Summer equals heat (although less and less these days), fun lazy weekend afternoons and movies... Yes folks, summer movies. This is the time us writers see the plethora of super - mega - spectacular movies Hollywood throws at us to sustain their bloated budgets for the year. And every year we earnestly wait to see what our, sometimes envied and more successful brothers of the trade, have typed in their Macs for us to see, enjoy, pick apart or just gasp at the gall they have.

Studios, ever hungrier to get more and more cash from the dwindling movie audience, are pushing summer blockbusters earlier and earlier. "Thor" was the first salvo and the memorial weekend is the initiating battle.

Our subject for today is the well-used trend of the "reboot". For those a bit new to the term it means they're re-starting a series or franchise with a frensh new story. Why? Because Hollywood being a bit of a scary-Mary, when it comes to losing money, has been for the last year on a "sure bet" auto pilot when it comes to productions. Also not helping the matter is that the 78% of the movie going public are teens and young adults therefore comic book stories and action movies with loud colors, lots of action and few words are what these young beings digest the most. But anything that has shown previous success will get it's fair shot. But when the public says enought of ROCKY 16, PIRATES 13,  FAST and FURIOUS 9 and many others what is a lowly studio exec to do? The answer :  " Lets feed them the same story but with a new spoon! "   "Brilliant, J.D.!"  (mutters the side kick accountant.)

And hence the new trend of "rebooting" a franchise. So how do you re-boot a franchise? First you want the story to be relatable to your audience (in this case teens). So do you want a story with a bunch of 40 year olds (acting like they are in their 30's) or do you bring the characters age down a bit? Of course you bring down the age! Then you create a new story with a similar vibe but to fit the new characters wants, anxieties and problems.  It's like making a "diet" hot dog, it looks like the old hot dog but with less fat.

So we come to our first example,  X MEN : First class. For all those familiar with the X-Men franchise it started nice with Brian Singers version, then X2 did a decent job the it completely dropped the bomb with Bret "partyboy" Ratner's version called X3 and it then was completely humiliated with WOLVERINE. So they needed to rebirth this money maker and thus choosing an "origins" style movie.

Now I don't envy any writer the job of doing one of these (well maybe the paycheck) since it's very hard to come with something completely original. The writers for X-Men First Class did benefit with two major talents that made this movie swim : James McAvoy and Michael Fastbender, two very good english actors that know how to turn bad cheese into sensible cocktail bites.

The story starts very much like Singers first version with the origins of Magneto  (they even use a similar scene ) and we see a week conflicted child with strange powers he doesn't know how to use and who is at the mercy of a Nazi doctor who wishes to control it. We also see a young Professor Xavier who meets a very young Raven Darkholme (Mystique) and they become close.

Now jump 20 years later and both men are using their powers (unknown to those around them) for their own purposes. Xavier to further his studies and Magneto to further his revenge on his and his families captors. Here is a very interesting principal of the opposing forces at work in the story. While these men will soon come together they embody  the powers of good, through Xavier and that of evil in Magneto (although we can say Magneto's purpose is more hate than evil). We see the tendencies of these two major characters take their own paths, come together, disagree and separate in a fashion that will create a balance of sense to future stories.

The story is well crafted in the sense that these characters can come to meet and work in a believable fashion, which sometimes in superhero movies, the writers make viewers take a leap of faith for some of the characters actions since they think we'll believe it because they're "super" . In X-Men First Class the writers have more respect for us and ease us with some minor exposition but so well crafted that one believes it... and one does because the characters themselves believe it. Again much credit to McAvoy and Fastbender for their very good deliveries of lines that in lesser actors would have been a cheese fest. But I'm also amazed that with the amount of writers this project had, how could they let the story breakdown to a halt when the newly X-members (teens recruited by Xavier, when mutants are still in hiding) have small frat style party?... Again I would expect a little bit more from 7 writers and Singer (who has a "story by" credit ), but again  this is Hollywood and everyone puts their hands in the story pie.

