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THE HUSTLER by Walter Tevis

December 29, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

After reading THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, I grabbed Walter Tevis’s THE HUSTLER, which promised to do for pool what he’d done for chess, which is to say, lovingly portray it as a field of character, a personal test of wills, high-stakes drama, and a kind of violence. THE HUSTLER delivers, though its protagonist Fast Eddie Felson isn’t as likeable as Beth is in THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, and I just didn’t root for him the same way.

It’s a simple story. After building up a reputation and some cash that would buy him high-stakes games against the best, Fast Eddie arrives in Chicago and beelines to Bennington’s, home field for the best pool players in the country. There, he goes head to head with Minnesota Fats, whom he can beat on the table but perhaps not in a contest of character and wills. Losing everything, he must dig deep not only to raise fresh capital but also find the character and inner strength to go the distance. Along the way, he meets a young woman struggling with her own self-esteem.

Tevis writes about pool the way he wrote about chess in THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, producing vivid imagery and descriptions and tension to the point of fetish, such that even if you don’t love or play the game yourself, you deeply appreciate it. In fact, this was apparently the first novel written about the game. Regardless of what you think about pool, everybody loves a good sport story about a person who must dig deep to prove themselves and triumph in a difficult game, and many readers find satisfaction in a good story about, well, work–difficult work done well.

While I loved that aspect of the novel, which served as the plot engine and character arena, I couldn’t root for Eddie the way I did for Beth in THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT. Beth was heavily flawed; Eddie is similarly flawed but also kind of a jerk, especially to his love interest, who apparently symbolizes his own self-esteem and character problems. As a result, while I deeply cared if Beth beat Borgov, I didn’t care as much if Eddie beat Minnesota Fats. Nonetheless, I loved the ride and the deep dive into the game. If you enjoyed THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, check it out. And if you like this novel, you might want to check out the movie adaptation starring Paul Newman.

Filed Under: The Blog

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT by Walter Tevis

December 29, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I’d read THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH many years ago and remember it as a wonderfully literary sci-fi novel, though a bit meandering and even frustrating. (The movie adaptation with David Bowie stars out well but then loses its mind.) After watching THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT on Netflix, I was surprised to learn Tevis wrote the book on which the series was based, along with some other great adapted stories like THE HUSTLER and THE COLOR OF MONEY. So I checked it out, and here’s the short review: I loved it. This guy can really write.

If you’ve seen the series, you’ll be impressed at how faithful the adaptation is from the written story, though with some significant differences where they made things more dramatic or simpler for the show. After reading a couple of Tevis’s books now, I have to say it’s his best. Beth is a singularly driven woman and a fantastic protagonist, as strong as the show if not stronger, and the descriptions of her chess games and Moby Dick-like fascination with beating Borgov are fascinating to read, even if you don’t play the game yourself.

Overall, like the show, the novel is a great character study and a gripping sports story every bit as riveting as a movie about baseball or hockey.

Filed Under: Books, The Blog

1BR (2019)

December 29, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

In 1BR (2019, streaming on Netflix), a shy, insecure young woman flees her doting father after her mother’s death to move to Los Angeles to start a new life as a costume designer. Answering a real estate listing for a one-bedroom apartment in a complex, she moves in to discover herself ensnared by a cult with lofty principles and brutal methods to ensure obedience and harmony. Overall, it’s a solid horror film that reminds us sometimes the scariest horror element is human, including humans who will hurt you believing it will ultimately make you happy.

In some ways, it’s an ordinary horror movie about a cult with few surprises and an unsurprising gotcha in the last scene, but again, in my opinion, it’s a solid telling. It’s a low-budget film but doesn’t feel like it, with competent acting and slow burn if sufficient pacing to the conclusion. I liked how they showed the indoctrination techniques some cults use to brainwash people, though the real thing often goes a lot farther than what’s depicted and is even more horrific. The finale is wonderfully violent, violent in that way that feels real and impactful.

So overall, 1BR is not one I’d gush about, but I liked it a lot, it rings with competence, and I thought it accomplished quite a bit for its resources.

Filed Under: Movies, Movies & TV, The Blog

REMINA by Junjo Ito

December 29, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I love Japanese manga creator Junjo Ito, particularly his longer graphic novel work like UZUMAKI, and I was thrilled to receive a surprise gift from my partner Chris Marrs this Christmas: REMINA, hot off the press. Like his other work, it’s wonderfully weird, dark, bleak, Lovecraftian, and beautiful.

The story focuses on Remina, whose father detected a mysterious planet that has emerged from a wormhole he discovered. He names the planet Remina after his beautiful daughter, who becomes a pop star in the tide of fame.

Alarmingly, however, the planet appears to be sucking everything around it into itself, and it’s now coming toward Earth.

I won’t say more about the plot, as you should check it out for yourself, but I really enjoyed this manga. There isn’t a lot of depth in terms of character, with the story being driven by its fantastical plot elements rendered in Ito’s distinctive creepy artistic style. What Ito delivers is pure spectacle, a great creep factor, and a bleak feeling that leads you to conclude character change and development kind of don’t matter when people are confronted with horrors too vast for human influence or meaning.

