Okay, I ll admit to being out of it as far as the current line up of shows on the Sci-Fi Channel, but last night, I caught part of the pilot episode of a new show I may get excited about. Who knows anything about ?
Have you read the comic books the character is based upon?
Should I be running out to buy?? I like it from the cover alone.
Talk about a cool concept! This could very well turn out to be something that captures my attention in a La Femme Nikita/Buffy way.
As for the part of the episode I saw, yeah, it could have had better dialogue and there were a couple of places that made me roll my eyes, but it s early yet they could take this somewhere great.
Oh, I hope they do.
In a very imaginable future, the world battles terrorism and unrest. Out of this chaos emerges a new hero: Jane Vasco, a.
k.a. Painkiller Jane (Kristanna Loken).
Once the DEA s top agent, Jane Vasco is formidable, both mentally and physically. As a child, her father nicknamed her Painkiller Jane, describing her ability to mentally push through even the most painful situations. But her strength is about to be tested.
Jane is recruited by a covert government agency dedicated to containing and, if necessary, neutralizing the threat of Neuros — individuals with superhuman neurological powers. No one knows what caused the aberrations that led to their enhanced abilities, which range from from telekinesis and telepathic suggestion to induced hallucinations.
During her first investigation with her new team, Jane discovers that she too possesses an odd ability: she can t be killed.
Unfortunately, she can still feel pain. Her newfound powers make Jane even more determined to learn everything there is to know about Neuros.
Seldom malicious, Neuros often can t control their powers.
Consequently, they tend to leave a trail of death and destruction. To prevent a panic, the government has kept the discovery of Neuros a secret, assembling a covert unit to identify and contain Neuros.
Operating from a secure abandoned subway platform, the core members of the unit are Andre McBride (Rob Stewart), the seasoned team leader; Connor King (Noah Danby), a special agent regularly armed with a smart remark; Riley Jensen (Sean Owen Roberts), an evolved computer whiz in charge of surveillance and communications; Dr.
Seth Carpenter (Stephen Lobo), the unit s doctor and scientist; Joe Waterman (Nathaniel Deveaux), the middle-aged caretaker of the subway; and Maureen Bowers (Alaina Huffman), Jane s former DEA partner and friend, who, like Jane, was recruited after discovering top-secret information about Neuros.
Painkiller Jane is based on the comic-book series of the same name created by Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada.
Ever feel like you re getting sick but you never quite get there?
Like you have half a cold? I ve felt like that all day, actually for close to a week now. It s just that today was worse.
It s probably from fatigue. I keep waking in the middle of the night thinking I ve forgotten something or else I get hit with a plot idea.
Have you figured out that if you don t get up and write it down, you forget it by morning?
At least I do.
Okay, since I feel terrible, this post is terrible. So, I ll share this link to the trailer for 300.
Gerard Butler. I feel better already.
Raise your hand if your heart started racing with excitement the first time you watched Emma Peel kick ass in the television show, The Avengers.
The Avengers was a British show in the sixties about spies and Diana Rigg’s character was a genius who could kick serious butt. As a child of the seventies, I came in on the reruns but after that very first exposure, I plopped my little girl butt in front of that TV daily for my Avengers dose. Oh, Emma Peel was my hero.
Yes, she won fights, but the woman had brains, too!
I also watched Star Trek. (I know, this isn’t a surprise.
) But I always wondered why Uhura didn’t go on more missions. Later, when Star Trek, the Next Generation (TNG) came out, you can imagine my happiness when I realized a woman was head of security (Though Natasha Yar was killed in season one!) and yes, she almost always went out on missions.
I don’t think I ever missed an episode of the Bionic Woman. I would probably cringe my way through it these days (is going through your head right now?) but not then.
I would get mad if anyone sneezed during “my” show.
(Speaking of Bionic Woman, there is this strange study which reports that women who watched violent females on shows like this one grew up to be more physically aggressive and prone to criminal acts. Yeah, whatever.
I don’t even kill spiders and I inhaled these shows like air.)
The first time I watched Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien, I thought I’d been beamed right into Heaven.
Today, I still love strong heroines.
I had many a romance manuscript turned down in the nineties because editors thought my female leads too strong. Too bad I was such a horrible writer then because those manuscripts (or the ideas, actually) would sell today.
