New Bloggy Update! 6/30/23

As we head into the “holiday weekend + Tuesday”, I just wanted to give a special SHOUT OUT to all the new blog followers! Welcome and Thank You! The ol’ odometer (number of followers) turned over to 200 sometime over the past 48 hours Yay!! 🙂

While there are no events (for me) in July, I’ve been hard at work writing a flash fiction piece (short story under 1,000 words). I’ve also been shopping it around a bit now that it’s done. I’ve also pulled a couple other stories from the vault to see if I can get any traction there. I haven’t done any magazine/journal (online or paper) submissions in YEARS because I’ve been focused on writing novels. Now that novel #5 (Sanctum) is done, I’m turning my sights and my energies to short stories again (at least for a while). Is that foreshadowing? Yeah, okay – it is. I’ll be doing NanoWriMo this November – working on In a Corner, Darkly: Volume 3 (15 short tales).

As I’m typing this, there’s a handful (oh, don’t I wish in the literal sense) of bunnies running around the front yard. I’m NOT a fan of summer in any sense of the word, but I DO like SOME of the wildlife that makes frequent appearances. (butterflies and birds are cool, too!)

As to what we’ve been watching?

The Bear (Season 2) – Wow. What a masterclass in drama (especially episode #6). If you haven’t been watching this fictional take on opening a small Chicago restaurant, you should. It’s awesome in every possible way.

Trespass Into Terror (2015) – No. Just…no. Five friends go on a weekend hunting trip that they will never forget… if they come out alive. They wander onto the wrong side of property lines, and the folks in these parts don’t take kindly to strangers intruding onto their land (Google) Completely predictable, annoying, way too long, even at 1 hour and 43 minutes, despicable characters, horrible dialogue, eye-rolling situations, and plot holes you could drive a 4×4 through. Charlie gave it a 7.9 while I grudgingly offered up a 3.3. My recommendation would be to give this a hard and gritty pass.

Wake in Fright (1971) – After finishing up the school term in a remote outback town, teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) looks forward to spending his holiday with his girlfriend in Sydney. But John gets waylaid in a mining town where a gambling spree leaves him completely broke. He quickly falls in with the hard-drinking locals, who constantly ply him with alcohol and force him to participate in a gruesome kangaroo hunt. Disgusted, John tries to hitchhike out of town and, when that fails, begins to contemplate suicide. (Google) Boy, I really wanted to like this one. Old school? Donald Pleasence? Australia? Cool shots of animals? Let me be the first to alert you to the fact that animals WERE killed (they claim the filming happened during a ‘professional hunting trip’). Yeah, I couldn’t care less about the reasoning. It’s unacceptable and I did look away. Aside from that nightmare, there wasn’t a single character (well, maybe the Sheriff) that had any redeeming quality. Drunken brawls, mean practical jokes, disgusting behaviors, over-the-top misogyny (even for ’71!) What was the point of this film? To show how horrible people can be to each other and to animals? My recommendation is to burn this hunk of celluloid to the ground.

Braven (2018) – A logger and his father head to their hunting cabin, hoping for a quiet weekend. Instead, they find themselves in a kill-or-be-killed stand for survival when they encounter a gang of ruthless drug traffickers. (Google) A complete by-the-numbers story featuring Jason Momoa. There’s no surprises here. You’re going to get EXACTLY what you might expect. If you’re looking for J.M. to kick some bad guy butt and be a family man/hero, here ya go. I gave it a 4.0 and Charlie came in at a 3.5.

American Murderer (2022) – Charismatic con man Jason Derek Brown becomes wanted by the FBI after hatching his most elaborate scheme yet (Google). A film based on real life, this one wasn’t actually half bad. (lol) It held our attention, didn’t feel too long, and told the story in an understandable way. No spoilers, but the end frustrated me a wee bit (you’ll see if you watch it). I would recommend this one if you are looking for a true crime story that doesn’t have much gore/blood/killing.

And that is a wrap, readers! Have a most groovy July 4th (if you celebrate) and I’ll catch up with you in July! 🙂