• #BlackGirlMagic,  Uncategorized

    About that Into the Badlands finale

    My condolences and prayers go out to the families affected by the horrible, senseless tragedy in Manchester, England. As a parent, seeing pictures of those beautiful youngsters and adults whose lives have been cut short brings back my own loss of a child.

    Whether the loved one is in Syria or England, or the US, the pain never goes away. May God give strength.

     

    About that Into the Badlands finale

    This GIF of Veil and Sunny is by Yemme:

    https://www.tumblr.com/yemme/160937897164/into-the-badlands-veil-sunny

     

    The 2nd season finale of Into the Badlands – Total viewers: 1,369 million
    18-49 rating : 0.5
    Link: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/daily-ratings/sunday-cable-ratings-may-21-2017/

     

    Season 1 finale -Dec 20, 2015  – Total Viewers: 2159 million
    18-49 rating: 0.8

     

    Considering the almost two year gap between the first and second season, Into The Badlands had decent ratings for its 10 episode second season. Since the show was must-see TV for my family, just about every television in my household was tuned to the Into The Badlands marathon on Sunday. And after the Cleveland Cavaliers blew a 21 point lead over the Boston Celtics, I was really hoping Into The Badlands would give me a finale I could put on repeat viewings.

    Alas, it was not to be. Someone at AMC (the show is owned and bankrolled by AMC) or with the executive production staff of ITB decided to kill off the only person who was able to make the usually morose hero, Sunny, smile. And show some damn emotion. Veil was the woman Sunny loved enough to fight his way back to.

    Veil, portrayed by actress Madeleine Mantock
    Veil, portrayed by actress Madeleine Mantock.

    That’s the kind of hard love that romantics live for. That’s the kind of shit that has a woman saying, “You better bring it like Sunny.”

    Only . . . Sunny is now a single parent, much like the old westerns of yesteryear, Bonanza (Ben Cartwright had sons Adam, Hoss and Little Joe by three different wives who’d died), The Virginian and The Rifleman. And like several classic Disney movies (The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast) the saintly, but dead mama trope card was pulled.

    Not only that, but the show walked a tightrope with another trope, where the black character proves how “good” they are with a selfless act. Literature is rife with this trope, as it usually afflicts characters of color (see Gunga Din, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Imitation of Life -book and the films).

    It’s also important to note that US shows would use the dearly departed mama trope to garner not only sympathy, but a revolving door of attractive female guest stars to pair with their widowed lead actor.

    From fairy tales that added an evil step-mother to the mix, to often told cultural stories highlighting the adventures of a father and child left to navigate the cold cruel world together, killing mama off has a long history in both literature and film.

    In the case of ITB, Veil was still nursing her infant son. Which means Sunny will need to find a total stranger (female of course) who is also nursing. Chances are that task will fall upon either Lydia or Jade to find a willing surrogate, but I suspect the show will probably gloss over this or omit it all together since it brings up a host of other “things that make you go hmm.”

    In this feudal future, women are either sex slaves (called Dolls) Cogs, Clippers, or Barons. There may be male dolls, however I don’t recall seeing them. Veil was the rare exception. She was a healer/doctor and could read. Her backstory was that Quinn, having found her as an infant, had given her to a couple who were  indebted to him to raise.

    Veil had her own shop in town where she’d been working on an assortment of artificial limbs and mobility devices for cogs. As a healer, Veil had taken an oath to save lives. However, she wasn’t above giving Tilda, one of the Widow’s clippers, the means to poison the woman. Veil also possibly prolonged her own life by pretending Quinn’s brain tumor was in remission (he murdered Veil’s parents once her father initially diagnosed Quinn’s ailment. In typical Quinn fashion, he couldn’t have anyone know that he was dying, so he got rid of the only two people who could reveal his secret).

    Veil’s demise had been foreshadowed ever since she told Sunny she was pregnant (Sunny warned her that the penalty was death, probably because he was a Clipper, and Clippers weren’t free men). Sunny also had a nightmare while he was at death’s door about Veil’s death. In addition, another Clipper (Moon) warned him of his own family’s murder, and that in their line of work, having loved ones was a liability.

