Deeds & Words

Clementine, by Cherie Priest; Subterranean Press, 2010

Warning:  May contain spoilers. On the other hand, I’ve also taken liberties.

Opening: Medium Shot

Cover of Clementine.  In the foreground stands an African American man, holding a Gatling gun in his left hand, an ammo belt in his right.  Against a cloudy green-and-peach background, a bronze-colored dirigible hovers. 

Female Narrator (Voice Over)

At just over 200 pages, Cherie Priest’s Clementine reads almost like a screenplay.  The action starts on page 17.

Medium Shot: 

Two armored airships collide; petal shaped scraps of metal peeling off and falling out and down. 

Hainey (V.O)

That’s my ship.  That’s my ship!

 Montage

A male back, dark-skinned, marked with weals and pinkish scars; a woman in a low cut bodice, lots of cleavage, smiling, her eyes are in shadow; Lamar, under the instrument panel of an airship; Simeon, loading a pistol and looking worried; Ossian Steen, peeling an orange with a long knife; arial view of two airships; exterior of an 1880’s building with a sign “Pinkerton Detectives;” a woman walking away from the camera, narrow-waisted, with voluminous hoop skirts, past two men.  One narrows his eyes, one raises his hat; Allan Pinkerton, leans back in chair, folds hand; a woman’s hand places a Civil War vintage pistol into a carpetbag.

 Narrator (V.O.)

All Captain Hainey, escaped slave turned air pirate, wants, is to get his ship back, but he has no idea he going up against the Pinkerton’s newest operative, and the Confederacy’s most successful spy.

 Fade In:

Phinton, full face, smirking. 

Phinton

Pardon me, ma’am, but would you not be the fine stage actress and notorious confederate spy Belle Boyd? 

Maria (O.S)

Nobody calls me Belle. 

Montage 

Simeon

That’s Belle—

 Lamar

Belle.

 Ossain Steen

Belle Boyd 

Hainey

That’s Belle Boyd.

 Montage

Dark, cluttered interior with a strange machine, brass and copper, lots of tubes, in middle background; a boy’s face, frightened; an airship exploding; Marie, firing a pistol; dashboard of an airship; a map of the United States, the Mason-Dixon line in dark red; an orange jewel as big as a tangerine. 

Narrator (V.O.)

In a world where the American Civil War went on for twenty years; where loyalties shift without warning 

Montage

A telegram; an airship lifting away from a tether; Hainey, yelling, as he fires the Gatling gun, teardrops of flame flaring around its muzzle.

 Narrator (V.O.)

Can an escaped slave and a betrayed spy work together? 

Camera zooms

 in on an airship.

Jump cut

to the gun turret.  Maria fires a Gatling gun.  Camera pans from over Maria’s shoulder to track the gun. 

Maria (V.O.)

I’ve never been asked to sit still and look pretty.

 Montage

Dark-skinned hands play over a steam-punk style instrument panel; woman’s arms embrace the frightened looking boy; and old man’s hands, veined and shaky, place the orange jewel into a brass and copper setting. 

Narrator: (V.O.)

Are the characters complex?  No.  Is the action intense?  Yes. 

Close up

Maria’s hands clutch a metal ledge.  Camera zooms back to medium shot:  Maria clinging to a ledge.  Camera zooms back; Maria hanging from the edge of the gun turret of an airship sailing through clouds. 

Narrator: (V.O.)

Like a great action flick. 

Close up

Maria’s hand slips free.  Maria’s other hand slips free. 

Narrator (V.O.)

With good suspense.

 Close shot 

Dr. Smeek’s face, looking frightened 

Close Shot

  Maria’s face 

Close Shot

  Hainey’s face. 

Hainey

She’s my ship.  I stole her fair and square, and I’ll do what it takes to get her back. 

Medium shot

Maria, running through trees, skirts without hoops caught up in one hand.  Union soldiers are firing at her. 

Narrator: (V.O.)

An easy read.  An interesting world. 

Close up

Maria’s hand, reaching.  We hear gunshots behind her. 

