The Cabin in the Woods - a Brief Review

Just watched The Cabin in the Woods last night.  I meant to see it when it came out, but circumstances conspired against me, so I'm just now getting around to it.  For better or worse, I had some preconceived notions going in, but I wish I could have had a clean viewing.  I do think my expectations affected the experience somewhat.

That being said, the movie is a lot of fun.  Right from the opener with Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, we get a slightly different tone than usual.  How many horror movies lead off with amusing banter amid the tedium of a (somewhat scientific-looking) corporate day-job?  And really, for me, this tonal idiosyncrasy is what defined the movie.

Unfortunately, it also limits the film somewhat, but not tremendously so.  Without spoiling anything (because I wouldn't want to pass on those preconceived notions I mentioned) the movie is excellently written, the cast performs gamely, and the dialogue is sharp and enjoyable throughout.  Classic horror tropes are toyed with, turned about, and molded anew.  This is all great fun, but it's also relatively standard for horror satire.

Where the film almost succeeds masterfully is with genuine horror--actually generating scares.  As with Shaun of the Dead, weaving real fear into the absurdity often proves a struggle, though both films give a noble effort.  I'll also point out that this is where that initial tone and my preconceived notions may have colluded with the movie's mounting silliness to hold me back as a viewer (I can't stop thinking of one particularly drawn out scene where a large number of people are enjoying drinks while another person is horribly beaten in the background--it's hilarious, but not remotely frightening).

In any event, it's an entertaining romp with a few smart twists that serves as an incisive commentary on the genre at large, particularly the more recent convention of introducing a cast full of unlikable characters as fodder for the primary antagonist(s).

It also strikes me as the kind of movie that improves under the microscope of repeat viewings, as you catch more jokes and collect additional Easter Eggs.

This one's a solid twelve pack.

Scale:
1 = A shot.  Get it over with quickly and chase it with something more palatable.
2 = A beer. Standard, everyday movie.  Not unenjoyable, but not enough.
3 = A cocktail.  A taste of the good stuff, but watered down and not quite satisfying.
4 = Six pack.  A good time.  Could have been better, but no complaints.
5 = Bottle of Wine.  Slightly more refined fun.
6 = Bottle of Champagne.  To be savored, but leaves you wanting more.
7 = Twelve pack.  Enough to get you excited.
8 = High-Gravity Six Pack.  Like a Twelve Pack, but more tightly edited.
9 = Case.  Amazing, but often taxing.  Pace yourself and try not to break the seal.
10= Bottle of Liquor.  This one will knock you out.

The Coup d'eBron?

Due to a startling lack of substantive sporting news outside of the domestic violence debacle with Ray Rice* (apologies to baseball, golf, tennis, and others, but my ESPN.com pageviews are down about 400,000% since the NBA playoffs ended), I'm paying far more attention to the NBA trade talks, specifically regarding Kevin Love.  This may or may not have something to do with to a certain former Davidson player being somewhat of a focal point on one of the teams involved.  But I digress.

*Two games?  For shame, NFL.

I'll try to keep this fairly brief, but I couldn't help but write it down after a discussion with one of my co-workers inspired the title of this post.  In a nutshell: what if LeBron is gaming the entire NBA on an entirely different level than we even thought possible?

What are the odds that he's pulling all the strings--that he's already convinced Love to stay in Minnesota next year so he can leave as a free agent without the Cavs giving up anything?  It's a little conspiracy-theorist of me, I admit, but it's terribly amusing.  And I can totally see the author of "The Decision" and Miami's erstwhile Big Three coming up with the seeds for this diabolical plan.

But it doesn't stop there.  You remember that letter Gilbert wrote?  Of course you do.  So what makes you think LeBron forgot about it?

Short answer, he didn't, and it's roiling in his guts like a gallon of spoiled milk (not now, I'm rolling).  So, not only is he going to swindle Minnesota by convincing Love to stay a year and walk, he's also going to swindle Gilbert out of a team.

