No idea is too lame for Hollywood. With the release of “Battleship,” board-game-”inspired” movies are poised to be the next hot thing in Tinseltown. In fact, there’s already a Candyland film in the works with Adam Sandler attached. (Apparently Eddie Murphy was too busy working on a Chutes and Ladders project.) So there’s no time to waste. Here are my lame pitches for the next “great” board-game movie.
THE HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS GAMES… “May the hippos never be hungry…for you!”
In a grim, post-apocalyptic North America, 24 attractive teens are chosen to compete in the Hungry Hungry Hippos Games. The nationally televised event (which airs after “The Real Housewives of District 1″) pits the youngsters against each other — and four extremely hungry hippos — in a fight to the death. In the end, only one will survive (unless that rule needs to be changed to accommodate the plot). Torn between love and an unwillingness to move her facial muscles, Cactus Evergreen (Elle Fanning) is forced to rely on her hippo-wrangling experience and marble-playing skills to survive. Will Cactus lose her marbles or end up hippo food? Co-starring Angus T. Jones as Cactus’s love interest/rival.
OPERATION: THE ORGAN COLLECTOR… “No one’s bread basket is safe!”
A serial killer (Steve Buscemi) with a thing for human organs is terrorizing Chicago. Nicknamed the Vivisectionist, the psycho removes the organs of his unwilling “patients” with a pair of oversized tweezers, first taking the Adam’s Apple of a high-powered attorney and then the broken heart of a prostitute. Detective Jack Gomez (Bruce Willis) is hot on the Vivisectionist’s trail when he discovers the harvested stomach of a singer — filled with butterflies! Gomez has a theory: the Vivisectionist is collecting the organs from the popular board game Operation! Things get personal when Gomez’s daughter (Selena Gomez), an aspiring stand-up comedian, goes missing. The Vivisectionist needs only one more organ to complete his ghoulish collection: A funny bone!
CRANIUM: BRAIN FARTS… “A brain is a terrible thing…to waste!”
A struggling actor (Jason Segel), an eccentric sculptor (Paul Rudd), a cocky beatboxer (Jack Black) and an idiot savant (Zach Galifianakis) try to save their favorite coffee shop/car wash from foreclosure by competing in a no-holds-barred Cranium tournament. Dubbed the Brain Farts, the four misfits must push their unique talents to the limit, but can they do it without killing each other? It won’t be easy. The reigning Cranium champs, the Brainiacs, are also the bullies who tormented the Brain Farts in grade school and, in an ironic twist, also the bankers foreclosing on their favorite coffee shop/car wash!
TROUBLE: POP GOES THE WORLD… “You want trouble? You got it!”
Earthquakes! Tsunamis! Gyllenhaal! When the Earth starts a-quaking, the world’s leaders come a-calling for disgraced geophysicist Rick Mancuso (Jake Gyllenhaal) — the planet’s only hope. A man harboring a dark secret, Mancuso has just 24 hours to discover what’s causing the Earth’s core to keep “popping.” If he doesn’t, the planet will be knocked off its axis — and that won’t be good. As Mancuso’s quest takes him across the globe, he must come to grips with his troubled past and the young daughter (Miranda Cosgrove) he left behind. Featuring the song “Pop Goes My Heart” by Taylor Swift.
MONOPOLY: OCCUPY THE WORLD… “Pass Go, collect the world!”
The Top 1% has just become the Top 0.00000000001%. With the world on the brink of financial collapse and the gap between rich and poor wider than ever, the Top 1% makes a desperate bid to secure its vast fortunes. Somehow (radiation?) combining the DNA and bank accounts of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, they create the Ultimate Fat Cat (played by John Goodman in a career-defining role). But the UFC’s power grows exponentially and quickly controls all the Earth’s resources, governments, corporations and four railways. The 99.9%’s only hope is a former hotel owner from Baltic Avenue (Chris Evans) whose only possessions are a vintage roadster and his lucky thimble. Co-starring Ian McKellan as The Banker.
I haven’t been posting lately on Blogzarro because I’ve been contributing to BuzzFeed. (Check it out, if you haven’t before. It’s a cool site.) Long story short: In just a few days, I’ve conquered the site and am their No. 1 poster. I have the Internet’s love of Black Widow cosplay and hate for Kim Kardashian to thank.
I’m all about time management. It’s probably because I enjoy wasting so much time that when I need to get things done, I need to get them done as quickly as possible. So I was excited when I stumbled upon this YouTube video. It allows you to watch 56 episodes of the original “Star Trek” series all at once — with sound. (It’s the first two seasons except the pilot was replaced by the first episode of the third season because of time constraints.)
Watching it is a totally mesmerizing experience. Kinda like listening to William Shatner’s music.
DeAnna Knippling first came on my radar with the 2010 publication of “Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse,” a choose-your-own-adventure featuring the undead. I was an instant fan! Since then, I’ve learned that DeAnna is one of the most hard-working writers out there and immune to rejection. (That’s a real superpower!) Her latest novel is “Alien Blue,” a science fiction tale about extraterrestrials and beer. Check it out!
