Review: Jupiter Ascending

Have you ever wanted to see Flash Gordon enter the Matrix?  Now may be your chance.

"Jupiter Ascending" is a fun ride with amazing visuals, awesome fight scenes, big music, and epic action.  However, this all comes at a price.  The plot is both confusing and amazingly thin.  So much so, that I would expect many to walk away from the theater unsatisfied.  If, on the other hand, you're looking for a no-brainer movie with action and eye candy, then you'll most likely love this movie.

The movie starts out very well as we witness the birth of Jupiter.  But then as soon as the title splash screen appears, everything goes to plaid.  We witness three alien immortals discussing ... something.  Then for the next thirty minutes, I struggled to figure out what the heck was going on.  At many times, it felt like I was watching the 1980 version of "Flash Gordon," only with up-to-date special effects and much less male chauvinism.  At other times, it felt like "Matrix Revolutions" with its epic scenes and very similar CGI.

When the movie was over, I sat there pondering, "What exactly got accomplished?" while listening to Michael Giacchino's epic operatic score full of big instrumentation that screamed, "You just watched a big movie.  You just watched a big movie."  Unfortunately, I had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.

It could have been the biggest movie to hit the screen in a long time, but the writing basically killed it.  Let me give an example.  Near the beginning of the movie, Jupiter wants to buy this expensive telescope.  Her cousin (?) comes up with this idea for her to sell some of her eggs for $15K.  She goes in for an operation, using a pseudonym, and the story progresses.  Seems like such a simple concept to understand, but believe it not, it wasn't until an hour into the movie before I fully understood what she was doing.

There was a lot of "let's make the audience figure out what's going on."  Sure, this technique worked in "The Matrix," but that's only because we saw it all through Neo's eyes.  Neo was the one in the dark.

But with "Jupiter," the technique fails miserably, mainly because the audience knows that Jupiter knows what's going on, and it's the audience alone that's in the dark.  Had the writers simply explained at the very beginning why she was going in for an operation, there would have been less confusion, and a lot more emotional connection with the characters.

Yes, with just a few simple tweaks of the plot and dialogue, this movie would have been outstanding. And to think at how much attention they paid to other details!

With that said, I think the visuals, action, and lack of boring parts make it worthy enough to catch in the theater.  I saw it in 2-D, but I wish I had gone with 3-D IMAX.  That would have been awesome.

2015 Preview

Reading from the "7 Habits" over the past year or so, I'm learning how much of a scam New Year Resolutions are.  The following can easily happen:

#1) You miss the deadline to make resolutions, so you must wait another year.  Get ready for a crappy year.

#2) You do well in meeting your resolutions for a few weeks, and then you slip, and oh no!  Once you mess up, it's too late, and you must wait another year.  Again with the crappy year.

Rather, as "7 Habits" teaches, the best unit of time for planning is the week.  Whatever day works the best for you is the day to plan out the whole week.  Schedule appointments.  Plan activities that further your goals.

Instead of annual goals, you're supposed to set a mission statement, which encompasses your major goals in life.  Thus you don't have to wait till January 1 to get started.  You can start any day you want.

With all that said, I still like to look forward.  What do I want to accomplish this year?  I'd really like to finish getting "Justice" published.  I'd really like to get a magazine credit.  I'd like to start showing a profit, so I can show potential tax auditors that this isn't just a hobby.  I don't need an annual goal to accomplish these three tasks, but I'll just say: 2015 would be a great year if I could accomplish all three goals.

Good luck with your 2015.  Write well, and may you prosper in your art!

Mel's Year in Review: 2014

I wonder if I should let Facebook put together my Year in Review for me.  Would they be first in pointing out that I failed in my main goal?  But wait!  2014 wasn't all that bad for me.  As with the past years, I've had failures and successes -- actually a very big success.  Let's see ... where to begin?

At the beginning of the year, I set off with a simple goal: make at least one dollar of profit.  The plan was to get some of my short stories published, to try out AdSense, and self-publish my novel Escape From the Planet Justice.  How did I do?

