Jennings Wire. @: [Connie Wilson Podcast on Jennings P.R.](http://www.jenningswire.com/marketing/podcast-secrets-to-successful-self-publishing/)
This is the link to the Jennings Wire podcast I took part in recently. The post was about promoting what you write after you write it. Can’t say I’m an “expert” on this subject, but, after 12 years of learning by doing, I know a few things.
“San Andreas,” the film about San Francisco and a lot of the rest of California falling apart during a 9.6 “largest-in-recorded-history” earthquake, makes you want to move away from the Bay area if you live there. [Full disclosure: I once went through a small earthquake while a student at Berkeley. It was a weird feeling to find that the ground under your feet was moving. I remember bracing myself in a doorway until the shaking of the very earth beneath my feet stopped.]
“San Andreas” is a film in the grand tradition of such disaster films as “Earthquake” and “Towering Inferno.” I once took a busload of students to the Cinema Showcase in Milan to see both of those on a double bill; it was dubbed the “Shake & Bake Special.”
I also just saw “Mad Max: Fury Road” (Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy) and I can reliably report that each film reduces the script to almost no lines of dialogue while non-stop action (some of it implausible) is run by the audience. It’s almost as though Hollywood believes that the attention span of the average theater-goer these days is that of the average gnat and has decided to cater to an audience (usually younger) that can barely concentrate on anything for more than 5 minutes. (And certainly not without getting out their cell phones to text something to someone.)
“Mad Max” may get the edge for having the craziest set design, but the C.G. (computer graphics) team that has simulated a record-shattering earthquake followed by a “Perfect Storm” like tsunami, gets points for visually stunning us with those images. I wrote down some of the names of the special effects whizzes who helped make this earthquake movie and, after I had listed hy drau lx, Method Studios, CineSite, Atomic Fiction, Soho VFX, and Image Engine, I was surprised to learn that most of the film was shot in Australia. (Abbey Road studios is also given credit for the score and British Columbia gets a shout-out.)
For acting, I’d have to give the nod to “San Andreas'” crew, as the rationale for anything that happened in “Mad Max: Fury Road” was lost in the incomprehensibly thick accents of the first 30 minutes and the total craziness of the entire concept. At least in “San Andreas” we understand that, like Brad Pitt in “World War Z,” The Rock wants, most of all, to save his family from a natural disaster.
To that end, we learn that The Rock knows how to hot-wire a car, drive a mean speedboat, pilot both a helicopter and a regular airplane, parachute from a plane he is abandoning in the air, swim quite capably when required, and can also bring people back from the dead. I was going to say “Leap tall buildings in a single bound” but that’s a different hero.
When my husband and I were in Las Vegas recently, listening to a time share presentation, the attractive young girl who led us through the Hilton shared with us the information that her husband is “The Rock’s” stunt double (and she did some stunt work in film, as well). If this is true, that man certainly got a workout in “San Andreas,” which is loaded with stunts and CG effects.
Dr. Lawrence Graver, the scientist at California Institute of Technology who has been warning about a major earthquake event for years, is played by the always-convincing Paul Giametti. Carla Giugino (“Night at the Museum”) who plays the Rock’s about-to-be ex-wife is fine in her part. The twenty-ish daughter, played by Alexandra Daddario, is good—although she looks NOTHING like either one of the actors playing her parents. The annoying British brothers could have been crushed under a car in the parking garage who help the damsel in constant distress could have been crushed in the parking garage with no noticeable loss to the movie—especially the actor playing Ben Taylor (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), British accent and all. His younger brother, Ollie (Art Parkinson), is no less annoying, but the family dynamic that drives Dwayne Johnson’s heroic rescue attempts will keep you rooting for the home team (pun intended).
I would have cast Ioan Gruffudd (who plays mogul Daniel Riddick) as the love interest for the well-stacked Alexandra, but he is relegated to looking good (great hair!) in his private plane and his huge buildings (“The Gate”), right up until he turns into a cowardly cad. (I did wonder: how did the character played by Carla Gugino ever meet a millionaire mogul like Daniel Riddick? Young unmarried girls want to know!) At first, I honestly thought that Daniel Riddick was going for help for the hapless Alexandra. Later, he is portrayed as a cad, over and over, to the point of outright laughter, almost. To say he is not missed when his character arc ends is putting it mildly.