The problem with today’s strong heroines is they re not always portrayed well in novels, television and movies. I don’t have a problem with the sexy outfits (extreme feminists are screaming at me right now) are you kidding?
Didn’t Trinity look bitchin’ in The Matrix? Please! If I could look that good and circumnavigate the rules of space and time, I’d be out there kicking major criminal hiney.
No, it’s not the over-sexual battle femme that bothers me, it’s the lack of what I consider a woman’s major strength. Come on… you know what I’m talking about… it’s internal… yes, compassion! Compassion, love, acceptance… big things.
Showing compassion doesn’t immediately wimpify a kick-ass heroine, it just proves to me that she is all-around strong. It shows that she knows when to crucify and when to take a step back and show a little understanding.
If all your heroine does is run around being tough, she’s going to lose my interest.
However, if she realizes her own short-comings and also realizes that all humans have them, I’ll stick with her for life.
What are some of your favorite kick ass heroines in books, tv and or movies? I know we ve done something similar before, but dig deep I promise to chuckle politely if you say Wire.
Though, that buoyant quote was hilarious…
Shirley MacLaine blows me away. I’m mesmerized by the characters she chooses to portray as well as her performance for each and every one. She has a way of making you forget you’re watching an act.
There are movies of hers that break my heart, yet I will watch them just for her. Terms of Endearment, Steel Magnolias, Guarding Tess…
Just lately, I’ve been watching In Her Shoes. This movie in turn makes me smile and cry.
I love it. I love movies that let you witness the transition of a character from emotionally cluttered to content. Or as content as one can be in this mad, mad world.
My husband and I came in right at the beginning black moment for the sisters. Cameron Diaz’s character came off as this selfish bitch without any redeemable characteristics. My husband scoffed and went to bed.
I stayed up, already interested. Then I flipped to that priceless On Demand and watched it from the beginning to better understand the characters. Oh, she was definitely redeemable and because we hadn’t seen the beginning, hadn’t witnessed her struggles due to poor education or possibly dyslexia; we didn’t see her very aloneness.
This doesn’t excuse her behavior, but as the movie flows, so does our understanding and yes, our hope that she’ll find something for herself.
She isn’t the only character with lessons to learn. I loved them all down to the small role played by the older sister’s best friend.
And I’m also a fan of Toni Collette and have been since Muriel’s Wedding. Also, a good flick.
I may have to go back to Shirley MacLaine’s beginning acting days and see what I missed.
I saw a couple, but I’ve been a fan since I first absorbed Terms of Endearment in 1983. I say absorbed because this is a movie that seeps deep into you and kind of clings. I remember the first time vividly because I was 13 and I cried all night.
I might have cried the next, too. I did the same with the other two movies of hers I mentioned above.
During In Her Shoes, there is this one small section of the movie where she gets an unexpected kiss and I rewound it three times just to replay the expression of shock, displeasure and yes, pleasure.
She managed to cancel her emotions out and did it brilliantly.
In Her Shoes is a chick flick – a term I used to find silly, but have since learned to just accept. While my husband might watch it and like it, he won’t watch it more than once as I will.
Won’t cry when with the renewel of the sisters’ love. I have sisters and know how very precious they are to me, so I get it.
Note: Remember, you can write for the last Scene from a Pic for up to ten days, so make sure to click on the picture to bring it up large and look at it once in a while.
Something is bound to spark. I do love reading Reader sparks.
Last night, I watched Oxygen, a seven year-old thriller about kidnapping, murder and uncontrollable base desires.
I’ve seen it before and since I’ve gone over and over a story this week until I can no longer read it objectively, I thought it would make a good break. While there are some plot holes that bothered me a little and the dialogue could have used some work in places, it’s not a bad flick.
But I found myself watching the character, Madeline, played by Maura Tierney.
Madeline is a police detective with a secret problem that’s tearing her life to shreds. She’s married to her captain (a character that could have used a bit more umph, IMO) and she has this intriguing internal battle happening between her need for rough, submissive sex and her kick-ass police detective side. I would have liked to see this battle handled with a little more depth, but there is a scene in the police station bathroom that was good.
Madeline was, as the saying goes, a wonderfully flawed character.