Narrator: (V.O.)

Strap in. 

Medium Shot

Hainey braced in doorway of airship, reaching down with one hand 

Camera pans to

Maria running, reaching up.

 Narrator (V.O.)

Grab something. 

Close shot

Hainey’s hand.  He grabs Maria’s. 

Narrator (V.O.) 

And hold on.  

Final shot

An airship rises above a line of trees.  Suddenly a yellow fireball engulfs it.  Flames roll toward the audience.

Narrator (V.O.)

Clementine.

 

Well, my one burning question is answered.  Jonah Hex is steampunk, sort of.  Jonah has two mini, semi-automatic Gatling guns mounted on his horse’s harness (apparently no cranking required).  The villain, General Turnbull, builds a secret weapon, a “nation killer” that is catalyzed by orbs filled with a glowing golden plasma.

 It’s also dark fantasy because Jonah can reanimate the dead and talk to them. 

It’s a comic book. 

A brief bit of background; the time is shortly after the American Civil War.  Hex and the Turnbulls, father and son, fought for the Confederacy.  General Turnbull chose to kill civilians, so Hex betrayed them to the Union; the General’s son Jeb was killed by Hex.  Turnbull took a terrible revenge upon Hex, including branding his face.  Hex nearly died and in the twilight lands between death and life picked up this talk-to-the-dead thing, which could, I guess, come in handy. 

The movie has that excellent comic-book-to-big screen look.  It’s sweaty and gritty when it has to be—Josh Brolin as Hex is sweaty and gritty most of the time—lush and colorful when it has to be, and imposing and Victorian when it wants to be.  Establishing scenes could have been lifted straight from splash-pages or centerfolds (I’m sure that’s not the technical name for a close-up that covers two pages).  Most of the action sequences involve blowing stuff up, but there’s a weird prize-fight scene that’s kind of cool.  Nothing blows up, but a lot of stuff burns.  For a man whose family burned to death and who was branded, Hex is remarkably comfortable around fire.

 The movie’s fine cast and good looks can’t quite lift it into the Success category.  John Malkovich plays General Turnbull with a fine, measured malice.  For me, 40% of a Malkovich performance is voice, another 40% is eyes.  Eyes and voice get a workout here, but there’s only so much he can do with the material.  In the early sequences when he is taking his revenge on Hex, he is a compelling villain; the rest of the movie he’s an Evil Overlord.  The screenplay never bothers to tell us what drives Turnbull.  The death of his son?  The failure of the Confederacy?  Maybe, but in the movie’s “real time” plot, Turnbull is willing to blow up anything and anybody, attacking towns in former Confederate states.  What’s that about?  The screenplay tries to address this by calling him a terrorist.  Sorry, not good enough. 

Lilah, or Talullah, played by Megan Fox, is the cleanest prostitute anywhere in the whole wild west.  Even though she sees many sweat-and-whiskey soaked men in the course of her profession, and works in a dusty two-horse town, her hair and clothes are always perfect.  Even at the end, when she is running through the steam-powered warship, shooting and cutting people, her cute white cotton batiste bloomers and camisole remain pristine.  I find when I’m thinking, “Gosh,she’s so clean,” every time a character appears, that I’m not very engaged with the story. 

The movie is short.  The plot is linear, with no surprises.  Michael Fassbender is entertaining as Turnbull’s second villain.  He has Maori tattoos, an Irish accent, and no backstory.  Brolin, of course, is good and growly as Hex. Aidan Quinn does a nice job as president if he is some generic president.  If he is meant to be U.S. Grant, then not so much. 

The film is 90 minutes long.  If you see it at a matinee you will have invested exactly enough money and time in it.  If you wait for Netflicks, you’ll be getting a bargain.

The fun never stops!

I get about twenty comments a day now and I end up spamming all of them.  About once every two weeks there’s an actual comment.

The human animal survived this long by identifying patterns, and that impusle is still hard-wired into us. I can’t stop myself from looking for patterns in this stuff.