Two other actresses in the cast deserve mention. Archie Punjabi, who has capably played the investigator character Kalinda on “The Good Wife” until recently, turns up as a TV newswoman named Serena. The role of Daniel Riddick’s ex-wife Susan is played by singer/actress Kylie Minogue, who takes the wrong staircase in her attempts to escape the catastrophe when it strikes.
This New Line/Village Roadshow/Ratpac-Dune Entertainment offering was as entertaining as “Mad Max: Fury Road,” although you have to give a nod to the “real” stunts that were pulled off in the latter. Even though I took Earth Science in college and learned about upthrusting and down faulting, I have no idea if the statistics and historic facts cited in the movie are true or false. Is it true that the worst earthquake in history was a 9.5 in Valdiva off the coast of Chile that lasted for eleven minutes? Is there even a place called “Valdiva”? Did the earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska in 1964 really measure 9.1 on the Richter Scale? Did a tsunami really level Hilo, Hawaii, 8,000 miles away from a big earthquake? Was that big previous earthquake really the equivalent of 10 million atom bombs? Is Iran capable of leashing this earthquake power?
I kept remembering Naomi Watts in her 2012 tsunami movie “The Impossible,” for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. I remembered how her exposure to the water in the Thailand tsunami made her cuts and scrapes horribly infected, whereas Ben Taylor (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) has a large piece of glass stuck in his upper thigh (which would probably have severed the femoral artery and killed him) but walks around and swims around as though it is merely a twisted ankle with no noticeable long-term problems.
I know none of these answers, but would refer you to Carlton Cuse, the unknown director who also co-wrote the script.
Meanwhile, here are a couple of observations: the opening sequence is a testimony as to why young people should not text and drive. The young girl in the car is listening to Taylor Swift when she texts and crashes. It’s an object lesson. (“Let that be a lesson to you!”)
Lines that I enjoyed: When the question is asked “Who should we call?” as the crack earthquake-tracking team at Cal Tech is realizing the severity and seriousness of the situation, my spouse leaned over and said, “Ghostbusters!”
When “The Rock” and his lady land in whatever the name of the baseball park is in San Francisco (I’m so old that it was Candlestick, when I attended a game at that San Francisco ballpark in 1965), they parachute in, land on the playing field, and The Rock says, “It’s been a while since I got you to second base.”
I’d say that if you are so hyped up on video game action that you are one silly millimeter away from being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (with hyperactivity), you will enjoy both “San Andreas” AND “Mad Max: Fury Road” but I have to warn you that I nearly went deaf in Chicago from the volume of the soundtrack at the Icon on Roosevelt Road. I’ve also been warned NOT to bother with 3D
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yftHosO0eUo
for “San Andreas” as some who saw it in 3D said the color was washed out.
So, now you know, if you’re thinking of taking in either of the two new films in town in the near future.
Two new movies opened this weekend, “Aloha” and “San Andreas.” Naturally, I had to take them both in immediately. The fact that someone named Roger Moore (Tribune News Service) had seriously trashed the new Cameron Crowe flick in the local paper did not deter me after I saw the trailer (which I have posted below.) It should not deter you, either, if you are a Bradley Cooper fan.
Let me start out by saying I won’t be paying much attention to Roger Moore’s reviews, in the future, just as I did not pay much attention to Siskel’s, but found myself more in tune with Ebert’s. Moore even ended his scathing critical piece by saying “This feels like goodbye, at least to his major studio film career.” [He was referencing Cameron Crowe, the writer/director, who helmed such classics as “Say Anything,” “Jerry Maguire,” and “Almost Famous.”]
Yes, Crowe had as many misses as hits. “We Bought A Zoo” (Matt Damon), “Vanilla Sky” (Tom Cruise), and “Elizabethtown” were not good. That I do acknowledge. I also agree that the hymn to the Hawaiian culture embedded in the film was a bit much when you’re watching the film in the Heartland.(Davenport, IA).