Now the main counter force you always need is a great villain, in this case a "super villain" whom they weakly cast in Kevin Bacon, yes footloose guy isn't the most menacing guy in the planet but he plays his role well (kudos to Bacon's language training - unless they dubbed it which probably was the case) but again I think that the trick of movie surviving a so-so villain is that the main villain was hiding in plain sight and looking straight at us... and it was brilliant! Like most of these super hero movies many of the opposing band of baddies are just cardboard henchmen for the main bad guy to order and scheme around only that these can do cool stuff. Sadly they are all wasted. January Jones as Frost was a big disappointment. For some reason she showed up to work but if they would have placed a mannequin it would have done the same job.

As far as an origin story it is nicely done with some very solid action and FX scenes worthy of the other X-Men movies. Being set in the 1960's also gave a certain edge of coolness that helped with these things. One regret is the make up use on a certain blue character that looks out of place on such a big budgeted movie. These are the times CGI can help an actor emote without looking like he has 2 pounds of cake on his face.

In all I give X-Men First class a solid review. Not excellent but not mediocre either. A good fun at the movies and certainly worthy of this summers praise.

But beware people, the trend of making every known character young is no where is sight of stopping. We are going to have a young Lone Ranger next year, also a very young Tarzan and maybe a teen Charlie Chan... so what will they think of next?... A young George Washington action movie????

On June 6, 2012, Ray Bradbury, the Universe's writer, was called back to his galaxy.  I had written this a year earlier to almost the day.  I'm pushing it back to the front page in his honor.

One of the first purchases I made that was on my own impetus and that didn’t involve an adult was to sign up for the Science Fiction Book Club. This was no casual thing since it meant I had to buy four books in two years - a burden that seemed overwhelming to a serious-minded youth but it meant I also got four books for free for signing up which made it worth the stress investment.  The first free book I chose was Ray Bradbury’s “Twice 22" a short story collection that had been in publication for a while but I had never read.  All I knew was it sounded cool.

Prior to this, I hadn’t really read any adult scifi. I started with comic books, then got deeply into the adventures of the young scientist Tom Swift, then matriculated to some Ace Doubles (novellas two to a book) from the Army-Navy store across the street from my Dad’s grocery.  Bradbury's was the first time I understood that science fiction had other, deeper meanings that I could sense but perhaps not fully comprehend yet.

Bradbury is often included in some school reading curriculums but there was a time when he was considered "only" a science fiction writer and they were just about the lowest, most common form of writer, barely above slug on the food chain of those who delivered prose. Bradbury was widely recognized as being one of the top story-tellers of the time but he was still considered less a writer than say Truman Capote or other men and women of his generation.

How times have changed for the better.

If there was a Heart and Soul Award to be given to science fiction writers Bradbury should get it. His stories are less about rockets and aliens and more about our hidden mindscapes. His worlds weren’t necessary these carefully crafted societies like Asimov's "Foundation" series, or David Niven’s “RingWorld” or the shoot ‘em up of early Heinlein spcae adventures but rather of familiar places in strange times with all-too-human emotions and unexpected results. He was more the “Twilight Zone” than say the “Outer Limits”  and he was so effective at what he did with those pieces that people began to notice and give him awards for illuminating those dank places despite that they were set against a science fiction backdrop.

In my opinion, Bradbury was always a better short story writer than novelist but how could anyone dismiss such genius as “Farenheit 451?”  I cannot, of course, but he didn’t write many of those. Instead, he turned his prodigious talents more to short form so that's what I tended to focus on. 

Reading a Bradbury story is like sipping ice tea on a summer dusk when it’s warm and friendly - and then slowly beginning to notice that as it grows darker, it gets colder and those nice tree shapes are starting to look vaguely threatening in the pale light of the rising moon. You start to edge closer to the front door where you can eventually flee because dark thoughts have begun to infect your mind. As they fester you suddenly realize that you’ve been duped into treading into boggy, sickening places where no person has any business going.

Bradbury’s stories, his elegant prose, romances you like the endless blue of the ocean. You don’t realize how far out you are from shore until suddenly your feet no longer touch sand and there’s an undertow snatching at you, trying to drag you away to black waters. Before you fully understand what’s happening you’ve been pulled under and you can no longer breathe.