So, what is it about the flawed character that draws us in? Besides it giving us a heavier than usual dose of reality, is it just that we really want to see that person conquer what’s holding them back and succeed?
These characters draw us in, make us root for them, make us love them. When done with a bit of skill, a good writer can take an extremely difficult subject like a cop’s desire for rough sex and alcoholic oblivion and turn it into a compelling and heart-wrenching twist that keeps you glued to the edge of your seat.
There are quite a few of these flawed cop heroine movies floating about.
Twisted with Ashley Judd—a movie I couldn’t wait to see but ended up thinking “okay.” For someone as sharp as the character, Tess, was supposed to be, I kept wondering why she didn’t question the constant passing out, but the movie itself wasn’t too bad.
Taking Lives with Angelina Jolie which I didn’t really enjoy at all even though I loved the beginning when her character is introduced.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of the movie past that. For some reason, I had a hard time swallowing the villain.
Murder by Numbers with Sandra Bullock.
Again, I found the movie just okay a bit ridiculous in places and a bit déjà vu in others, but I did enjoy Bullock’s character quite a bit.
Blue Steel with Jamie Lee Curtis. Uh, I d have to watch this one again or else I need more coffee this morning, because I m hitting a blank.
(g)
Can you think of any others?
BTW, I had excellent pics to go with all these movies but Blogger won t let me post them again. Bummer.
I have this weird habit of writing up a blog post on my laptop before getting down to the fiction writing. I ll save it in a blog file then half the time I forget about it. You see, I don t connect the laptop to the Internet.
I have a pretty nice desktop with all the speed bells and whistles, so the laptop is for writing and yeah, the occasional strategy game
I went through the blog file and found this post on Guilty Pleasure movies. I know I shared my weird and slightly morbid side with the Monty Python and Kill Bill posts, but I was thinking of doing a movie list in the spirit of
While I should feel guilty over some of these movies, I don t. I m not really into that guilt thing and most of the time I think should is a rotten word.
So, I m going to share some of those movies that always suck me in to watch again. I didn t stick with a particular genre and I m not listing all of them, just a few that came to mind one night.
I don t find most comedies amusing.
It s a serious issue with my family. They trot out Wedding Crashers, Just Friends (okay there was one freaking hilarious scene in this one) and my mother s favorite, Senseless (Ew. Really icky scene with super smelling sense and corn it s been years and I ve not recovered from the gross factor there!
!) Usually, I get annoyed with the shallow characters and contrived misunderstandings. Don t even get me started on Jim Carrey.
I ve liked maybe one of his
Bad Santa, while sending my b-I-l into cardiac arrest, didn t do it for me. In fact, I kind of wish I hadn t seen it. Ever.
But, I can be entertained.
One of my favorite comedies is O Brother Where Art Thou. Between the dialogue, the quirky characters and the constant flashbacks to the Odyssey, this was fun, fun, fun.
To this day, my husband and I quote lines from that movie.
While I usually fall for poignant dramas like The Shipping News or kick-ass stylish flicks like The Matrix (# 1 the other two aren t under discussion) I also enjoy the occasional B horror flick. Well, I enjoy getting together with my sisters and laughing while watching them.
Sometimes, we even turn them down and make up our own dialogue. We re twisted.
There were some excellent horror movies in the seventies like The Changeling.
And yes, since I m obviously female, I do like some chick flicks like While You Were Sleeping, Under the Tuscan Sun, Chocolat and pretty much anything with Matthew McConaughey or Johnny Depp. (g)
On some of these, I ve made up what would be my favorite T-shirts to go with them. Can t make the shirts for copyright reasons, but if I could
Now, my husband has three favorite movies plus anything with Pacino.
Godfather 2 is his all time favorite but in a pinch, he ll watch The Last Boyscout or Bad Boys 2 anytime. I like these myself. T-shirts that come to mind Look at the Pelicans!
You ever rub your leather? or Nice Fish.
One of my guiltiest pleasures is Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag.
Joe Pesci entertains me. Period. I loved him in My Uncle Vinny, in the Lethal Weapon movies and I loved him in this.
There s a gross factor of course it is about heads but funny I love the scene with grandma near the end. T-shirt? Is that killer humor?
Napoleon Dynamite. Okay, my daughter and her friends find this a riot. My sister and sister-in-law can laugh for hours just in the retelling.