However, after we agree on the annoying nature of the constant pushing of the myths and legends of old Hawaii (Crowe has settled there) and the reverential playing of old Hawaiian songs by old Hawaiians, you have to look at the cast: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski (“The Office”), Danny McBride and the young boy from “St. Vincent,” Jaeden Lieberher—well, with a cast like that and an Oscar-nominated writer-director who brought us some great films (and some not-so-great films), I’m in. I also watched the director of “St. Vincent” explain that Murray ended up in the movie because he bonded so thoroughly with young Jaeden, his co-star, that Jaeden talked him into taking a part in the film so they could do fun things in Hawaii. (In that respect, I have to give Roger Moore his due when he writes: “The film buff Hawiian resident Crowe has, in essence, made his ‘Donovan’s Reef,’ a movie John Ford and John Wayne did to celebrate Ford’s Word War II service in the Pacific, and to get a studio to pay for long tropical vacations for the cast and crew.” On that last point, Moore shoots and scores—at least in Murray’s case.
Contrary to Moore’s complaints, the movie has some truly amusing and romantic moments. Yes, there is some hamming it up (Alec Baldwin, Emma Stone and Bill Murray, I’m looking at you) but it also has an attractive, talented, likable cast that can turn ham into filet mignon if needs be.
Bradley Cooper plays a one-time Air Force space program officer, who was wounded in Afghanistan, semi-disgraced there (he took $100,000), and has bailed on the military to go to work for one of the new breed of space entrepreneurs (Bill Murray) who are supposed to be able to launch rockets as well as NASA did in its hey-day. The romance comes in the form of an old girlfriend (Rachel McAdams from “The Notebook”) who Cooper has not seen for 13 years, and a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young eager beaver who is described as one of Hillary Clinton’s “Stars”, Emma Stone as Captain Ng. Captain Ng continues to tell us that she is part Hawaiian, which does not show in her lineage at all, but nevermind about that. Her vast knowledge of Hawaiian myths, legends and customs, coupled with her natural charm, are going to make her an invaluable asset to Bradley Cooper’s character, Brian Gilchrist, who has been sent to Hawaii to do a “gate-blessing,” which is a little like asking Beyonce to play the local Holiday Inn. We do get the impression, as the plot moves us along, that war hero Gilchrist (Cooper) also has a previous friendly relationship with the President of the Sovereign Nation of Hawaii, Dennis Bumpy Kanahele, who plays himself.
Yes, we know that the eager beaver (Emma Stone) is, at some point, probably going to end up as Cooper’s love interest, and, yes, it does seem a bit abrupt when she does. More critically, Emma Stone is almost unbearably eager and hard-to-take in her interpretation of Captain Ng. We just know that when she lets her hair down and quits wearing that unattractive bun, Cooper is going to find her irresistible, but we are still curious about whether the lure of his old love (Rachel McAdams) is going to win out. The two have a lot of shared history, some of it not-so-romantic, and all of it contributing to problems in her current marriage (with 2 kids) to “Woody” (John Krasinksi).
I enjoyed Krasinski’s portrayal of a typical Clint Eastwood male who doesn’t speak to his wife, and the children (a teen-aged daughter and the young son who played Bill Murray’s next-door neighbor in “St. Vincent”) were well-cast. Alec Baldwin may have gone a tad nuclear in his rants, but Danny McBride (as “Fingers”) is good and there were some truly funny lines (one of them seen in the clip below).
No, it’s not “Say Anything” or “Almost Famous,” and, yes, Cameron Crowe is a bit reverential about his adopted home (Hawaii), but the movie was enjoyable and entertaining and proves why Bradley Cooper was nominated for an Oscar for “American Sniper.”
And now I will speak of “San Andreas” after I sign off on this rebuttal piece. Don’t pay that much attention to Roger Moore’s total trashing of the entire film. It’s still better than sitting through another Super Hero knock-off.
Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen are friends who have taken their friendship and celebrity on the road for an evening of gossip and commentary. Since both are mega-stars in their respective fields, the Chicago Theater was sold out, and the entertainers did not disappoint.