• Short stories: I've come the closest to getting published (other than winning the contest in 2013).  I received my first positive custom personal rejection letter for my story "Stanley Saucer: Space Assassin."  However, I still lack a magazine credit.
• Adsense: It was worth giving it a try.  I turned it on here on this blog, and also on my YouTube channel, earning a measly $10 over the whole year.  Woot!  Woot!  I'll give a more detailed report once I get the official numbers for 2014.
• Planet Justice: I made a lot of progress in preparing this story for publication, but the critters website let me down, providing only one person to critique my novel, which only provided one perspective.  I made a few adjustments, adding two brand new chapters at the very beginning, and turned to my personal friends for critiquing (subsequently annoying the heck out of one of my good writing friends).

But then ... something happened to bring everything to a screeching halt.  I failed an actuarial exam in the first half of the year.  Realizing it was destroying my life, I made the decision to put everything on hold while I put all my effort in passing the stupid thing.  To get a sense of how difficult these exams are, you can read my prior posts:

Why I hate taking actuarial exams (complete with funny video that captures the essence of the experience).

When I considered leaving the profession (but not really).

When I decided to hunker down and get it over with.

Just a few days ago, (are you ready for that very big success I mentioned?), I got word that I had passed, and the good feelings have not yet gone away.  It was the first time that I had applied some newly-learned "7 Habits" techniques, and it worked.

So, now I hope that what I said the hunker-down post will come true.  Everything will open up now.  I no longer have around my neck the albatross of having to study, so I should be able to expend a lot more energy in getting published.  Plus, if the "7 Habits" techniques worked with that stupid exam, they should work in helping me accomplish my other dreams.

Already, after having finished the exam in October and while waiting for results to come out, I used a session of NaNoWriMo to put out another 50,000 words in my two-thirds done novel, Space Cadets.  Boom baby!

In short, 2014 was a good year for transition, hopefully preparing me for a very productive 2015.

Other stats for 2014:

• 40 blog posts (including this one), same as with 2013.
• Up to 42,311 views (up 41% from 2013).
• Two new blogs:
• The Mormon Mel (12 posts, 663 views)
• The Music of Mel (29 posts, 1071 views)
• I reviewed:
• 8 movies
• 8 books
• 10 TV shows
• My personal favorite posts:
• Midnight Showing Logic (when my kids and I saw The LEGO Movie alone during the midnight showing)
• Firefox and Intolerance (those who call for tolerance should remember to practice tolerance themselves)
• Finding My Voice (what does it REALLY take to get published?)
• The 80-20 Principle (what does it take to succeed?)
• Writing Bad (in which I consider diving into self-publishing)

How well did you do in 2014?

Christmas: All About the Money?

I love Christmas.  It's by far my favorite holiday of the year.  I love the lights, the Christmas Trees, the Christmas hymns, Christmas performance, opening presents, getting presents, talking about Jesus, getting sick from gingerbread houses, and being around the family.

But this time in my mid-life years, I'm experiencing something else: Christmas fatigue.  Maybe it's from studying and doing NaNoWriMo mixed with crazy pressures from work.  Or maybe it's just looking back over the past few years, realizing that December is a month where I know I'm going to be staying up late researching Christmas presents and pulling everything together.  Then I wonder when I'm going to get any rest.

And then I realize the center of my fatigue.  It's the whole idea of having to buy presents.  That's really what Christmas has become.  It's a major boon for the retail industry.  In fact, without Christmas, we would all experience a major economic disaster.  It's become so intertwined with our economy.  It doesn't depend on your religion.  Even most atheists participate in the gift-giving.

In fact sometimes, if you don't give a Christmas present, it's bad.  You don't care for that person, or you're exhibiting ingratitude.  On the other hand, if we all gave everyone we knew presents, we'd all go broke!

It's a big conspiracy!  (But it keeps our economy going.  Heh!)

Then this cute little kitty we picked up a couple of months ago reminds me of the joy of Christmas.  Life is fun.  Christmas is having the family together.  Sure, we get to exchange presents, but then after the hustle and bustle is done, we can all relax and enjoy life.

And sleep.

To all my homies going through the Christmas fatigue, I say: let's weather the storm together.  Let's survive the crowded shopping sprees, and the online orders while remembering to clear out cookies and emails to hide our tracks from the kids.  Let's survive that Christmas Eve shopping where Daddies like me go out for those last minute gifts (yeah ... I usually see mainly guys out that night).  It'll all be worth it in the end.

And to remind us of the fun that is to come, here's another picture of our kitty:

NaNoWriMo ... Finished

Boo-yah!  I did it.  50,000 words of my novel Space Cadets is written.  All good feelings of success are belong to me!