The potential ouster of Donald Sterling (and/or the potential boycott by Clippers players and coaches) sets exactly the precedent LeBron (fictional, devious LeBron in full Che Guevara regalia) was hoping for.  Now all the pieces are in place for him to plant tape recorders and goad Gilbert into mouthing off in just the wrong way at just the wrong time.

The Warriors are now an afterthought in the Love sweepstakes, despite Klay Thompson being the talking-head-consensus-best trade chip, because Love has already been convinced to play in Cleveland.  And LeBron has Cleveland dangling Wiggins (with no intent to actually give him up) to stall the Twolves out whenever they get close to making another move.  What about the Cavs front office, you ask?  Don't be daft.  This is ALL LeBron.  Right?  Right?!

Just you wait.  The pieces are all in place.  When everything goes down, and LeBron somehow rises as the new majority owner of the Cavaliers (and the first in a long line of super-powerful player-owners), don't say I didn't warn you.

The Coup d'eBron is coming.

Taking a Moment to Set the Scene

Sometimes I stumble across something I've written and wonder, just what in the most honored name of Bob Saget made you think that would work, you blithering putz?

Ok, perhaps I'm not quite that harsh, but when a piece or segment seems slapped together, well, I know I was just in too much of a hurry to get from point A to point B.

I couldn't be bothered to set the scene. And perhaps, in a POV piece, the character isn't taking much notice of the scene. Or he's fiddling around in some sort of reverie that we the reader are about to partake of as well. But even so. Even if this character is dismissive of everything around him, disdainful, or outright oblivious... it pays to spend a few words on the scene.

Here's a bit I stumbled across in my revisions, and how I changed it.


-------------------Version The First-------------------

It had been years since he’d set foot in the Capital. And he hadn’t wanted to come back this soon.

Devlan scowled with the visible half of his face. It was true what they said.

All roads did run through Dezaran.

Now, let's be blunt. This is thin. really thin. We learn Devlan's setting foot in Dezaran for the first time in awhile, and he's none too happy about it. Great. The words serve a function. That's about it. But who thinks about what part of their face is visible, even if the purported "invisible" half is a badly scarred ruin?

I won't even touch the dreadful cliche that somehow worked its way in there.

Facing facts, this is a very small part of a very large piece of work that can really do some damage to the whole. If I'm reading this, I totally fall out of the story, and the author (yes, I call myself that when I'm having "me" time) has to do some serious work to make up that ground. Even worse, it's at the start of a chapter, so that makes this flub at least triply inexcusable. But no worries! That's why we do the rewriting, folks. So the fancy hardcover doesn't end up on the bookshelf with poo smeared all through the pages.

-----------Version The First Point Zero Five-----------

People swarmed around Devlan, wayfarers drifting into the gates with packs slung over shoulders, caravaners driving out. All of them jabbering on about mindless things in their mindless tongue.

It had been years since he’d set foot in Dezaran. Just not enough of them.

Devlan scowled with what was left of his face. What was it these Imperials said? Some business about absence, and warming the heart…

It was a load of scat, far as he could tell.

So what did I do? Well, I had to add a few words (37, as it happens), loathe though I am to do it, and I had to change a few others. In those words I needed to establish a specific image and reinforce a few choice traits about our boy Devlan here (because like I said above, it's the beginning of a chapter, and we haven't seen Devlan for a while).

Here you learn Devlan is standing at a rather busy gate into Dezaran city. He doesn't refer to it as the Capital. It's no capital to him. You can see from this that Devlan has a marked distaste for all things Imperial, all the way down to their language, and you get the idea he's something of a cynic. And he is. Without giving anything away, believe me, he has every possible reason to be. Woe to me if he were to come across me in a dark alley after all the things I've put him through.

A different cliche is there, but it's hinted at rather than slammed over the head, and the result is Devlan gets to sound a little more sarcastic, a little more hardened.

Of course the redux is far from perfect as well, anyone can see that, but few would argue that it isn't better. And better is the name of the rewriting game. At least when I play it.

