Tag: Hollywod

#Art, The #Trump Era & My #Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel less inclined to talk about this novel as I grow more serious and more confident that it will be as good as I hoped for two years ago. I’d rather be using my time to develop, read and write than write about writing.

And, yet, I do continue to pay for this Website, so I here I am.

One thing that is interesting is two different macro trends are rushing towards each other. On one hand, under the traditional norms of American politics, Biden is cruising towards a possible blowout win. Meanwhile, the rise of fascism in the United States indicates that lulz, that doesn’t matter. Trump is going to rather brazenly steal the election, leaving 60% of the electorate apoplectic.

The question is, of course, how is art going to address this. First, we’re all going to have to accept that there’s going to be a crackdown in the arts in Trump’s second term. The late night hosts will be purged first and foremost. Gradually, people will begin to be pushed out of windows like they are in Russia. Lulz!

But I believe there should be a window of opportunity for a novel such as mine between when Trump steals the election and when, well, things get so bad that Little Green Men snatch people like me off the street.

I have a lot to say about the Trump Era and that’s what my novel is about. My white hot rage against the Trump Administration is the source of the energy necessary to finish this novel (actually one story, two novels.) Hopefully, however, my rage against the vile policies of the Trump won’t come across as preaching in the text itself. I hope to diffuse my rage so much that you can read this novel as simply an interesting thriller and that will be that.

As I keep saying, there are some existential aspects to this story that will be a tip off to my political views, but I can’t help that. From the very beginning of this process, there have been some elements to this story that I wanted to use and I’ve worked very hard to make them organic. So they’re not going anywhere.

And, really, in the end, I believe a lot of other people will be seething with rage about the Trump Era when this novel comes out and some of the more obvious ranting in the novel will find a receptive audience.

A Half-Assed Review Of It: Chapter 2

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Why is it so hard to bring the wonderful novel IT to the screen, be it big or small? While I wish the producers of IT: Chapter 2 all the best, I’m afraid I walked out about a third of the way through.

Now, some context. I’ve read the novel IT numerous times. I’m working on a novel of my own. I’m obsessed with storytelling right now and so I have very high standards. Maybe too high for my own good — I keep walking out of movies when they don’t meet my personal storytelling demands.

Anyway, I will note that the always talented and beautiful Jessica Chastain was a personal highlight of what I saw. She’s a damn good actor. And James McAvoy also was great. Fan favorite Bill Hader was good, but underused. In the novel, the character he played was the master of voices. That Hader — who is great at voices — wasn’t introduced constantly doing them was a big disappointment. Also Hader still has a lingering problem for me personally of me seeing him on the big screen and going, “Hey, that’s Bill Hader!” The rest of the cast was completely generic. The first movie was a huge hit, you’d think they would spend the extra cash to use marquee names in to fill the rest of the adult Losers.

I left the movie when I had to use the bathroom because I felt the movie was a mess. It was so much of a mess that it was grating on my nerves. If I was writing the “modern” part of the IT story as a screenplay, I would focus on making it a good screenplay first and telling the novel’s story second. It seemed to me they wanted it both ways. The whole thing was muddled and annoying in the extreme.

But what really pushed me to leave the movie early was I realized something about my novel because what I had seen. After I realized how to fix a problem in the novel I’m writing, I realized I had no more need of a movie that was quickly growing to be a waste of time.

So I left.