At his pinnacle, Bradbury was both brevity and languorous prose somehow skillfully combined for best effect - like an Egg McMuffin where you get a complete, albeit abbreviated breakfast stacked onto one biscuit - to go.  I still don't see anyone with that unique combination anywhere out there.  Resonant, complex brevity.

Such simple concepts and such profound results. “The Illustrated Man” where every picture tells a story; “The Martian Chronicles” a collection of stories where mankind’s worst and best are replicated on a far away place in contrast to the previously always-sunny stories about mankind making its way nobly to other planets.

Bradbury has steadfastedly refused to be pigeonholed as a writer.  Early in  his career he was hired by legendary dirrector John Huston to work on the   script for a  "Moby Dick" adaptation. And his novel "Farehheit 451" was directed by no less than François Truffaut.  He's done television as a writer and had his work adapted to the small screen and re-adapted in movies and remakes.  His non-fiction essays in "Zen in the Art of Writing" remains high on the list of must-reads for any serious writer looking to become a professional.   His semi-autibiographical "Dandelion Wine" has nothing to do with science fiction but rather thematically presents a metaphor of packing the deliciious delight of those long summer days of schoolboy freedom into a single bottle of home-brewed wine to be drunk later in memory of that youth lost.

 As good a writer as Mr. Bradbury is, he is an even better public speaker. At 91 (92 in August,) confined to a wheelchair and somewhat ravaged by age and minor strokes, he unfortunately no longer shows up in person to many venues. Those who have heard him speak, however, can never forget him. He is like a parish priest of the best stripe - he supports, inspires cajoles and indicts you for your writing sins. He challenges you to write as if your hands were on fire never worrying about your skill level because that will come with experience - a fact he understands in his very DNA.

He was and is a fearless writer and man who knows that to say “I wish...” is to lose immediately.   As Yoda was probably inspired to say by him "Do or do not.  There is no try."

  A quote of his that I have carried in my wallet for decades best sums up this man’s indomitable spirit:  

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury has written eleven novels, 297 short stories, has done sixty-five “Ray Bradbury Theater” episodes and countless other prose works with hundreds, perhaps thousands of awards of every kind and manner.  He is imitated but will never be duplicated. He is as unique an American voice as Mark Twain and he will continue to impact the world long after he’s gone.

Would that there was some way to save his head in a glass jar like the dead presidents in “Futurerama” or to be given a new body so his mind could continue onward to even more flights of fancy. Or even perhaps synthesize his writerly essence into an android like his wonderful and still-heart rending “I Sing The Body Electric” which was adapted into one of my favorite “Twilight Zone” episodes.

So how exactly do you measure what this genius of a writer has brought to the world? I think it’s by the people he inspired to continue doing what he has loved and preached for over eight decades.

Bradbury was one of the reasons I became a writer and remains one of the reasons I am true to that ideal no matter how difficult the role of a professional writer, as I've experienced it, can become.   Though I may never come close to his achievements I’m thrilled to be counted in the pantheon.

I'm sure thousands of men and women would agree  with me that we are still jumping off cliffs and building our wings on the way down because he did it first and perhaps...best.

This is part of my series of writers who inspired me to become a writer.

If I tell you that "Call Me Fitz" is a Canadian television series starring Jason Priestley as Richard "Fitz" Fitzpatrick who is an opportunistic used-car salesman - who then seems to gain a conscience in the form of a morally upstanding new salesman named Larry (Ernie Grunwald) - and whose normally consequence-free life is constantly thwarted by said conscience - you may get a sense of what this wacky comedy is about.  

But not really...

I was hooked almost immediately by this strange combination of comedy, moral  lessons, and  just plain-ass wacky moments.  Why is Fitz a modern-day refuge from the Rat Pack (he says "Ring-A-Ding" a lot and never is without his shiny suit.)  Don't know, don't care.  It just really fits him and this character somehow.  How did he get the way he is?  See above.  How does this whole conscience thing work?  Ditto.  I'm not questioning too much here - I am along for the ride - at least for the first few eps.  That's how much fun it is.