The two interviewed each other and interspersed their comments with film clips. I knew very little about Andy Cohen, since I do not watch his “Real Housewives” series, and that was a disadvantage as the evening wore on and numerous women lined up to ask the less-serious Andy about his shows. One woman asked: “Which is the dumbest housewife?” but Cohen chose not to diss that one.
Some brief biographical information was conveyed through film and commentary, and I learned that when Anderson Cooper’s 23-year-old brother, Carter, committed suicide (Anderson was 21) he jumped from the 14th floor ledge of Gloria Vanderbilt’s Manhattan penthouse while she watched. This, said Cooper, has informed everything he has done in life since. He indicated that perhaps he likes to be where tragedy has struck to see how others deal with it and survive.
Another bit of gossip concerned Gloria (Vanderbilt’s) hooking up with Marlon Brando, something that Carol Matthau (wife of Walter) arranged back when Brando was in his prime. As he put Gloria in a cab in the morning, he said, “You have Japanese skin.” (Whatever that means.) This was Brando in his prime and sexy days, Cooper stressed.
Another interesting story concerned the gentleman that does a cheek swab and then traces one’s lineage. He discovered that the Cooper side of the family had a great great grandfather who had owned slaves and had, in fact, been hacked to death by one of his slaves, using a hoe. (Ben Affleck recently called and asked that this information be omitted from his geneology report.)
The evening was a hit for fans of either gentleman, gays, and fans of the real Housewives of wherever. The only real housewife I had ever heard of was Theresa Guidici because she went to jail. After that, Nene Leaks was another I knew had been on one of his shows, because she appeared on “The Celebrity Apprentice” and, also, briefly on “The New Normal.”
I enjoyed the evening, as I knew I would, and the event was sold out.
Austalian author/illustrator Susan Day.
Australian artist/illustrator Susan Day has turned out another in her colorful Astro series. (ISBN 10 – 1507782748; ISBN 13 = 978-1507782743 from www.grannyshillpublishing.com) [Astro, for those who know the series, is a dog.]
This rhyming Astro book is designed to help young children cope with depression. It is Day’s hope to be able to place a copy of her book in every school in that country, an admirable goal.
As Susan Day and fellow-educator Jenny Graham explain, this is a teaching resource book, meant to assist in helping create kids who are resilient. The authors recommend sending a note home from school to parents to notify them if a unit is going to be taught on depression, anxiety or suicide, to have a box set up that would allow troubled youth to post anonymous letters, and to have posters on display that advise of places where students can turn for help. The authors even give a “hot line” number (which, in the United States, is 1-800-273-8255 for the USA Lifeline.)
The book features Day’s delightful colorful illustrations of dogs who stop by to advise Astro about how to cope with his depression. With a title like Astro is Down in the Dumps, the author, through characters like Digger, Alfie, Stella, Indy, Rocky, and Dotty the Dal suggest, in order, food, painting, exercise, writing, drawing and, of course, sharing one’s depression/ emotions with others.
And the book rhymes, too!
The quote “Anyone can create art. All you do is make a start” immediately made me think of George W. Bush’s post-presidential foray into the art world. I don’t know why, but that depressed me. I generally am depressed thinking about anything George W. Bush ever did, and his art work was particularly amateur-ish (Anybody else remember his portrait of Vladimir Putin? Bueller? Bueller?)
So I decided I would follow Rocky’s advice: “I grab my journal and write, About being so uptight. I don’t stop until I’m feeling great, Even if it’s getting late.”(For me, if I’m writing, it’s always late).
That advice cheered me up a lot about “W’s” artwork (although not the rest of his legacy) and I thought Stella’s advice (“I call my friend from far away, Not once, but nearly every day. And she listens while I explain , About the things that cause me pain.”) was very good, as is this book.
Astro’s Down in the Dumps rhyming children’s book about depression.
Last, but certainly not least, was this thought: “To be kind is more important than to be right; many times what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks, but a special heart that listens.”
One of the Free Book Sites that is posting the knowledge of “Hellfire & Damnation III’s” being free on April 24, April 25, May 2, May 3 and May 4 asked me to post a link to their site. Here it is: www.fkbt.com
Also, in my previous article about same, when I said tarantula, I think the lifeguard who carted off that spider the size of a Buick said it was a form of scorpion and there were LOTS of smaller ones around. So, my “tarantula” reference perhaps should have been “scorpion.” Not sure WHAT it was that bit me, but the bite was not a puncture would, as a bee would leave. It was a horizontal slash mark about one inch across, like that a knife might leave if you slipped while cutting a tomato. It was “no big deal” at the time, but it sure left me with a big problem.