    Okay, I get that. However what’s puzzling is why the show decided to dumb down the ultimate fighter, Sunny, and turned Quinn into someone harder to kill than the Terminator in order to make Veil’s death happen. Listen, I even have reservations on the show killing Quinn. I’ve been a fan of actor Martin Csokas for a long time. He chewed the scenery with his chilling, over the top delivery, so a new villain will have a hard time besting Martin’s characterization.

    Martin Csorkas as Quinn
    Martin Csokas as Quinn

    Both Sunny and Quinn took so much physical abuse that I wondered if they were robots instead of people. Sunny survived two explosions (one at The Widow’s compound, then when he entered Quinn’s underground lair, fighting off flaming arrows that pierced his shoulder blade and a leg). He’s also stabbed in the lower abdomen by a sai wielding Quinn, after he slices and dices his way deeper into Quinn’s underground hideout with Bajie’s help. To set up Veil’s demise, Sunny’s somehow unable to deliver a death blow throughout the battle with Quinn, even after missing the mark during the season one finale. This mars an otherwise terrific fight to the death sequence, where Martin Csokas (or his stunt double) more than holds his own against the Badland’s best clipper.

    Sunny delivers a blow that would’ve killed any other mortal. But Quinn takes a licking and keeps on ticking. The lighting and cinematography on this scene is gorgeous.

     

     

    I’m happy that Into the Badlands was renewed for a third season, but the heart of the show has just been ripped out and stomped on, imho.

  • E books,  Filmmaking

    If U can write a book, U can write a screenplay

    I’ll say that again. If you’re an author and you’ve written a book, you can write a screenplay, or a script.

    The skill set isn’t completely the same, but if you’re willing to put in the work and learn what it takes, then there’s no reason that one or more of your novels can’t be turned into a script.

    Instead of setting up a whole new site I’m going to split this one into two. One will be for the books I write, the other will be a page that branches off with copies of popular screenplays to give budding screenwriters examples to draw from (the scripts will not be housed on my site. For instance, the screenplay for Beasts of the Southern Wild can be found here:

    Direct link to PDF: http://screenplayexplorer.com/wp-content/scripts/BOTSW.pdf

     

    Screen Shot 2015-07-18 at 1.50.54 PM
    2013 Best Picture nominee Beasts of the Southern Wild featuring the youngest nominee for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Quvenzhané Wallis

     

    In addition, I’ll put up movie stills and film excerpts from my journey into independent filmmaking. It’s important that readers understand that I was already into filmmaking before I started writing and releasing books.

    But my ebooks were/are instrumental in acquiring the funds I needed for digital film equipment.

    I’ll also share my research on outlets to show independent productions. It’s best to start small and build an audience, and my first post will be on the variety of outlets now available to submit your work.

    Congrats to Taraji P. Henson and Director/producer Lee Daniels for Taraji’s Emmy nomination in the role of  Cookie Lyon:

     

    EMPIRE promo
    Taraji P. Henson, looking fierce and fabulous in a promo pic for the upcoming season of EMPIRE

     

  • Adult Novella,  Adult Novellas,  E books,  Historical fiction,  Historical womens fiction

    Hey Soul Sista

    My Wednesdays will never be the same now that EMPIRE is on hiatus until the fall. I’m so happy for Taraji P. Henson, as well as the other stars of the show.

     

    New Nightstalkers promo with Cookie resized
    Only Cookie can tame the supernaturals of NIGHTSTALKERS

     

    As I mentioned in a previous post, I need to get back to a few of my older novels in order to take them forward with their sequels. JUKEBOX II is also on that list:

    Simone of the 70s resized
    Simone Westwood goes solo during the 1970s, releasing her inner funk diva in JUKEBOX Volume II

     

    I’m going to include JUKEBOX One in the MARCH MADNESS deals that kick off this week:

     

    Edited-Promo-for-JUKEBOX-Ma