That's why I get to go through it again and again until I finally get it to Version The Second.

Then maybe it will be ready for some editor to stab it to death with his bloody pen.

I can only hope.

Until then, sports fans.

On Editing

Ah, editing. Or perhaps we should call it rewriting. Either way, the process is about shaping. Working a piece, getting in between the lines, smoothing out the wrinkles to make it that much closer to perfect, even if it can never get there.

And, as all of you writers out there surely know, nothing ever can.

But still. We have to try.

See the two versions of the same passage below. Neither are perfect, of course, but one hits a hell of a lot harder. Yet they are practically the same; a written-word version of those goofy find-the-difference-between-these-pictures games you sometimes find on the gambling machines in bars.

Just goes to show you. The changes don't have to be huge to make a huge difference.

--------------------Version A--------------------

Devlan drew his sword with the metal hand and joined the fighting. They weren’t even paying attention to him.

He came down on one with his back turned and ran him through, the blade horizontal, straight through the spine like Claive had taught him.

It got their attention, but only enough so that Claive could take advantage of a few new openings. Devlan pulled his sword from the man he’d just killed, and for just a brief moment, he caught sight of Claive’s eyes.

He froze for a moment, unable to help it. They were bloodshot, almost pulsing with crimson. Claive’s mouth was open, teeth bared. His breaths snarled out through flared nostrils. The expression didn’t look like it should ever belong on a human face. It was the most horrifying thing Devlan had ever seen.


--------------------Version B--------------------

Devlan drew his sword with the metal hand and crashed into the fight. The Keepers hardly seemed to notice.

He came down on one with his back turned and ran him through, the blade horizontal, straight through the spine like Claive had taught.

It got the guards' attention, but only enough that Claive found a few new openings. One turned at Devlan, only to have a blade explode through his head before Devlan could even pull his sword free. Devlan blinked as the blood hit his face. Then he caught a flash of Claive’s eyes.

Devlan froze and stared, trapped. The eyes were wide and bulging, dark as blood around those pale pricks of grey. Claive’s lips stretched back, his teeth bared in a monstrous smile. Hot breath snarled out through flared nostrils, the vapors clouding like smoke around a burning head.

It was the most horrifying thing Devlan had ever seen. A face that didn’t look like it could ever belong to a man.



Excerpts taken from drafts of The Seed of Desolation.

A Little Freewriting

Perhaps this mostly dead blog will see some revival as I delve further into writing and get the gears turning on either a) an exciting adventure for next year or b) an exciting foray into publishing with the 600-page fictional adventure farting around on my hard drive.

Until then... here's a taste of something completely different.

---------------------Looking Back---------------------

When you look back, what’s there to see? Is it a chance lost? An opportunity wasted? A whole mess of them? What is it you feel, when you look in the mirror and see that sagging face with its lightless eyes, that shadow framed in a wreath of steely hair that looks nothing like the person you thought you were? What is there?

Life is not full of time, even though that’s really all it is. Maybe you wanted to do something, or be something. Maybe there was hope in you. But you sat. You didn’t do. You never did.

Or maybe you were something, once. Maybe you found it, but you lost it. Like the athlete who lets go. That warrior. That fighter who wakes up at 3 am sweating liquor and needing a piss, all popping knees and aching back. He leans over the toilet, an arm braced against the wall, and he has to crane his head around his gut to catch a glimpse of his dick. What do you think he’s thinking?

How did I get here? How did this happen? How could it?

But that’s the trick. No one took you to this place, this state. It’s not like you got all dressed up and got into his limo to go to the dance. No one brought you. You brought yourself.

Even if you just sat there and watched life happening around you, even if you decided it felt safest to stay in one place and spin your wheels, you decided. You made a choice. Choices. And every time you look in that mirror, the reflection of those choices will be etched in whatever image stares back through the glass.

I sure wish I’d known that before. When everything was wonderful. When everything was ahead. When I ran my fingers through her hair, and didn’t think I could ever love anyone that much. When my parents called to say they loved me, and I’d say I love you, too, and hang up the phone so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore.