This is the day that I remind you of tomorrow’s FREE give-away of the 3rd installment in the Hellfire & Damnation short story series. The KDP (Kindle) give-away is scheduled for April 24, April 25, May 2, 3 and 4th. For more information on the book(s) and for trailers, check at www.HellfireAndDamnationTheBook.com.
While letting readers know about the give-away (again) is one concern, my biggest concern the past week has been my left leg. Something bit me in Mexico. I think it happened on Wednesday and, no, I’m not kidding about the possibility it was a small tarantula, since I had watched the lifeguards at the beach in Cancun cart one off on a stick that was (roughly) the size of your knuckles. I remember that my friend said, “What bit you?” and I nonchalantly said, “I don’t know. I probably ran into something.” The small (about 1 inch) cut was bleeding slightly.
By the next day, I was hot and uncomfortable and sweaty. That was just the prelude to a “fit” of sorts that took place at 4:10 a.m. on Friday. My teeth were chattering so hard that I couldn’t speak and all my muscles became rigid, while my arms and hands resembled the tragic footage of the Saran gas victims in Syria that was shown on “Sixty Minutes” recently. I was absolutely baffled; nothing like this had ever hit me before. My husband said (later), “I thought you were having a stroke.”
Meanwhile, I was blaming it on overly cool air conditioning–which was not really the case and didn’t explain any of the baffling symptoms described above. All day Friday I felt punk, sleeping until almost 3:30 p.m. after trying to get up and get going earlier. I had no appetite and could eat no dinner with the other 3 vacationers.
As we sat there on our last night of vacation, feet propped up on a pillow watching television, my college roommate said, with alarm, “What’s the matter with your leg?” I had not been aware that there was anything the matter with my leg, but I knew I didn’t feel good. When she had me put both feet out, side-by-side, it was obvious that there were two roughly fifty-cent sized red places on my left shin.
Dr. John Rhodes, vacationing with us, came in from the balcony and immediately said (after examining the leg), “You’ve got cellulitis,” which is an infection of the skin that can be caused by insect bites, staph or other bacteria, or even by mersa, the flesh-eating bacteria. The antibiotic I have been taking in 500 mg. dosages 4 times a day since Sunday (the earliest I could get back to the United States and be seen by another doctor to receive a prescription) is designed to protect against nearly every infectious agent, and the leg IS responding, but my need(s) to let the world know a book is free has faded slightly in significance when compared to the thought of intravenous antibiotics in a hospital.
Meanwhile, I’ve provided you with graphic evidence of why you should always travel with Bactine or another antibiotic ointment and use it if you are bitten by some mysterious bug. I wish I had.
We’re coming to the end of Easter week in Cancun at the Royal Sands. The weather has been lovely and the water warm.
Tomorrow, the men will play golf. Tonight was prime rib night at the Veranda restaurant and it was just as good as prime rib at Short Hills, which is a high standard to meet.
We also dined on traditional Mexican cuisine at Sisal and have taken in the Seafood Surprise (lobster, shrimp, grouper, calamari, scallops) at Captain’s Cove, where we watched both an alligator and a sting ray swim beneath the deck where eleven of us were eating.
Daughter Stacey left today and had to fly back to Chicago with tornadoes and 70 mph winds hammering places like Rochelle, IL, near DeKalb. There were also tornadoes in Iowa, Michigan and other parts of the Midwest.
Wisconsin’s Big Ten team knocked off the unbeaten Kentucky Wildcats in a frenzied finish that saw the Wisconsin Badgers emerge as the ultimate winners who will face Duke for the national NCAA championship on Monday, April 6th.
As we were in Cancun, the bar of the Royal Sands represented a cross section of fans from both Kentucky and Wisconsin, but I’d have to give the nod to the Wisconsin fans, who came with their red and white shirts and cheered noisily throughout.
Enjoyed the game.
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