Marvin Brown Bloghouse page 14

The Web We Weave

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It’s not a mirage if you saw something on this website yesterday and then came back today and it’s gone—or in a different location, or is different color. Maybe a photo’s gone, or it’s gotten bigger. Change is good, right? And I’m on the world wide learning curve.

As we get up and running at marvincbrown.com, we’re tweaking as we go. And we’re taking suggestions from visitors, which also accounts for some changes.

If the Internet’s a web, it’s a sticky one. The task is to get things user-friendly, interesting and add in enough redundancies to keep you from getting lost.

Purchase books at the Store. Read samples in the Works section. Learn more than you ever needed to know about me in About Marvin. You can slide your white-gloved hand right on past the Media Kit (unless you’re with the press), but Events will keep you up to date on where I’ll be, and News will let you know what I’m up to. Comments are (almost) always welcome and feel free to email me at Contact.

Here In The Bloghouse I’ll serve up general observations and opinions, while also offering specific blogging like book reviews (Open Book), mini movie reviews (Quik Flix Hit) and, with restraint, politics (Swing State).

Thanks for your input so far.

Using your voice

Posted on by in Politics | Comments Off on Using your voice

Go vote!

Quik Flix Hit

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Cloud Atlas (2012)

Rated R

 

It’s hard to write something short about a movie so long. Three hours of mind-bending, audacious, off-the-map filmmaking.

Here’s the lowdown on the basics: The movie was codirected by the Wachowski siblings (The Matrix trilogy) and German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Perfume). It was adapted from an equally complex, enigmatic novel by David Mitchell. The film details six interlocking, yet time-spanning, stories. Ten of the main actors—including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant and Jim Broadbent—play multiple roles (as few as three each, as many as six), which cast them as different races, genders, even synthetic creatures.

A theme of connectedness and reincarnation binds the stories—lovers who face tragedy in one life, might find happiness together in another; sins and hopes of the past ripple through time and sometimes switch places, depending on the era.

While I didn’t follow all of it (no one’s walking out of this with a clear understanding of everything—at least not in a first viewing) I did follow enough to keep me engaged in each of the stories and their characters. For a film with so much going on, I was surprised by how much it cares for its characters. I was left with questions, of course, but felt I got the overall plot and ideas behind each story, even with the constant cutting between them.

I think people who love time-jumping puzzle-plot movies will see this repeatedly, and likely catch something new each time. I think people who don’t like to work too hard in the theater will still say they walked away with favorite scenes vividly recalled because of the beautiful human moments or the striking visuals.

Something’s going on with this film. The directors are reaching to redefine filmmaking, I think. Do they succeed? Time will tell. This movie will be studied and talk about, dismissed and touted as groundbreaking. It’s as if the filmmakers were trying—within theses six mini-films—to encapsulate the whole of human existence, purpose and emotion. It’s trying to document the histories of how we love and create with passion, how we are as cruel as we are forgiving, how we move through time and space while changing those things and ourselves as we go.

This ambitious film might not do well out of the gate (it demands attention and thought), but my guess is, over time, it’s going to be regarded as something of a milestone.

See it | Skip it

Side note: Several Asian characters are portrayed by non-Asians actors, which is in keeping with the film’s reincarnation theme that involves actors in multiple roles, but I wonder if it won’t be seen as offensive, particularly since some of the makeup effects could be seen as playing to stereotypes. 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Sign of the time

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Book signings provide a chance to meet supporters in the flesh, to interact with real humans in this era of digital books, digital discussions and digital photographs. How nice it is to shake hands with, laugh with and chat with readers and supporters.

John, at the book signing

Book signings, for me, crystallize those ethereal hours, days, months spent deeply alone creating. Something began in private ends with a very public showing; what was selfishly created becomes relentlessly shared.

Special thanks to my father, John A. Brown, for taking the photos (check them out here) and for all-around dad support, which is ever-present in uncounted moments, but vitally measured in a life made secure.  Thanks always, dad.

It was fun seeing folks I haven’t seen in some time, witnessing the tireless efforts from wonderful behind-the-scenes workers, and meeting new people.

I am grateful, and blessed.

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | 1 Comment

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

Rated R

paranormal_activity_4

Paramount Pictures

I know, I know.

Any movie with the number 4 or higher at the end of its title risks automatic long-in-tooth status. And so it goes with the fourth installment of the catching-demon-terror-on-videocamera franchise.

2007’s PA’s found-footage trope terrorized with a single camera mounted in a bedroom. PA2 (2010) one-upped that film’s voyeur content by tapping into a multiple-camera surveillance system. PA3 (2011) went old-school by bringing the pain via VHS videotape. This latest film opts to zing us with up-to-the-minute digital wizardry—laptop Skyping, cellphone video, even a videogame system’s motion-tracking technology (very cool) gets in on the action.

The producers obviously see human beings getting dragged out of frame by invisible demons as a hallmark of the franchise, but I think it’s become stale.

I should be cheering a movie that prefers slow-burn creepiness over attention-deficit quick cutting, flittering shadows and hushed demonic sounds over gore. I’m continually amazed at how these movies encourage—no, command—you to scour every inch of the frame, seeking out the lurking, about-to-pounce terror even as you’re trying to look away. There are shocks to be had, but by now, it all seems so familiar. And by now, can’t we delve a little deeper into the origin of this family-obsessed demon/witch coven nonsense, or just let it go already?

