MONSTER (2014)

Posted on June 27th, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

Today’s extraordinary Korean thriller on Netflix Streaming: MONSTER (2014). An industrialist makes the mistake of trusting a blackmail payoff to an underling who would rather have the money himself. The underling goes straight to the brother he’s avoided for years, the titular monster, a stone sociopath who kills as easily as he breathes, offering him a lesser payoff in exchange for getting hold of the incriminating materials. Murders ensue, and an eight-year-old girl finds herself on the run.

At the same time, a young college student deals with her sister, a mentally retarded adult who operates a produce stand.

The stories converge. The mentally retarded girl, who is impulsive, prone to fits of bad temper, and possesses only the survival skills that would belong to a child of her age, finds herself on the run with the eight-year-old, while the bad guy — an unstoppable killing machine who can take down multiple attackers at once — tracks them both.

The first thing to note is that the film solves the biggest problem with many thrillers right away: how to keep them going without making the protagonist stupid. Well, this protagonist is mentally challenged and has focus problems that regularly cause her attention to wander when she needs to keep her mind on the danger she’s in; nor can she effectively tell the police what’s going on, nor will she come up with any brilliant plans, at any point. It is key to the story that she is almost defeated at one juncture by the need to cross town to find a given address. It is also key that the bad guy is multiple orders of magnitude more formidable than she is, physically and mentally.

But that is not the same thing as saying that she’s incapable of being dangerous…

An absolutely splendid film, ruthless in its narrative, fearless in its willingness to let bad things happen, and terrifying in its portrayal of the homicidal antagonist. It is possessed of a great early brawl between the bad guy and a thug sent to kill him, and a very bloody climax in which our heroine does NOT suddenly develop cunning or super-strength or martial arts skills– but is instead as pissed off as it’s possible for her to be. It’s not a “ballet.” It’s a scratching, screaming, clawing confrontation between somebody who deserves to prevail and someone who does not, one of the best good vs. evil finales I have seen in many, many years.

Trust me. See it NOW.

Tags: Korean Movies, Movies, Thrillers | Category Movies

I Must Come From A Long Line of Assholes. And So Must You.

Posted on June 23rd, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

Some of my ancestors were assholes.

No.

Strike that.

Many of my ancestors were assholes.

This only stands to reason. Hundreds of generations, along the march of time, divided by the likelihood of any individual human being displaying asshole traits.

The math is inescapable. I have to come from a long line of assholes.

And because assholes are assholes, some of them had to be truly epic assholes.

Assholes of the sort that made life intolerable for others. Assholes of the sort who justified being assholes, who were proud of being assholes, who represented being assholes as a virtue. Who taught their children to be assholes.

You can make a pretty obvious logical leap here and conclude from all this that I am likely an asshole myself, at least part of the time.

Well, duh. Of course I am.

But there is one kind of asshole I’m not.

I take no particular pride in any of my ancestors being assholes.

I do not honor my ancestors for being assholes.

I do not advertise my pride in the past generations of assholes on the bumper of my car.

I do not put up billboards and raise flags to show my pride in the assholes in my family’s past.

I do not sing songs about my family aspiring to someday prove themselves to be assholes of the very same kind.

I do not teach the next generation that they should be assholes too.

I do none of that.

Why would I?

What do you think I am? Some kind of asshole?

Tags: Assholes, Confederate Flag, Race, Racism | Category Commentary, Life Wisdom, Politics

Spaying the Hugos

Posted on June 22nd, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

The proposal to simplify the Hugos by eliminating the Best Novelette category and replacing it with a Best Saga category is an excellent start, in large part because it will completely eliminate any interference with those fresh young talents who nobody is ever interested in and who just complicate things.

But it doesn’t go far enough. A few more appropriate changes would certainly help usher the awards into the twenty-first century.

First, eliminate the short story and novelette awards as well. As everybody keeps pointing out, the short fiction markets are dying and the annual competition for an award not supported by the free market is unseemly. Short fiction has never produced anything of worth, anyway. Name just one time it has. I bet you can’t.

Make the contest all about novels, the big awards that really mean something, and make the smallest award the one for best stand-alone novel, because everybody also knows that stand-alone novels are for writers with no staying power.

Then make the awards about series of different lengths. Best Trilogy, Best Open-Ended Series, and Best Saga that Takes So Long to Write that the Final Volume Has to Be Written By Another Named In the Author’s Will.

Make the rule to render ineligible any series that has been adapted for movie or television. This makes sure they’re not just a give-away to George and spares him from having to buy another house in that cul-de-sac.

Render ineligible any books produced by American publishers whose representatives have ever said anything more than five people find offensive. Send Theodore Beale an annual rocket ahead of the ceremony with the understanding that if he ever complains about it, you won’t send him any more. Break this rule whenever there’s a letter-writing campaign.

Render ineligible any books by John Scalzi or Seanan McGuire, because.

Render ineligible any stories about dinosaurs unless time travel or cloning is involved. If no dinosaur dies from high-tech weaponry, it’s not science fiction.

Render ineligible any books that aren’t certified science fiction by a committee to be named later. Books published as mainstream that may have science fiction elements, or books that receive widespread mainstream attention and can be found on bookstore shelves other than the five that also have Star Trek novels, because those other parts of the building have cooties.

Make sure the mainstream press knows that Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy and Michael Chabon and Thomas Pynchon will never be stealing the thunder of anybody who writes about galactic overlords, ever again. This is a science fiction award, dammit.

And finally, change the name of the Hugo to the Science Fiction Award Dammit.

Tags: Cormac McCarthy, George R.R. Martin, Hugos, John Scalzi, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Novelettes, Novellas, sad puppies, Sagas, Seanan McGuire, short stories, Thomas Pynchon | Category Books, Commentary, Humor, Science Fiction, Writing