I have to admit, I m there. Every single time I watch this, I pick up something new. T-shirt Lafawnduh.
The Whole Nine Yards. Maybe I just like black comedy? I haven t seen this one in a long time, but I still remember how much I enjoyed it.
I don t think Matthew Perry gets enough roles and well, there s always Bruce Willis. T-shirt - Have you vomited recently?
Die hard.
Can t help it. With the mention of Willis, this is that movie that sucks me in every time. It s a fine example of plotting.
Perfect for new writer study. I could probably recite most of the dialogue by heart and I still get agitated when Al shows up and nearly drives away without catching on. T-shirt Yellow die number five.
Elf. I don t care if it s the middle of summer, this movie is fun with my kids. Will Ferril pulls off the naive, overgrown elf with such aplomb, I occasionally forget he s acting.
Maybe I shouldn t have admitted that. T-shirt Smiling s my favorite.
Resident Evil 2.
Okay, I may be a little embarrassed about this one. Silly, over -the-top and gory I don t know why, but I just like it. My husband has this Milla Jovovich thing and sometimes I wonder if maybe I do, too.
Oops. Bad Rinda. T-shirt Movies that make you go gay.
True Lies. It s fun. It s a comedy, adventure and romance all rolled into one and it shows that moms can be sexy, too.
T-shirt I married Rambo.
Galaxy Quest. This one surprised me.
I loved it. It could have been stupid and campy, but it was actually quite clever. Two T-shirts on this one That was a hell of a thing.
and Crewman Number Six.
Innocent Blood. A vampire movie.
A comedy and a love story. I originally bought this movie because it has Anne Parillaud. She was in one of my favorite all time movies, the french, La Femme Nikita.
In fact, I m a sucker for almost any Luc Besson film all the way back to The Big Blue. I freaking loved, The Professional originally called Leon. Will watch anything with Jean Reno, too.
In fact, I liked The Fifth Element which is a Besson film uh oh, there s Jovovich again heh heh
You all know about my Boondock Saints obsession. This post is already long and I need to go make stromboli so I ll stop here. Besides, I have to go watch the brothers again now Sorry about the pics.
I had an excellent Jovovich one for the guys. (wg)
Another violent movie I love.
Love it.
Can t say it enough.
I haven t owned a copy and have had to watch my sister s. Went through withdrawals so I spent the last couple of weeks looking for my own DVD.
The movie is about seven years old, so it s not something on every shelf.
It should be.
My birthday was Friday and my lovely sister brought it as a gift.
Last night, I turned out all the lights, turned the sound up loud and introduced friends to Boondock Fever. And it is a fever. You catch it and it stays and stays
The deleted scenes, especially the one with their mother, are priceless as well.
I want more. More of the MacManus twins, more of the story, more of FBI agent Paul Smecker. Just more.
Please. And if anyone knows where to get the soundtrack not the one on the official site but the real soundtrack, let me know and I ll be your friend forever!
Okay, I m sure by now that I have made a few of you wary.
Yeah, I make odd t-shirts. Yeah, I m slightly obsessed with music. Yeah, I make my own freaking wine.
And yes, I write anything from romance, to mainstream fiction to horror.
So why not just prove how weird I can be? (Believe me aced the nerd test.
So what if I watched every single episode of Star Trek The Next Generation? Okay, more than once? And yes, my good friend Christy and I get together for entire days of Anime Theater Have you watched Saiyuki?
?)
I m a Monty Python Fan. Seriously.
My dad used to sneak me out of my room on Saturday nights to watch Benny Hill and MP. He had to sneak because my mother did not think the shows appropriate for a kid. Well, they weren t, but my dad found my amusment entertaining and he hated laughing alone.
Besides, someone had to help him eat those bags of Reese s and Snickers.
I was mature for my age but to this day, I still find British humor a good fit for my sillier palate. And though it pains me to admit, every now and then that Benny Hill ditty will crawl into my head and bop around a bit.
Sad, aint it?
But the love of MP grew with me and eventually included my brother and sisters as well. My poor, poor mother put up with year upon year of Holy Grail movie nights and to this day, we proudly wear black knight t-shirts, order shrubberies and look for newt morphing spells.
Good times.
There are a lot of movies I will rewatch if I happen along them. Interesting enough, I don t usually enjoy violent films.
