Ramblings on Writing
Reviews, Rants, and Observations on SF/F/H

I am a thirty-something speculative fiction writer. More importantly to this blog, I am a reader of science fiction, horror, and science fiction. Recently it came to my attention that there are very few places reviewing short stories in the genres that I love. I also had the epiphany that I had not been reading enough of these stories. So, an idea was born to address both of these issues.

So, starting in September 2012, this silly little blog of mine that has more or less been gathering dust will be dedicated to looking at and reviewing short form works published both in print magazines and in on-line formats.

Reviews will be posted at least once a month, hopefully more, and stories will be selected completely at my whim. However, if you have read something amazing, thought-provoking, or interesting, please feel free to drop me a recommendation.

Because a big part of the point of this exercise is to improve my own writing by looking at people doing it successfully, I will only be selecting stories to look at from professional or semi-professional markets.

Please note, however, because a big part of the point of this exercise is to improve my own writing by looking at people doing it successfully, I will only be selecting stories to look at from professional or semi-professional markets.

I intend to write honest, and hopefully interesting, reviews to let people know more about the wide variety of fantastic (both in subject and quality) stories out there. There will be no personal attacks on authors and no excoriating hatchet jobs. There is nothing to be learned from reviewing truly bad work and nothing to be gained by being mean. I will not do it and, should I be so lucky as to get readers and commentators, I would ask that they not do so either. Be respectful and everyone gets to have a more interesting conversation.

What I will do is to give my honest and reasoned reactions to stories and try to determine why or why not particular elements worked. I will try to acknowledge my personal biases and to become more open-minded about those things that are not in the realm of my personal preference.

Also, because this is my blog and I can, there may be occasional entries on my own writing process, things I find interesting, or whatever else I feel inclined to add. This may all crash and burn spectacularly, but it's going to be a heck of a lot of fun in the meantime.

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TANGLED: The Disney Remix

Recently my husband and I went to see TANGLED. We'd both been hearing good things and so were relatively excited.

I left not feeling like I'd wasted two hours of my life, but with a strong feeling of deja vu.

First, I should say, there were some charming things about the movie. Most of these centered on a horse named Maximus and a running joke about frying pans.

Also, I think the villain, while a bit two-dimensional, is interesting and perhaps a bit too realistic. She's a self-absorbed and manipulative woman which is sadly something more and more commonly seen in real life. She's also an interesting satire of the pathologically over-protective parent.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie felt more familiar than engaging, starting with the characters. First, the princess, Rapunzel. She's a sheltered girl with big dreams to see a world she's been kept from, full of wide-eyed wonder and spunk in equal measures.

Basically, she's a blond version of Ariel from the LITTLE MERMAID living an extreme version of the Jasmine life from ALADDIN. Granted, I liked both of those movies, but they came out in a different time and both characters referenced possessed more depth, or seemed to in the eyes of my younger self. Even if they did not, they existed in a different time, a time when they were less stereotypes and more real characters.

Much like Tolkien did elves first and then they became ubiquitous and trite, the standard Disney Princess template no longer serves as enough to engage a viewer. At least not this one.

The secondary characters fared even worse. There is the required love interest who, in this case, is a dashing thief who is, of course, at his core, a good guy looking for love.

I understand this isn't his story, but even he acknowledges he's too flat with the assertion "I don't really do back story."

Neither did the writers of this movie. Instead, they grabbed Aladdin and Tramp for LADY AND THE TRAMP, blended them slightly, and glossed it all over with a bit of meta-humor.

And that tactic might have worked for this movie if it had been consistent in it's self-deprecation, but instead it tries too hard to be earnest and then uses humor to deflect from its failings. It doesn't tend to work as a strategy for self-conscious teens and it's an even less effective tactic for this film.

The supporting cast also echoes other Disney films. There are the ruffians and thugs that not only play the same role as the warriors from MULAN, but might as well be the same characters in different armor. And the chameleon, whom I liked because it's an animal and I am me, is Carpet. Not even a blending. It's Carpet from Aladdin. Or Cricket from Mulan. Really there's little difference between them and Chameleon is just another iteration on the theme of the non-speaking, intelligent side-kick.

Basically, what it comes down to is that while this was an okay movie to watch, it did nothing new. Maybe not all movies need to, but really, this one didn't even feel like it was trying. It was a paint-by-numbers Disney movie, the plug and play of animation.

My husband said, and I think he got this exactly right, "It was a movie made by someone that knew Disney movies were popular, but not why. It had the same elements but none of the soul."

For me it was like someone putting a jigsaw puzzle together in reverse. They had all the pieces, but instead of a beautiful picture, what they got was a stretch of brown cardboard.

Sad that these days even Disney is turning out Disney-clone movies.

Thank the gods for Pixar.


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