I recently talked to her about writing, social media and, of course, zombies…
You’re an incredibly prolific writer. How do you keep going?
Being prolific is a skill that you can develop as an author. One, write every day. (Sorry; you’ve heard this advice before, but it’s true.) Two, develop writing speed by observing how many words you can write in an hour, setting deadlines much closer than you think you can reach, and doing crazy things like NaNoWriMo. Three, and this is the part that most people miss when they try to do this, allow that writing is not the sanest activity in the world and your normal judgment process is flawed when it comes to writing, so there’s no point in second-guessing yourself while you write. Your internal editor will be there, and you can’t shut it off, but you can ignore it and play in your sandbox anyway.
What is your writing schedule like? Your writing process?
I freelance, so I’ll tell you before-freelancing and after-freelancing.
Before freelancing: I started out writing once in a while, then built up to 100 words a day (no joke, I was so proud), and gradually increased my word count. I discovered that I had to have days where I take a break — not from writing per se, but from whatever Big Project I’m working on. Blog, write book reviews, work on something completely different…whatever. Then I did my first NaNoWriMo (in July, because I was afraid I’d fail). That was a huge boost, and I knew that I could write 1.5-2K a day without killing myself (although I did irritate my family). Eventually I got it up to 1K a day, average.
Then I went freelance, which was a whole new set of chops to build, and I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to balance writing and business (business likes to take over). I kept doing NaNoWriMos and built a speed of about 1K an hour over two years, which I can hit now regularly except on this romance that I’m writing, because I don’t write a lot of romance, and that’s about 500-750 wph. With horror and other things I’m closer to 1.5K.
Trying out multiple things to balance out writing and the business side of things has led me to realize that I, personally, have to do my fiction first before anything else. I always have a resistance to going into story world, because my sane brain is terrified that I won’t come back; everything I do in story world points to crazy (hallucinations, multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia). So I make bargains with the sane part of my brain: a word count or a time cutoff. I can only write so much, and then I have to come back. I usually write on my stuff from eight to noon now (in 50-minute writing, 10-minute-break cycles), then switch over to freelance writing, formatting, answering emails, etc. Weekends I spend with my family and tie up whatever loose ends I couldn’t get to during the week.
(more…)
Sure Friday the 13th is unlucky — and it’s really unlucky if you happen to be a camper — but what did Friday the 13th have to do with the Jason Voorhees slasher series? It wasn’t played up much, but the date was significant because Jason was born on Friday the 13th (June 13, 1946, to be exact). Unfortunately, little Jason died — for the first time — and the date became even unluckier as his mom returned to Crystal Lake on his birthday for a little revenge. And that’s the beginning and end of the significance of the date in the series. But who really cares what Friday the 13th has to do with the franchise? What we want is bloodshed and the occasional nude boob.
Come with me now on a journey through the life and times of everyone’s favorite hockey-mask-wearing killer…
Doctor Who is pretty freakin cool. So it stands that Doctor Who fans are pretty freakin cool, too. And judging by these two fan-created spoofs my theory is correct. Enjoy!
Doctor Who RPG
Dalek Relaxation Tape
The best captioner will get a copy of Kevin Sorbo’s acclaimed memoir “True Strength.” (So provide a real email.) Contest ends April 13th. Now bring the funny!
UPDATE: And the winner is…Wichita Man!
I saw “The Hunger Games” Monday night, which is unusual for two reasons: 1) I rarely go to the movies and 2) I never go to the movies on weeknights. Obviously, this was a special occasion. Unfortunately, “The Hunger Games” was not a special movie. Far from it, actually. I found it to be a bloodless “Battle Royale” and a somber “Running Man.” Too bad, because I liked the book. I wasn’t blown away by it. (I’m not a 12-year-old who’s never read a dystopian novel before.) Still, I thought it was a very good SF action tale.
What didn’t work for me in the movie was the plodding melodrama and the attempt at foisting a social consciousness onto a popcorn flick. “The Hunger Games” isn’t “1984″ or “The Road.” It’s a silly, water-downed YA adventure whose main conceit is kids hunting kids in the woods. The movie takes great pains to convey a sense of importance with its allusions to current social and political turmoil. But even there it fails. It really has nothing to say about the ills of our world, not with any substance. It’s neither dark nor fun. Come on, a reality show that pits teens in a battle to the death is absurd. (At least for the time being.) The movies that already trod this ground, “Battle Royale” and “The Running Man,” were in on the joke — they were satires. Skewering reality TV, competition, bloodlust, our desire for spectacle. And they had fun doing it. “The Hunger Games” movie takes itself too seriously. The book is no laugh riot either, but with its bleak atmosphere, moody soundtrack and brooding performances, the movie sends the melodrama over the top.
On a final note, it seemed the producers were so desperately trying to convince us the movie was IMPORTANT they forgot the main theme: Hunger. Whereas the book is filled with food, thoughts of food or the lack of food, the movie forgets its own title. The movie just left me hungry to see “Battle Royale” and “The Running Man” again.
