Category: movies.

love death+robots. movies.

“Shape-shifters” and favorite werewolf designs

The Love Death + Robots crew has put up short YouTube videos highlighting the animation in the various segments. The one for “Shape-shifters” is here:

(CONTENT WARNING: Gore)

It’s a pretty awesome werewolf design, all in all, and the fight scene is just knock-down, drag-out violent.

I love werewolf movies, and one of my writing goals is to do a variation on the lycanthrope theme that goes against most common tropes. One day, maybe…when I have time to switch my brain from SF to urban or dark/horror fantasy for a while.

My favorite werewolf design from a movie is still this, though:

That’s the wicked “hound from hell” design for AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, a movie that also still gets my vote for Best Transformation scene. The fact that it was all done with practical effects in 1981 and still holds up speaks to the genius of Rick Baker, who won the very first Best Make-up Academy Award for his work on that movie.

I generally dislike CGI werewolves because most of them are too fake-looking or Uncanny Valley when they’re inserted in live-action. It’s only in recent years that CGI has gotten good enough to do a convincing werewolf. (Number 2 on my list are the creepy-looking werewolves in DOG SOLDIERS, which–surprise–are also practical effects and costumes.) But when they’re CGI wolves in an all-CGI film like Shape-shifters, they can work very well indeed.

What is your favorite werewolf design on the screen? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll check them out if I haven’t seen the movie/show in question yet.

books. friends. movies. shameless self-promotion. travel.

gooder reads.

Hey, look at that! ANGLES OF ATTACK made the semifinals in the science fiction category of the Goodreads Choice Awards. Thanks to all of you who voted for Space Kablooie #3. And feel free to vote for it some more!

I spent the weekend at World Fantasy Con in Saratoga Springs, NY. I didn’t bother with a con membership, and mostly spent time with old friends. I did walk the ballroom floor on Friday night when all the writers had their tables set up for signings, and got to say hello and introduce myself to Joe Haldeman, which was a thrill. (Another awesome thing was realizing just how many of the writers present were friends of mine.) The weekend was basically all drinking, eating, chatting, and watching movies. I brought my PS4 to the hotel suite to stream movies from it, and we got a little zapped and watched three movies in a row on Saturday night–and that was after I took the opportunity to see the new Bond movie at the theater in the afternoon.

Writing is a rather solitary pursuit, so it’s always fun to get out of the house and meet up with friends who do the same thing you’re doing, and who understand what it’s like. I’ve made the best of friends as a genre writer–we enjoy each others’ company, are happy for each others’ successes, and glad to commiserate over the bumpy stuff. Friendship: it truly IS magic!

Now I’m back to work on Frontlines #5 (FIELDS OF FIRE), which will keep me busy for the rest of the year and possibly a bit into the new one. If all goes well, it will be out in 2016 as well, which means you’ll get to spend your shekels on TWO Frontlines novels next year. (And you may want to keep some of your tooth fairy change back for some other Frontlines-related spending opportunities. But more of that later, when I am at liberty to…. divulge.)

 

 

friends. movies. writing.

godzilla is the mongoose.

Brilliant new friend Erica has a blog post up on the new Godzilla film, expanding on the highly intriguing theory she put forth at the Supersecret Writing Retreat:

Godzilla (2014) is actually a shot-for-shot remake of Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki Tavi.

(Obvious spoiler warning.)

I fully endorse and support Erica’s interpretation. It just makes total and absolute sense.

(And yes, this is the kind of thing that’s thought up and talked about when SpecFic writers get together and write and drink a lot.)

 

cultural oddities. movies. this monkey house.

mul-ti-pass.

So I found myself at the K-Marts yesterday to procure some kid shoes and some mothereffin’ Cold Water Tide laundry detergent LIKE A BOSS, when I walked past a life-sized poster display of THIS:

1474699-nicki-minaj-GL-Wood-617-409

And I swear to you, my first thought was “It’s official. We’re living in the Fifth Element future.”

art. movies.

now this is how you do a movie trailer.

I like movie franchise reboots in general when they take a tired or campy old property and breathe new life in it. (In recent years, the Batman and James Bond reboots come to mind as well-done examples.)

One property in desperate need of a good kick in the script is Godzilla, because the last effort in that direction left us with the utter stinker that was the 1990s US reboot. There’s a new version coming out in 2014, and it has a trailer now:

It looks dark and terrifying and not the least bit campy. If they can manage to not fuck it up, this one may be that elusive Un-Sucky American Godzilla Movie. If anything, it evokes the feel of the original 1954 Godzilla, which was also dark and scary (for the times) and not at all like the later cutesy dude-in-a-suit Godzilla flicks.

movies. writing.

back from nerd prom.

Readercon was great, but I racked up a serious sleep deficit while partying and going out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my friends. I’m not complaining, though–it was a lot of fun, and I’d been looking forward to it all year.

On Saturday, I managed to run over to the mall with my friend and fellow VPXII grad Chang to see Pacific Rim, a.k.a. Monsters Vs. Battlemechs. It was jolly good fun (I mean, it’s kind of hard to fuck up ROBOTS PUNCHING HUGE MONSTERS IN THE FACE), and much more deep and poignant in spots than you’d expect from a monster/disaster flick. I will say that the most terrifying and emotionally gripping giant monster movie of all time wasn’t Pacific Rim–it was Mako Mori’s flashback in the middle of Pacific Rim.

Now I’m knee-deep in developmental edits. 47North will re-release the first book when the second one comes out (in January 2014, as far as I know), and I added a fair bit of material to flesh out the world a little more and give Andrew a bit more to juggle at the end of the book. For those of you who have read the book, I can tell you that the second-to-last chapter (Chapter 23) has had a substantial rewrite, for example.

Next week I have to get to work on the edits for book #2 (Lines of Departure). The few people who have read both manuscripts are uniformly of the opinion that Lines of Departure is a substantially better novel than Terms of Enlistment*, so if you liked the first one, you should be quite pleased with the second one.

*Not that Terms of Enlistment sucked or anything. But I didn’t have to spend half the novel on boot camp and world-building, so there was more elbow room for Stuff Blowing Up.

 

 

movies.

not just another teen movie.

There’s a new trailer for the Carrie remake, and it looks pretty good.

It seems that the remake is playing it even darker than the original, which wasn’t exactly a sunny rom-com to begin with. Also, Chloe Moretz (a.k.a. Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass) has turned into a really impressive actress. I loved the hell out of Let Me In, another horror remake–this one of the Swedish Let The Right One In. I wouldn’t be surprised if Moretz’s role in this remake had a lot to do with the critical acclaim for her role in that other remake.