You always seem to realize too late the things that really matter. It’s usually once they’re gone.

The last time I spoke to my parents, I couldn’t wait to get them off the phone. Big date planned, really big. Always thought of that night as a pre-engagement-engagement. Or something. My phone rang during dinner. Once, twice. I turned it off. This girl, nothing was more important than her right then. Still nothing more important than her, if I’m honest.

But after the date I get the messages. All of them. About my parents.

A drunk driver took them from me. I took myself from everyone else.

When I look in the mirror, the face scares me. The eyes mostly. There’s something in the eyes that changes when a man kills.

They died twelve years ago.

I made choices.

Interlude: Short Story -- "Seeing Red"

_______________________________________________


---------------------Seeing Red----------------------


I was eating a deep-fried pineapple pie from McDonald’s when I saw him hit her.

Walking alone, hair blowing in the chill wind. Staring into the dark, thinking of another life.

When I say I saw him, I mean I heard him. The actual blow, no, I can’t say I saw that. I just turned my head after the crack, watched her reel, heard her shriek. The shouted words that spewed from his mouth carried all the venom of a snake’s bite… well, judging from tone, that is.

I had no idea what they meant, of course. Nor did I understand any of the signs around me, nor did I understand a zillion other little nuances of this strange and alien world.

I was an American in China, and though I had been so for several months, I was not, would never feel at home.

So I didn’t know why he had hit her, and I didn’t imagine that I could hope to understand it. But I remembered a girl I dated once, who had told me one night how her father beat her. Then she drank a bottle of vodka and vomited into a trash can while I held her hair.

She’d told me she wanted to marry me that night, before she passed out. Then she’d woken up, still drunk, and gone off to sleep with somebody else.

What a terrible thing, violence.

Menace in my eye, I shoved the half-eaten pie in the bag, crumpled it, threw it to the street. The man stared back at me, eyes betraying nothing. He puffed his chest a bit, posturing. Tough, I thought, like the men are taught to be here. He was young, younger than I’d imagined at first. Maybe 20. She was crying. Both of them were frail. Tiny. Enough to make me feel a giant.

I liked that.

The space between us closed quickly. Now his eyes flashed fear. I have to wonder how my face looked. I glanced to the girl, cringing, trembling there in the night wind. Blood trickled from a crease in her split lip. She was pretty, I thought. A tiny, pretty, delicate thing, like a butterfly.

A butterfly who had just been swatted mercilessly from the air by an angry child.

Never mind that the "man" in front of me was scarcely bigger than she. Never mind that he was starting to tremble, too, at the sight of my pale, angry, western, alien face. I didn’t see that. Never saw that.

I saw the abusive husband, the abusive father. The coward. The scum of the Earth.

Before I knew what I was doing, it was done. Too well done. A hand that knew how to throw a punch shot out before I could call it back. A heavy hand backed by a strong arm, a strong arm backed by a body so much bigger and thicker than most in this part of the world.

The force surprised me, hurt me. I felt his teeth carve into the flesh of my hand even as they caved from the blow. It was the crack, though, that split the night; the crack that left me stunned, mouth open and empty of words or breath.

I knew he was dead before she started screaming, before he started falling, before I even pulled back my hand. I watched his eyes roll backward as his head lolled on top of his broken neck, angling toward the ground that rushed to meet it.

I looked at my hand, my bloody fist. I looked at the pale skin drenched with red, and I knew.

There would be no escaping this.

The girl was on her knees now, sobbing over him, saying things I couldn't understand, feeling things I hadn't tried to understand. I could only look at her, shame forcing my eyes open, binding them to her in silent penance. And what an easy penance it probably was, I thought, compared to what was surely coming.

My lip trembled as I ground my ragged knuckles against my other palm, hiding from sight the life that bled from me, the hopes and dreams that fled before my very eyes, lost to me forever in that awful, red moment.

I shuddered as I drew my next full gasp of air, like an infant struggling for breath at the first of a new and difficult existence.

