorney that actually takes pleasure in fighting injustice by working hard for the little guy. But when he takes on a case to defend a philandering doctor with a pregnant wife in a seemingly open-and-shut murder trial, Eli is not so sure he is on the ‘right’ side.
Back in Washington D.C., supreme Court Justice Martha Robinson has died, presenting an unprecedented opportunity for conservative President Richard Wallace to impact the direction of the highest court in the land. He believes God put him in the presidency for just such a time as this…to make a Divine Appointment. Not everyone is thrilled with the president’s nominee, however. And some will stop at nothing, including murder, to prevent his confirmation by the Senate.
A lobbyist with a vendetta, a small-time Mafioso, an investigative reporter with a Watergate complex, and a powerful Washington political machine combine to create a fast-paced suspense novel that explores the anatomy of a murder, and the ripple effect that it creates across the country.
“Jerome Teel has crafted an intriguing political thriller…nice twists and turns to keep you reading. he paints vivid mental pictures that bring characters and locales to life.”–Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee’s 7th District