As I rolled my eyes at the post-credit setup for the next one, I’ve decided then and there to heed my opening warning about titles with growing numbers.

blog-skip_it

 

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

 

Marketing Madness

Posted on by in Books, Information | Comments Off on Marketing Madness

Better than a billboard!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Web We Weave

Posted on by in Information | Comments Off on The Web We Weave

It’s not a mirage if you saw something on this website yesterday and then came back today and it’s gone—or in a different location, or is different color. Maybe a photo’s gone, or it’s gotten bigger. Change is good, right? And I’m on the world wide learning curve.

As we get up and running at marvincbrown.com, we’re tweaking as we go. And we’re taking suggestions from visitors, which also accounts for some changes.

If the Internet’s a web, it’s a sticky one. The task is to get things user-friendly, interesting and add in enough redundancies to keep you from getting lost.

Purchase books at the Store. Read samples in the Works section. Learn more than you ever needed to know about me in About Marvin. You can slide your white-gloved hand right on past the Media Kit (unless you’re with the press), but Events will keep you up to date on where I’ll be, and News will let you know what I’m up to. Comments are (almost) always welcome and feel free to email me at Contact.

Here In The Bloghouse I’ll serve up general observations and opinions, while also offering specific blogging like book reviews (Open Book), mini movie reviews (Quik Flix Hit) and, with restraint, politics (Swing State).

Thanks for your input so far.

School Daze

Posted on by in Family | 1 Comment

Our 4-year-old begins kindergarten.

Our 15-year-old starts her sophomore year of high school.

Mom and Dad try to keep it together.

Quik Flix Hit

Posted on by in Movies | 2 Comments

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Rated PG-13

darkknightrises

Warner Bros.

Epic, complex, overdone, grim, redemptive and rewarding. The final film in the ambitious comic book-to-neo noir series brings it all. At darn-near three hours it needs to.

Eight years after events in part two (The Dark Knight, 2008), Gotham’s nearly crimeless thanks to sacrifices of Commissioner Gordon and The Batman, who’s now broken down and in retirement. Not for long. A three-tiered enemy looms, including those operating boldly in the spotlight, like the merciless Bane, and the double-crossers waiting in the shadows.

Anne Hathaway makes impact as Catwoman, as do Michael Caine as loyal servant Alfred, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a steadfast cop. All of Bane’s sparse dialogue is epic—when you can clearly hear it.

The film’s strength is its sustained tone of impending doom, which puts viewers and Gotham citizens in a simpatico state of victimization and hopelessness. We and they are hyped for some serious payback by the finale.

Give Batman Begins (2005)—the first in the series—a rewatch. The Dark Knight Rises draws heavily upon that film to wrap up its themes.

blog-see_it

 

 

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

 

Swearing by it

Posted on by in Writing | Comments Off on Swearing by it

As a general rule, I don’t use profanity in my day-to-day life. With comprehensive English at my disposal, why bother using the same seven dirty words (and their creative variations) again and again?  It’s not for me. But when I write, I can’t always account for the words that fly out of my characters’ mouths. (I know, you say I can; I say I let the characters come to life in all their fascinating, sometimes flawed and vulgar glory).  It’s not a vicarious thing, honestly. Some of my creations are as verbally chaste as I claim to be; others use cuss words to cut a swath through everyday chit-chat. Whatever brings the character to life, I say.

Early in my writing career, I really struggled with the extent of which I would use swearing in my stuff. People who don’t know me could think I am cavalier in the use of profanity, I thought. People who think they know me will begin to regard me suspiciously (I always used to get: “This writing seems so unlike you.” Or: “For someone who doesn’t curse, you sure seem to not have a problem with it your writing.”). People who really know me usually defer to my judgment, sometimes with their eyebrows raised, but are supportive nevertheless.

A decision had to be made. To swear or not to swear?

While I still understand that some people can’t—won’t—see how I square this duality, I soldier on. Look, I’m either gonna write what I’m lead to write, write what I think people want me to write, or step away from this whole writing thing altogether. Stephen King (an unsolicited mentor, of sorts) suggests in his memoir that as writers we should write as if no one is looking over our shoulders.

And so I do.

Does this make me hypocritical? I think not. After all, despite having never killed and maimed anyone or anything (Do ants, bees, flies, those nasty centipede thingies in the basement and home-invading mice count?), I’ve slaughtered dozens on the page. With dialogue I try to get a real representation of how people talk. It’s not about how I would say it. It’s about how people of a particular lifestyle or environment might talk. And let’s face it, darn near everyone I know uses some level of profanity. I’m not judging, just observing. Many characters in my stories would ring hollow if they spoke, well, like me.

Along with accepting my graying hair and widening waist, I’ve found peace in this struggle. I know this much: I’d have a harder time looking at myself in the mirror if I fashioned a character out of my anticipation of what others would accept of me, rather than of what the characters would expect of me.

Anyway, welcome to the Bloghouse. I hope you drop in from time to time to hang out.

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