I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 32nd

Boy howdy and howdy to the boy who ain't a founding member of your clique but still likes you just the same and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where the past is a prologue to a very confusing future.

Before I get into the swing of things today, I would like to give a very brief writing update as it applies to my 2nd novel.

There isn't any.

While you may be asking yourself, "What?!", the truth of the matter is this: work, in all of its hideous forms, is now the driving force that is sucking up my free time, while college (daughter) and matrimony (son) are dragging up the rear. Sadly, because of the issues at work, which will likely take the rest of the year to resolve (unless by some slim chance a miracle occurs), I have not been able to carve out the desperately needed tranquility-of-the-mind-time so that I can properly fix/edit/save the 2nd novel. I don't know about the rest of you, but I need minimal interference from the outside world in order to write anything beyond a blog post.

With that downer of a paragraph written and out of the way, let's move on to the topic at hand: movies.

I like strange movies. Or, to be more specific, I like movies heavily flavored with religion, either directly or indirectly. I can take clean G-to-PG rated movies that aren't too preachy or condescending, but for the most part, my speed is roughly R-rated. Definitely not into the over-the-top schizoid religious horror movies that seem to be all the rage these days, but more into those who inject the right amount of religious references that make can make a movie both dark and thought provoking.

Let's take the vampire genre for example.

I've moved completely away from the traditional vampire flicks of the past 70+ years and now lean more towards those that take a non-traditional approach. A good example would be the movie "Only Lovers Left Alive", featuring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. This movie goes the very non-traditional route of taking two lovers whose relationship has spanned several centuries and following them to an unlikely conclusion. While the usual tropes (i.e. attacking people for blood bank withdrawals, drinking blood) are featured in the movie, they are presented more as a character trait/minor annoyance than anything else.

So using that film as an example (it's a movie well worth watching), the following movies are what I want to purchase with my next Amazon gift card.

1} Drive Angry. This features Nicholas Cage as an escapee from Hell who is on a mission to rescue his granddaughter from a cult of Satan worshipers.The usual tropes are to be had throughout this underappreciated movie (average rating is 5.4/10 on IMDb),  but I do like the few twists thrown into the mix: a character called The Accountant is dispatched to bring him back. I believe his job is to keep track of the total number of souls that are residing in Hell. He does have one incredibly dry line in which after he steps out of a nasty car crash (to to the disco tune of "That's The Way"), sees two teens doing drugs and says to the first, "I'll see you in three months," and the to the other says, "I'll see you when you're seventy".; also, Nicholas Cage's character is called John Milton, which if you know a smattering of literary history, he wrote the seminal novel "Paradise Lost".

2} Byzantium. This features Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton (two very fine actresses) who play two vamipir-ish women who are perpetually on the run from those who keep the secret of eternal life. It doesn't have the usual tropes, but it is one of the very few horror movies that I don't mind watching. It's a very interesting and unique twist on the vampire genre, with multiple seamless flashbacks to the 19th century. A bit dark but overall a very good story.

So these are my two goals for my 2nd Amazon gift cards. I rarely buy movies to begin with, but I'm more than willing to take the plunge on these, although the 2nd one might be a little tougher to purchase since I don't have Amazon Prime. Will have to give the Prime membership a lot of thought though.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved