Genre Grandeur: Galaxy Quest (1999)

Lately, I’ve been mostly enjoying the new TV series The Orville, a spoof of Star Trek by Seth McFarlane. But it’s frustrating in a way, because something always seems a little bit off. I think my niece hit on the problem: “I wish they would dump the spoof part and just make a straight space …

Nature’s Fury Blogathon: The Stand (1994)

This post is part of the Nature’s Fury Blogathon, hosted by Barry at Cinematic Catharsis. Read the rest of the posts in this furious event HERE! Film and television have a long tradition of showing us how nature will one day turn against us, and most likely with help from human beings. Stephen King’s epic …

Fairy Tale Blogathon: Fractured Fairy Tales (1959 – 1964)

This post is Part 2 of my contribution to the Fairy Tale Blogathon, hosted by  Movies Silently. Fractured Fairy Tales was a regular animated segment on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. (Do a search on Youtube. Many are available to watch for free.) The tales were narrated by Edward Everett Horton and voiced by June …

Fairy Tale Blogathon: Once Upon a Mattress (2005)

This post is Part 1 of my contribution to the Fairy Tale Blogathon, hosted by  Movies Silently. For the past couple of years I've been writing fractured fairy tales, so when Fritzi at Movies Silently announced the Fairy Tale blogathon, of course I had to have fairy tales of the fractured variety as my subject! …

My Project REUTSway Runner-up Story is Now Live on Their Blog!

Last November I participated in REUTS Publications' contest Project REUTSway. Each week, writers were given a prompt to use to retell a fairy tale. Each prompt was a supernatural creature (vampires, zombies, demons and werewolves). Two out of the three stories I submitted were chosen for an anthology, which will be published at a later …

The Great Villain Blogathon: Waldo Lydecker, Laura, 1944

This post is part of the Great Villain Blogathon hosted by Ruth of Silver Screenings, Karen of Shadows & Satin, and Kristina of Speakeasy  — see all the movie baddies at any of these three blogs. YES, there will be SPOILERS. "I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." - …

Black Sails: Starz’s New Pirate Show Really Floats My Boat

MINOR SPOILERS FOR FIRST EPISODE OF BLACK SAILS: (He-he, sorry, couldn't resist that title.) I did not subscribe to Starz a few weeks ago. Then I stumbled on a preview episode of their new pirate series Black Sails on the Audience Channel. I thought, "What the heck, I'll watch for a few minutes. Michael Bay …

2014 Starts on a Writing High Note: I’m a Project REUTSway Winner x 2 (and a half)!

As mentioned in a previous post, I participated in Project REUTSway, a short story contest held by REUTS Publications. I found out a month ago that I was one of the finalists. Today the winners were announced and TWO out of my three stories were chosen for the anthology! My third story is a runner-up, …

Are Young Adult Movie Franchises Dead in the Water?

This past week Publisher’s Weekly linked to an article by Tara Aquino on the web site Complex.com about the failure of three YA movie adaptations this year: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Beautiful Creatures and The Host. While she doesn’t exactly come to the conclusion that young adult franchises are a dead commodity, she …

Are Soap Operas Poised To Make A Comeback?

It's hard to believe now, but there was a time when the revenue generated by daytime soap operas paid for nighttime programming on the major networks. This past decade and more, soap operas were not just on the wane, but an endangered species. With only four currently left on the air, the demise of this …

5 Things That Bug Me About Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian Fiction

First, let's define post-apocalyptic and dystopian: Post-apocalyptic refers to a work of fiction that deals with a global disaster so profound there are few survivors. It may include a period of time leading up to the disaster, or it can take place years afterwards, but mostly it's about the immediate after-effects of a disaster--war, environmental …

Book Review: The Twelve By Justin Cronin

The Twelve by Justin Cronin is the second of his post-apocalyptic/vampire trilogy. The first book in the trilogy is The Passage. I wrote a spoilerific analysis of one of the major characters in The Passage a while back. This review will refrain from divulging any major spoilers. That makes it very difficult to write this …

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone

No one was more surprised than I was when I ended up writing a zombie story, even though I never much liked zombie stories. The mantra is usually write what you know, or at least, write the kind of story you like to read. My lack of zombie love isn't snobbery--I enjoy many horror sub-genres. …

Is Drama Dead As A Hollywood Genre?

We're just now heading into the fall season, when Hollywood traditionally serves up "adult movies" (translation: Oscar bait) movies. We're supposedly done with the summer blockbusters and have moved on to the movies adult like. Supposedly. This past weekend a drama called The Words opened and did so poorly it helped to make the weekend …

What The Coen Brothers Teach Us About Keeping Genre Fresh

A while back I was participating in a discussion about The Big Lebowski on a screenwriters message board. Someone claimed the movie was of no particular genre. In fact, that the Coen brothers never made genre movies. I disagreed with that, of course. I pointed out The Big Lebowski most certainly fits into a genre, …