What a terrible thing.


_____________________________________________



Author's Note: Now,this is a work of fiction through and through, so don't get any ideas. However, for the record, I did see a guy hit a girl tonight while I was walking home, and when I started going towards him, he moved away very fast. It wasn't until after that I began to imagine the many possible pitfalls of confronting someone so far removed from my element. Good thing I have more sense than that, huh?

One Month Later

So yes, I’m aware that there is a lot I’ve neglected to say in the last little while, and while there is no excuse, my reasons are myriad.

Suffice it to say that things have been busy. Tumultuous. Fun. Difficult. Easy. Arduous. Heartwrenching. Heartwarming.

But enough of that. Essentially, I owe my current episode of writer’s block to five things:

Writer’s Block (hey, it happens).

Almost four uninterrupted weeks of cold, hard rain. No, I am not kidding, or exaggerating. I have not seen the sun in a damned month.

Saying yes when Chinese people ask me to do things with them.

Being absolutely brain-dead whenever I have time to myself.

And, of course, an understandable degree of moping about a certain notable absence.

That being said, tonight, after a reasonably amusing episode of KTV (that’s Karaoke TV, for the three of you reading) at which I got molested by an overzealous Chinese man… yeah, they do that here… no comment… well, I feel like I should write SOMETHING about the events that have transpired since I returned to Anqing (to say nothing of what transpired in Moscow).

Since I returned, I’ve taught four weeks of school. For two weeks, I had to take the classes all to myself, just like before. However, at last, Ray’s replacement joined me, and she’s been helpful relieving some of the workload, to say the least. So here’s the deal—I got paid, a LOT, for the extra work I did, which is excellent; my employers cater to my whimsy because of my willingness to help out in a tight spot; and I don’t have to eat alone now. Plus, the kids are a BREEZE to teach now, and I feel like I can actually make tangible progress with them. I’ve taken hold of the reins pretty hard in the classes so far this year, and they seem to be responding well to my brand of easy discipline. So, reading that, everything sounds great, right?

Well, the long and short of it is, I have very little to complain about, here. It’s an amazing experience that, so far, is getting better. Really, thinking of it now, I only have the one thing. I miss a lot of people, you know, and these days, as you may surmise, one in particular.

It won’t go away, that feeling, and really, why should it? Why would I want it to? It’s a call I should be answering. It’s something I should be beyond happy about.

And, come to think of it, I am.

At the moment, it just has its hurdles.

Good thing I get to jump over one of them next week, for a while. Then I can run free and easy, at least for a few days, till the next one comes along.

All right, now that that’s all out of the way, for the time being… Russia.

Cyrillic is a cool alphabet. It’s like code. I think if it had been Russian I was learning, I’d be damn well fluent by now. I thought it was THAT much easier. The metro was easy enough to navigate, I suppose, after a time, but stressful with luggage. And man, the cold. Everywhere, biting at your face and every other bit of uncovered flesh.

I felt it most keenly in the two or so mile walk we took to the Chinese Embassy to iron out some visa difficulties (and THERE’S a story I’m not willing to tell without a beer). Let’s just say it was a little nerve-wracking, and we almost didn’t make it back to China alive.

Well, we almost didn’t make it back to China, anyway.

After that our days were relaxing enough, taking in the Red Square (but still outside! My nose was half-dead at this point) and some of the other sights within the Kremlin. We went in a mall, ran from the police (lest they accost us and ask for passports that couldn’t be produced), and generally just explored. We even found Irish pubs, and ate at two of them!

(One night involved a pub crawl and a snowball fight. And an advertisement for Miller Midnight. What the hell?)





It was just one more amazing time to add to a growing list of ridiculousness that I am experiencing here. When I think about what I expected, from my life, a year or so ago… let’s just say that I’m now aware, more than ever, that we really don’t know what’s best for us. I’ve had plans before, sure, but the way things have turned out since I’ve been here… I couldn’t have drawn this up.

But I wouldn’t draw it any different.