I like psychological horror over kill all the stupid teenager movies. I love good dramas like The Shipping News, but then I also get a kick out of Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag and I laughed myself silly in Bad Boys 2. Do you ever rub your leather?
Suppose it s the moment or the mood.
There are violent movies that suck me in every time and they re usually by Quentin Tarantino. I know!
I know! Doesn t fit with my love everyone personality but we all have dark sides. (grin)
One is Kill Bill Volume 1.
I have to admit, I haven t watched Kill Bill 2 yet because damn, I don t want it to be over. Vol. 1 is the oddest, most stylistic entertaining film!
Doesn t matter what scene I hit, I get sucked in for the duration. I love the main character, the bride played by Uma Thruman ex moniker Black Mamba. Uma rocks now.
Okay. People complain about the violence. Yeah, it s bad.
Disgusting, over the top bad sometimes outright sadistic and gut twisting bad. To me, it s so tongue-in-cheek it adds a distinct flavor, a sort of in-your-face homage to old, good anime movies or the Kung Fu theater shows I snuck out of my room to watch. It s supposed to be over-the-top.
That Quentin has dark humor down.
My husband hadn t seen the movie and the other night, he came in on the gory anime sequence in the middle. Frankly, I m surprised he stayed.
If I hadn t seen the beginning, seen our vengeful heroine s fight to come back from utter hell, I might not have stayed either. But this scene sets up my other favorite character in the movie so nicely, I ignored the ick factor. And the gore gets worse, culminating in one mad, frenzied and yes, again tongue-in-cheek yet strangely funny with its Happy Days style music in the background scene that boggles the mind.
Orchestrating that scene alone wow.
I love, love love the intelligent dialogue and the mood. It s a clevor movie.
It s not one where you have to think, you don t cry (I m a movie bawler I m talking the whole tissue box kind.) and it s not difficult to follow the theme. Revenge, plain and simple.
But if you pay attention, there are real hilarious gems in there. Notice Uma on the plane? heh heh
And since you know I m audibly inclined, ah the music.
I can t believe I don t yet own this soundtrack. That scene in Okinawa. The symbolism, the return to every Japanese fighting movie I ever watched on late night TV and the incredibly melodramatic yet poignant spaghetti western music.
Gets me. The cool rock numbers, the campy and wildly entertaining female muscians playing music that would easily be at home in some sixties beach scene. Then you get that piece with exciting crescenedos that showcase the utter stillness of the ultimate fight scene between the bride and O-Ren Ishii.
What is the name of that piece?
So, if you can bring yourself to see the violence as a part of the style, let yourself get beyond it to the meat of the whole entertaining package, you ll have yourself a rollicking good time.
Wow.
I need to find myself a I have vermin to kill t-shirt.
This was going to be a fascinating, intelligent discussion on the contradiction of the term objective reality but I got distracted.
I opened the newest issue of Cemetery Dance and my attention was caught by a prominently displayed book on the inside cover.
If a person were to explain the cover in generic terms, they might say a little girl smiling into a camera. Sounds innocent and sweet, yes? It is SO not.
This is a horror novel after all, so the little girl is in shadow. Her skin has a creepy, funky pasty color and her chin is down so she s looking up at you through her lashes. Light reflects off the whites of her eyes and all of the sudden, that smile isn t cute.
It s sinister. And damn, now I need my nightlight.
Why, you ask?
Think about how many horror books and movies have centered around a child or a ghost child. Innocence makes us care. Makes us want to cherish and protect.
An evil child just goes against our very instincts takes away what s still right in this world. So it s scary.
Remember the Haunting of Julia?
The Changeling? These are classics in my family. My sister brought The Changeling over on Halloween this year and the movie still got me.
Too bad so many of today s scary movies don t cut it.
This novelist must be dancing over this book cover. It s a great one.
I ll probably read the book. Yeah, the cover creeped me out enough to take notice, but some of his cover quotes weren t the stale, generic sort you see so much of these days. Words like mysterious, moody, macabre and then they add emotional wallop I m hooked.
Now, after reading the warnings on gore, I m hesitating. Not a huge fan of the icky books but there s that cover! Here, look for yourself.
Can you name some good, creepy books or movies featuring children? Besides Damien. Eck.
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