Overall, I loved it, and it proved horror does indeed make a great gift!

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, Books, Interesting Art, Reviews of Other Books, The Blog

THE CURRENT WAR (2017)

December 29, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

As a writer, my time is split between nonfiction and fiction. My nonfiction deals with the lighting industry, which I’ve been writing about for magazines, associations, websites, and manufacturers for 30 years. So I was very interested in watching THE CURRENT WAR (2017), a film about the war between George Westinghouse and Thomas Alva Edison about whether AC or DC power would dominate American power distribution, as I was familiar with some of the history. The film does a good job dramatizing their war and I was happy to see this bit of history covered by a major film, though overall the result feels kinda tame, like a traditional TV movie.

The film starts with Edison’s commercialization of a viable incandescent light bulb and a DC power system used to feed electricity to these bulbs from generators. Edison is excellently played by Benedict Cumberbatch, basically reprising his eccentric genius Sherlock role complete with a Watson-like sidekick. While the bulbs are amazing for the period (they last 13 hours as opposed to two, the best anybody else could do), DC power isn’t very efficient, resulting in a huge number of generators and the air crisscrossed with thick wires. Enter George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), a railroad engineer who grew rich on investing an air brake for trains. He sees AC power as the future as it’s dramatically more efficient, but he doesn’t have Edison’s light bulbs. Westinghouse wants to work together, but Edison snubs him, starting a war to see which power system will electrify America.

Edison goes so far as to try to smear AC power as dangerous, electrifying animals in front of the press and supporting the invention of the electric chair. But AC power is clearly superior. All it’s missing is a viable motor that can accept an AC power input. Enter a genius named Nikola Tesla, a Serbian immigrant who has the answer. The rest, as they say, is history.

The film has a great cast and a lot of love went into bringing the period to life. I especially appreciated the topic, as the Current War is as dramatic as they come in terms of history, and it was fought by business and intellectual giants who were rapidly transforming America with radical inventions such as electricity, the phonograph, arc lamps, and motion pictures. The film does a fantastic job of creating a sense of wonder and how at the time a few great minds could change the world with science.

The film sags, however, in its storytelling. The writers tried to balance the human and business sides of the war without giving either the right height. The directing is also fairly staid, propping up the result with Scorcese-like visual elements (he was a producer) that feel utterly out of place and actually detract from all the effort made to create historical immersion. I also think they might have done better to give Tesla far more screen time, as he is such a fascinating figure who made science truly feel like magic. This is a guy who stood on a stage at the Chicago World Fair and electrified himself (safely because the frequency was so high), powering a forerunner to the fluorescent tube that he held in his hand. The film also doesn’t mention he got ripped off.

So in the end, this is another one I liked instead of loved. Overall, it’s very enjoyable and the history is great, though the telling somewhat sags with lackluster directing.

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

THE OUTPOST (2020)

December 22, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

I spotted THE OUTPOST (2020) on Netflix and thought, well, here goes another predictable war movie about lovable, earnest soldiers fighting the evil Taliban with plenty of action and American grit, and I ended up pretty surprised to discover instead one of the best films about war ever made, at least in my opinion as a civilian.

Based on the book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper, the film depicts the events surrounding the incredible Taliban assault against Combat Outpost Keating, one of a series of bases strung across the mountains near Pakistan to prevent arms and Taliban fighters from crossing into Afghanistan. It was that war’s bloodiest battle, which involved hundreds of Taliban assaulting the base with the advantage of the high ground. It’s the inspiration for a similar fight in my novel THE INFECTION.

Few war movies have the courage to tell it like it is and let soldiers be real people. GENERATION KILL did it, and so does OUTPOST. There’s very little hooah sap and “band of brothers” here. They’re just regular guys, and we see them interact with wit and the usual friendships and frictions you’d expect. They are also somewhat fatalistic, as they’re under constant harassment, the base is poorly situated surrounded by high ground, and they know a big attack is coming that they will likely not survive. But they’re professional soldiers and have a job to do, so they do it stoically.

The film gives us time to get to know the grunts as the CAV unit goes through several commanders, each with a different command style. The acting is strong and perfectly understated, led by a cast that includes Orlando Bloom, Caleb Landry Jones, and Scott Eastwood (the spitting image of his dad). Meanwhile, the unit’s relationship with the locals slowly sours, and the tension builds. When the attack finally comes, it’s absolutely savage–as exciting and powerful as the likes of BLACKHAWK DOWN–and this is where we see the hooah and band of brothers come out–naturally in the soldiers’ actions–as some fight back with incredible courage and others risk their lives for guys they serve with and sometimes don’t even like that much.

The film has been praised by veterans, including men who fought in the actual battle, for its depictions of everyday soldier life, war in general, and the battle in particular. The film made me care, had me on the edge of my seat, and respected my intelligence. I absolutely loved this one. While 2020 sucked in general, it absolutely shined for war films with the release of the likes of THE OUTPOST and GREYHOUND. I hope we get more like it.

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Other History, The Blog

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