Next up ... a little relaxing, and then an Actuarial Speculative Fiction short story.  Followed by getting Justice ready for publishing, and then back to this story sometime in 2015.

NaNoWriMo: The Penultimate Week

Don't you just love that word?  Penultimate?  It means next-to-last.  Now that this past week is over, I have only one week left to finish up NaNoWriMo.  And only at 38,069 words.  I basically have 12,000 words left to type.

Let's see: 2,500 words on Monday.  2,500 words on Tuesday.  Then 1,000 on Wednesday.  That would bring me down to 6,000 words split between Friday and Saturday.

Yeah, I can do it.

NaNoWriMo: Halfway Done

Here we are, one week later from my last report.  I had a productive week, but sickness keeps coming back.  I'm currently at 26,200 words, which is past the recommended 25,000, but below where I want to be at 28,500.  (I won't be writing during Thanksgiving, so I must make up for it before instead of after.)  So really, I'm 2,300 words behind schedule.

Here goes the next week.  If sickness holds off I should have no problem securing the "win."  Good luck on your own NaNo-ing!

NaNoWriMo: Recovering From Disaster

The last couple of days I've been sick.  So much that I got no writing done at all yesterday (Saturday).  After doing so well keeping to my schedule, I've fallen behind.  I came really close to giving up, but then I realized I could move my schedule around a little bit to make catching up reasonably possible. Also, my story keeps screaming, "I need to be written!"

Now if only I can get over this sickness.

If you're behind on your NaNo, don't give up.  There's still plenty of time.  Let's finish this together.

Interstellar: Inception in Space

On the most part, Interstellar was another Nolan movie that blew me away.  Most of the science was spot-on, and the story was incredible.  The music was the typical Zimmer awesomeness, and the acting was good.

In Interstellar, the Earth is dying, and Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, is sent to find a new planet suitable to support human life.  I can't say too much more without spoiling it, but just like in Inception, my mind was blown.

The special effects were nearly perfect.  The journey through a wormhole and near a black hole look just like the simulations mathematicians and scientists provide.  The gigantic waves as you see in the trailer look remarkably real.  The dust storms on Earth are convincingly scary.  The spaceship mechanics all look to be correct.  In short, everything looks real and scientifically correct.

The music was amazing.  The use of organ adds a new instrument to the Hollywood orchestra, paying homage to Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, the main theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The organ also nearly quotes from Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi in some key emotional moments.  During the early scenes as the spaceship first launches and goes through docking procedures, the music echoes Johann Strauss's waltzes as used in 2001 in similar scenes.

I only have one complaint with the music.  Many times it was just TOO LOUD.  I found myself frustrated several times when a character was saying something dramatic or important, but I couldn't hear it over the music.

As I mentioned before, the science is mostly accurate.  I was impressed with their treatment of Relativity and not messing anything up.  The only thing that wasn't quite right was the whole idea of solving some equation.  That was nothing more than Hollywood drama, but considering they got a lot of everything else right, I'm not going to complain much.

One last complaint ... somewhere in the middle of the film, events unfolded on Earth in an unconvincing manner.  Several characters' motivations seemed to be in conflict and their development wasn't entirely convincing.  In one particular scene, I was thinking, "Why is everyone being so melodramatic?"  It was almost like a scene from Signs.

Then again, character consistency hasn't always been a Nolan specialty.  Once the film got past a particular point, each character seemed to settle and I could enjoy the ending.  Then the Nolan brothers more than redeemed themselves.

My suggestion: go watch this movie in IMAX and enjoy.

One last bit of trivia: Does that rectangular robot (in the trailer at 1:22) remind you of anything?  Its dimensions appear to be very close to 1 by 4 by 9.

NaNoWriMo 2014 Begins

At 12 Midnight, when October 31 turns into November 1, after saying "Rabbit!  Rabbit!", I conducted the ceremonial beginning of NaNoWriMo.  During the month of November, I will write 50,000 words of my upcoming novel "Space Cadets."

Just now, I wrote the first 441 words.  You can read the first snippet and see my profile here.

And if you're thinking about working on a novel, this could be a good chance for you to kickstart the effort.  Sign up at nanowrimo.org and start writing.

Good luck to all my writing friends and happy writing!