Review: California Schemin' : 2020 Bouchercon Anthology

 I attended the '99 Bouchercon, a mystery writer/reader convention, held in Philadelphia. It was fantastic and I hope to go again next year to the San Diego event. This anthology is comprised of stories from past winners, Special Guests and others chosen from stories submitted by lesser known writers.

Like any anthology you'll have stand out tales that demonstrate why a particular writer is always hitting the Best Seller lists and carrying away the awards. Others are from writers you've never heard of who will click and become someone who you'll be on the lookout for in stores. This is no different, with a few offerings that were early chapter drafts or short tales featuring characters from a series. Almost all take place in California, but several historical pieces take place in Europe or feature locations far from the Pacific Coast.

To be honest, not a single one wasn't worth the time I spent reading them. Some I with continued as the characters or situations were so good. A couple in here border on the supernatural or have a bit of a science fiction element, but even those are not too far outside the realm of the detective/mystery genre.

Nothing - The Fugs

Cry Punch: A trade paperback review

 At almost 450 pages Cry Punch is a solid piece of entertainment. Full disclosure I was part of the Kickstarter campaign for this book, after the recommendation of a friend, author/poet Robert Deshaies II (Adam & Eternity).

Like all anthologies, not everything is going to be one's cup of tea and you'll find yourself liking one particular story much more than another. Also, keep in mind that much of the art and writing in this book is not what one would call 'mainstream'. For the most part you're not going to find what you see in your average Marvel or DC monthly periodical. These fourteen stories are influenced more by Japanese and Asian manga/anime than American super-hero comics.

These are stories from creators working on more personal projects, much of which are based on the martial arts and giant mech books so popular in in Japan. If you're only familiar with American comics the flow of these stories can be confusing at times, with a lot of silent panels or an entire page of characters remaining still while caption or dialogue continues the story.

Finally, to be honest, some of the art is of the standard we used to call 'fannish', hardly the slick work Americans have become used to in most comics from the Big Two (or Four, depending). The writers and artists in many, if not all cases, are working to improve their craft.

While the cover price of $36 might be off putting, you are supporting independent creators and a small publisher trying to bring graphic novel readers something a bit different.

My comic picks for 6/24/22

What am I watching: Grizzly II: Revenge (2019/2020) a movie review

 I was listening to the Critically Acclaimed podcast with film reviewers, Witney Seibold and William Bibbiani when the film, Grizzly II: Revenge came up. While I was a fan of the film, Grizzly (1976; a Jaws ripoff starring Christopher George) I never heard there had been a sequel. Well, it turned out it wasn't actually a sequel, but just an attempt to attach this film to one that was slightly successful.

Different sources give different dates for when this film was made. Some as early as '83, with others giving a later '86 date. Filmed in Hungary, the film was able to use a music festival headlined by the  group Nazareth as a backdrop. Unable to get that group on film, but with footage of lesser known European bands, the filmmakers had an actor lip-sync several numbers after the headliners had already finished. Apparently the crowd was unaware that the band was fake or even that they were being filmed. 

With hours of footage completed, the filming was shut down and equipment confiscated by the Hungarian government for non-payment of bills and fees.  Grizzly II was never officially released, but bootlegs appeared over the years with other soundtracks. Several years ago, the finished footage, along with extra material from the construction of the concert stages, the concert and rehearsals, was used in order to get the film to feature length. Even with all that, additional nature film was added and even used more than once.

Pretty doubtful that George Clooney, Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen have this on the resumes, but all three plus John Rhys-Davies and Louise Fletcher now have this on the resumes. Davies and Fletcher would have been the 'big names' back when the film was originally shot, but these were probably among the first films roles for the three young actors. Naturally, even though they only have maybe less than ten minutes of screen time (in the very opening scenes) they are listed as the film's stars.

If you thought that Bruce the Shark was better with having less screen time, the scenes with the "bear" are even sadder. An animatronic bear was built and used, along with a puppet and footage of an actual bear (not half as big as it was supposed to be in the film).  Scenes from the bear's perspective are used peeking through the limbs of trees or low angle shots as it runs through the woods. You had to feel bad for the poor camera guy trying to get 'bear cam' that was usable. The ending scenes at the festival with the bear attacking everyone, while fireworks explode, is something to behold. 

Finally, the filmmakers were able to get permission to use some of the music of Bernard Herrmann to use in the soundtrack, along with the music of the various bands. Prior to the attacks and the scenes where the bear is chasing someone the musical score gets as close to the Jaws theme as I think it was legal to get. 

Sometimes you just get to see a film that is so bad that it is fascinating. It's currently on Prime. I give it a 2.5 out of 5, just for seeing those young actors and both Davies & Fletcher really chewing up the scenery.

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Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - A review

I've heard it said that you could have taken the hero of Weir's The Martian and put him in this same situation. Other than them people who had to use science and the material around them to survive, there really isn't a lot of similarity. The protagonist in the first novel being a trained astronaut, who had prepared for his mission ahead of time, and this book's Ryland Grace being a Jr. High school science teacher. Although Grace had initially been a scientist, whose theories brought him ridicule.

When it is discovered that a substance soon to be dubbed 'Astrophage' is slowly absorbing the Sun, Grace is basically drafted in a world-wide effort to find a way to stop it. As the climate of Earth, is drastically pushed into a greater crisis than it already faces, a plan is put together to send a small group of trained astronaut/scientists to a distant star to see if a cure can be found there. When something unplanned for occurs, Grace finds himself part of that crew headed on a one-way mission. 

This is a solid 5 out of 5 stars from me. I'm almost afraid of what Hollywood will do when we get the inevitable adaptation. I hope at least they put onto streaming as a limited series and not cram it into a two-hour film. 

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