Book Review - ‘Dreams & Shadows’ - C. Robert Cargill

Book Review - ‘Dreams & Shadows’ - C. Robert Cargill

Robert Cargill is more well know as Massawyrm on AICN. He’s recently branched out in

other types of writing with the movie Sinister and also this, his debut novel.

‘Dreams & Shadows’ takes the idea that all the various faeries and folklore from around the world are real and all live together in a separate fairy realm. The story follows two human boys, Colby and Ewan who end up getting mixed up in it and each others lives. 

Colby is a young boy who has a chance encounter with a genie and is granted his wish to ‘see everything’. This includes being brought to the fairy world where he meets Ewan, a young boy who was stolen as a baby and replaced with a changeling. Their meeting sets off a chain reaction that could change the whole balance of the fairy world.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s very readable and I’m a sucker for stories about folklore. I honestly had a hard time putting it down sometimes and flew through it pretty quickly. There are some issues with it. There are some points where it gets bogged down in long monologues but I guess you can kind of get away with it a little more in books. Unfortunately some of the monologues that are supposed to be deep are not quite as deep as they seem to think they are.

I still recommend it especially if you are a fan of urban fantasy. He signed a deal for two more books in this series and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

More like mystery COCKS

Directed By: J.J. Abrams

Written By: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Weller,

*Spoilers*

There’s an anecdote that is often used when writers talk about getting studio notes and re-writing scripts. In the story a writer is called in and is asked to re-write the ending. The main character is supposed to have a big success at the end but it just doesn’t feel like that much of a victory so they ask the writer to change the ending to fix this. He doesn’t change the ending though because he recognizes that the ending isn’t the issue, it’s the beginning. The stakes weren’t properly set up and so you don’t have a reason to want him to win. The point of the story is that while the producers were responding honestly to the script and felt the weak ending it’s the writers job to understand WHY the ending felt weak.

The same kind of thing happens with how audiences react to things. Like, let’s say if you really love a movie, the bad guy from the movie and the ending of the movie does that mean you can just take some elements from that movie and re-create it to get the same effect? No you can’t. Or should I say "no you KHAAAAAAAAAN'T"

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of the most loved Star Trek movies. In fact ‘Wrath of Khan’ is often referenced interchangeably with ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ by filmmakers as a way of saying “The sequel will be better and darker than the original.’ Loads of Star Trek fans love Khan and when Trek was re-booted in 2009 a lot of them were hoping to see Khan again.

Star Trek Into Darkness also has Khan as a bad guy and plays with the stuff that happens in Wrath but in a bunch of dumb ways. I really liked the 2009 Star Trek and one of the things they did in it that I thought was a cool idea was the fact that they made the fact that it was a reboot part of the plot. Someone goes back in time and changes the past, creating an alternate timeline. Leonard Nimoy’s Spock also goes back in time too meaning there are now two Spock’s in this timeline. Unfortunately it seems more and more like the timeline plot was just a cheap way of getting Star Trek fans to shut up and stop complaining about ignoring the original films. “They’re still part of the canon we’re using”, the filmmakers can say. ‘Look, here’s original Spock to tie everything together”. I really wish that they had just rebooted it. Even if in Into Darkness they had quietly ignored that there was two timelines and just changed what ever they wanted I might have been okay with that. Instead they specifically bring back Old Spock in this one just to point out that he faced Khan before. So Wrath of Khan is part of the back story to this and Khan is the same guy in both movies. In that case how did a Indian (who was played by a Mexican) turn into a British guy? And why does that scene with Old Spock even happen? I thought at first that they would do something interesting where Old Spock would warn them about how much of a bad guy he is but because of the different timeline he’s not that bad and it would create tension. Nope. He’s just a bad guy. So, what? Spock was just there to point out to the audience that Khan is from the older movies?

There is a lot of this movie that only seems to work if you know Wrath of Khan. I used to always point at Trek 09 as being one of the best examples of how to do references/call backs. Every reference in that movie works if you haven’t seen any Trek beforehand. The reference itself is a second layer if you happen to get it. This one acts like we should already care about who Khan is. His reveal is played like it’s a big moment for no reason. And then there’s the ending which this time has Kirk sacrificing his life in place of Spock. He dies and then five minutes later he’s brought back. Why even bother to kill him off at all? They seem to have just doesn’t it because Wrath of Khan did it but without any of the depth. Along the way Spock screamed out ‘KHAAAAAAAAAN’. Why? Because Kirk shouted it out in Wrath of Khan and it’s well known so yeah, fuck it, lets just shoehorn it in here too.

I know this might sound really nit-picky but all I felt watching the movie was that this is the movie equivalent of offering someone cake and then throwing it on the floor. I mean, they are still free to enjoy it as long as they don’t mind having to eat like an animal. Are they going to keep doing this? Is there going to be one where they have a plot involving whales in the future? They have a whole universe to play with! Why even re-tread anything at all? God forbid we might see something new.

I've seen people defend the movie by talking about how if you ignore all the stupid stuff Abrams is still able to put together a decent set piece but I don't even care anymore. There was one part that could have been cool where they do a space jump but they already did one in the last movie so it's not even original. 