I still get a lot of comments from Russian websites.  They tend to cluster around two or three posts and one of them is about Brian Fies.  I don’t know what there is about that particular post (I point people to Brian’s blog to a posting about pacing and suspense) but those Russian websites are really attracted to it.  Maybe there is an untapped market for Brian’s work!

Today I got a gushing comment about how thoughtful, insightful and well-written my post was.  The commentor hailed from a ReportTaxFraud website.  Report tax fraud?  The comments were in response to a recent post on Five Foods.  I didn’t even write it; I basically summarized a Yahoo article.  ReportTaxFraud also likes anything with Sarah Palin in the title.  That’s just funny.

“Just wanted to let you know that your site looks funny on my Linux,” from Larry.  Larry, just wanted to let you know that I don’t care.

My December review of Boneshaker got a couple of comments today.  The first one said something like, “I would like to have technology like this to improve my work and life.”  Really?  Did you know that this post was a book review?  What technology in the science fiction novel did you find useful; the subterranean drill that destroyed the city of Seattle?  The poison gas that zombifies people?  The dirigibles? 

A second comment from a site with a name like lesbian-bi.com/lipacne stated, “I didn’t understand the concluding part of your article, could you please explain it more?”  Hmm, well, it’s a book review, and my concluding paragraph states that I really liked the book. Clear enough?

When I tried to go to this website I got a Site Not Found error.

A high percentage of sites of origin, regardless of the names, appear to be porn sites.  Some appear to be legitimate travel sites and a couple of aggregator sites that list blogs have left ping-backs.

I’m not pleased at all with the noise-to-signal ratio here; but I’m getting some fun out of splashing through the trash.

Announcements, announcements, an-now-ounce-ments!
What a horrible death to die, what a horrible death to die,
What a horrible death, to be talked to death,
What a horrible death to die.
Announcements, announcements, an-now-ounce-ments!
(Boy Scout Campfire Song)

I made some changes to my Wordpress settings which should make it easier to leave comments.

So, on Saturday the Sig-O and I are going to Gualala for Brian Fies’s book-signing at the Four-Eyed Frog. And tonight, the Sig-O says, “Do you have a copy of Brian’s book?”

And I’m all, “Um, yeah,” because I have two (but one’s lent out).

And he’s all, “Could you bring it on Saturday?”

“Sure, why?”

” ’cause I’d hate it if Brian asked me a question about the book and I didn’t know how to answer it.”

And I’m all, “Darn, he found out about the pop quiz!”

L’s grandson arrived early last week–Sunday the 22nd, I think. He weighs 7 pounds 9 ounces and his name is William Peter. His mom is doing great. Grandparents and friends are clustering around. Tracey has good support and doesn’t seem completely sleep-deprived at this point.

William has perfect fingers and toes. I don’t know why people always mention that, but they do, and I do. There’s something compelling about the miniatureness of them. He has a firm nose and round cheeks. His eyes were closed when I saw him, so I don’t know what color they are. He has a head a glossy dark brown hair. The cartilage ridges inside his ears sweep like lines of calligraphy. My favorite image of him is of his father holding him while bouncing him on a Pilates ball.

“I wanted to be smart, get my A, know the answer. I didn’t care if it was cool. There were kids around my neighborhood who’d say, ‘You talk funny. You talk like a white girl.’ I’d be —I don’t even know what that means, but I’m still getting my A.”

Michele Obama, addressing 5th grade students at a Washington public school.
3/20/09

The day before Christmas I signed up for dictionary.com’s word of the day e-mail.  It’s free (but given the amount of advertizing on that site, I’m sure they sell your information.  Oh, well.)

Today’s word is “Paltry”–of little worth or insignificant.

Did you know that the compartive and superlative forms are “paltrier” and “paltriest?”  Did you know “paltry” had a comparitive and superlative form?

“This appetizer course is paltry.  I’ve never seen paltrier!”

Or, “That’s the paltriest excuse for a defense I’ve ever seen in the NFL!”

Okay, maybe that does work.