Fitz is horrible.  He's totally unlikable - they don't even try much to make him likable.  As an example, after crashing a car with a woman inside that he's trying to sell the car to, he then drags her to the driver's side so she'll be blamed for the crash.  When she slips into a coma, still unsigned, he goes to the hospital, lies in bed with her and attempts to administer oral sex to wake her up so she can sign the sales contract. 

Priestly, a talented comedic actor, is perfect.  His rhythms, his demeanor, his look - perfect.  He inhabits the body and soul of this character like he was born to it.  This type of show really gives him a chance to show off his prodigious acting skills honed by years of doing "Beverly Hills, 90210."

The writing is sharp, funny and odd enough to keep you constantly off-balance and wanting more.  Sheri Elwood is the writer and she's very good.  I intend to continue to watch this until it inevitably get canceled - and it will - it's just too bizarre and profane to last.

You're either going to like it or hate it.  And in case you weren't clear, I like it.  A lot.

Currently, it's on DirecTV's "The 101" but it was also listed as showing on The Movie Network and Movie Central.

The Anaheim ComicCon, now in its 2nd year, has grown nicely.  Last year there was a bit of rawness about the event - a touch of desperation and panic - completely gone this year.  For fans of these events (moi) something like this in your backyard is wonderful.

ACC is like San Diego in perfect miniature.   This year I went on Saturday (last year Friday and Sunday) and I felt like the energy, the scope and the crowd was just right.  It was dicey moving through the aisles (like all Cons) but there were also places where you could breathe unlike the Big Daddy con in San Diego.

There was a respectable artists' alley, plenty of booths of comics and memorabilia, lots of people in costume and lots of enthusiastic fans.  The celeb alley was filled with stars of today and yesterday like Julie Newmar (Catwoman) and Adam West (Batman.)  Among these Golden Age gems were fanboy favs Tricia Helfer, Kevin Sorbo and Miracle Laurie.  

Kevin is always smiling and personable - he's a friend.  It was good to see him and share a few laughs.  And talking to Tricia Helfer in the Green Room/Press Room was a highlight for me.  She is every bit as gorgeous and sexy (and sweet) as she is on screen but looks about ten years younger in person - she said it might have been the HD makeup that they have to cake on everyone these days.  

I apologize for bugging her while she was taking a break (and her male companion glared at me the entire time) but I didn't see her on the floor and talking to her was beyond my ability to resist.  I would love to interview her for the website someday - hopefully she won't remember the idiot from the Green Room if I ever get that chance.

I went to the Con with OCSWA board member Victor Phan who is a "Phanboy" of epic proportions.  He had his backpack filled with comics and graphic novels he wanted signed by artists (don't ask how he had them catalogued and ready to go - if I told you he'd come off as too much of a geek.)  Victor is also a talented artist (and screenwriter, producer, teacher and martial artist) and he was able to grab some good deals on artist supplies from Blick which supplied the gift bags and had a nice-sized booth on the floor.

You can tell an event is expanding when the Green Room gets larger and better supplied.  Although coffee was in short supply as usual, this year the Green Room was three times larger and the food considerably better.  Last year it was on the floor of the convention center; this year in a suite.  This speaks not only to the fact that they couldn't spare the floor space this year because of more exhibitors, but that the quality and level of stars in attendance has been ratcheted up.

Most people I talked to in the morning, both attendees and exhibitors, felt the attendance was a bit light.  But by afternoon they had all changed their tune as people poured in to the Con to geek out for a few hours.  Honestly, I almost these days prefer this show to the San Diego one because it is soooo crowded in S.D. - this show, as mentioned, had the right weight to it and I'm almost afraid to wish them luck going forward because of the potential for this venue becoming like the big one.  

There's a Facebook page for this show put on by WizardWorld and they keep you up-to-date on everything Con all year 'round.  

Many thanks again to Jerry Milani of WizardWorld for providing excellent press interfaces for us.  He is the hardest working man in ComicCons.

The Con runs one more day - today.  I highly recommend the trip to Anaheim to attend.  LINK