Another major problem was Alice Eve. Not her, but how she was treated. She is seemingly only in the movie for two reasons. One, there is a character in Wrath called Carol Marcus so of course they’re going to shove someone with that name in there. Also she strips down to her underwear FOR NO REASON AT ALL. Okay, I do know the reason, it’s so they could put it in the trailer. UGH.

Edit: Damon Lindelof acknowledged this issue on twitter last night and said he'd be more careful about this sort of thing in the future.

I have other issues too, the majority of the crew are sidelined just to focus on Spock and Kirk but even then they’re not really developed any more than they were in the last one. Also the end got a bit confusing because I thought they were far from Earth but then they fell to earth? That might have just been me zoning out though. I was sick of the movie by that point.

When they first announced the new Star Wars movies I was kinda looking forward to them because I liked the idea of there being fresh blood but now I’m absolutely dreading them. JJ Abrams doesn’t even like Star Trek and he ruined this movie by shoving in a bunch of stuff fans were familiar with. God only knows what he’ll do with a series he’s been obsessed with since he was a kid.

Alt/Celluloid

Here's a list of stuff I've written for the blog Alt/Celluloid so far. The blog is focused on suggesting movies that might have slipped through the cracks. I'll continue to post there as well as writing fuller reviews here.

Other people contribute to it and there is some great stuff on there. You can check out the blog here:

http://altcelluloid.blogspot.ie/

Anyways here's a list of stuff I've suggested there, I've (tried) to sort them here into categories.

Horror:

The Bay (2012)

John Dies at the End (2012)

Detention (2011)

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

Troll Hunter (2010)

The Last Exorcism (2010)

Triangle (2009)

Let The Right One In (2008)

Pontypool (2008)

Timecrimes (2007)

[Rec] (2007)

The Orphanage (2007)

Japanese Animated:

Paprika (2006)

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

Whisper of the Heart (1995)

Japanese Drama:

A Boy and his Samurai (2010)

Fish Story (2009)

Kikujiro (1999)

TV:

Nathan For You (2013)

Awake (2012)

Terriers (2010)

Children's Hospital (2010 -)

TV Animated:

Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011)

Paranoia Agent (2004)

Drama:

Like Crazy (2011)

Monsters (2010)

Submarine (2010)

Humpday (2009)

The Fall (2006)

The King (2005)

Mean Creek (2004)

Documentary:

Lake of Fire (2006)

Evil Dead (2013)

The Suburgatory finale took a strange turn...

Directed By: Fede Alvarez

Written By: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues

Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas

*Spoilers!*

Fede Alvarez made a bit of a splash with the short film ‘Panic Attack’ a few years ago. He ended up in talks with Sam Raimi to make a movie but it fell apart and they decided to remake ‘The Evil Dead, the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror’ instead.

The movie starts off pretty interestingly, with Jane Levy playing a heroin addict who is going with her friends and brother to a cabin in the woods to go cold turkey. That’s pretty cool because when she starts freaking out and saying she wants to go home they’ll think it’s just the withdrawal and she just thinks she sees dead babies crawling on the ceiling or whatever. It’s abandoned pretty quickly though and so is all the character dynamics (I think one of the guys has a problem with the brother or something but it’s only mentioned once.) Then it just starts going from gore scene to gore scene.

The first one is easily the most problematic. It’s a recreation of the tree rape scene. That was easily the worst part of the original and only a few years later Raimi was already saying he regretted putting it in. Apparently it was producer Robert G. Tapert that suggested putting it in the remake. What a prick. I think they try to soften it by involving a female spirit but it still shouldn’t have been put in at all.

The other gore scenes are technically well done and they use a lot of practical effects which is great and all but the scenes are all kind of dull. I re-watched the original recently and one thing that makes that work so well is the idea that ANYTHING can happen. There isn’t really any method to what the deadites are doing, they’re pretty much just fucking around. There’s more of a sense of escalation too, things seems to get crazier as it goes on. With the remake it’s just a character gets mutilated, then another gets mutilated and then another gets mutilated. It’s made worse by the fact that they keep cutting to images in the book depicting everything that is happening. Is the implication that there is a set list of mutilations and even an order they have to be done in? What? Why? Is there a boss deadite somewhere trying to meet a quota or something? Actually there probably is because the book also says there has to be 5 souls for the main spirit to come and I guess he’s pretty picky.

It really only gets good right at the end when it starts straight up raining blood. I guess you have to try and top the amount of blood in ‘Dead Alive’ so they were like ‘Yeah, fuck it let’s just make it rain blood.” Red Letter Media had a theory that they only put in the bloody rain to get around the MPAA. Kill Bill had to have a scene in black and white because of how much blood was in it but in this they might get away with it because it’s impossible to tell how much is actually blood and how much is rain. Levy has also changed into a red dress for no reason at this point too so I guess it was so they could get away with spraying her with as much blood as possible without it becoming too obvious.

It was too little too late though. They are planning a sequel and also a sequel to Army of Darkness and there are hints that they might cross over too. I’m curious if they'll follow the original series and start moving into comedy. Looking back there’s something really crazy about that progression. I can’t imagine the makers of Saw or something being like “Okay the next one will be more of a comedy and the third one will be even more of a comedy and will have WAY less gore and way more Three Stooges stuff. Yep”.

Rating: Avoid