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Keanu Goes to the Devil

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Keanu Goes to the Devil

I’ve mentioned the movie “Constantine” tangentially while discussing comic book movies and some other topics that occupied me back a few years ago.  This 2005 movie stars Keanu Reeves as a Los Angeles based exorcist and general enemy of demonic forces.  He’s a sort of angsty noir character who is angry at heaven since he is doomed to hell because he attempted suicide as a teenager over the horror he experienced as a psychic.

The movie follows a “logic” about the rules in place for angels and demons that makes absolutely no sense but allows for the plot devices that move the story along its arc.  And much of the action is plodding and mechanical.  And yet I find myself watching this turkey (or parts of it) over and over again.  Why?

Well, the two aspects of the movie that stand out in my head are two very different things.  The first item is the visualization of Hell.  You could say this is just a special effects technique but it really is a rich imagining of the underworld.  The idea of Hell as our own world but turned into a burned-out husk makes for a vivid background.  And then the demons as these mutilated corpses with the tops of their heads sheared off is bizarrely fitting.

But the second item is, I think, the more compelling.  It is the representation of Lucifer during his arrival to harvest the soul of Constantine.  As promised in the country song, the devil wears a white suit.  As played by Peter Stormare, Lucifer is a witty, amiable fellow who enjoys chatting with his old acquaintance Constantine prior to bringing him back to Hell where he claims he has “a whole theme park full of red delights” for Constantine to “enjoy.”  He even helps Constantine light his cigarette when the exorcist can’t manage his lighter because of the cut finger tendons incurred when he slit his own wrists in order to summon up Lucifer.  Of course, the devil can’t help pulling the flame away two or three times just for fun.  It’s this pettiness and banality that adds interest to the part.  It’s contrasted with the menace that shows through whenever Lucifer’s plans are challenged either by demon, angel or divine law itself.  But it’s the human face of evil that makes Lucifer compelling.  His vindictiveness, cruelty and pride show up as the proof that angels, devils and man are all creations of the same maker.  We all have the same stamp.  We’ve been given free will and we can use it to reach a higher ground or fall off the mountain.

So that’s why I guess I enjoy watching this silly movie (or at least parts of it).  Not for the absurd plot or the goofy take on Christian theology as it relates to Hell.  I guess I just like to think about Satan being this provincial, bureaucratic apparatchik fighting with humans and God to protect his turf and cause as much mischief as he can.  It just seems to fit what I’ve seen of human nature.  At least some of it.

Solo Mio (2026) – A Movie Review

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Kevin James is best known as the star of the long-running tv comedy series “King of Queens” where he is a modern-day Ralph Kramden working as a delivery driver for a UPS type company.  In that role he was a very funny everyman with a sassy wife and with Jerry Stiller as his deranged basement dwelling father-in-law.  Suffice it to say I’ve always found Kevin James a talented comedian.

So, Camera Girl came to me awhile ago telling me that Kevin James was in a movie called Solo Mio where he was a groom left at the altar by his runaway bride.  I must confess that this didn’t sound particularly hilarious but as a date movie for the two of us as fans of the star it seemed plausible.  But we somehow never got to the theater and I soon forgot all about it.

Fast forward to today and Camera Girl was at the local library and by a coincidence they had just gotten a DVD of Solo Mio, so home it came and we made some good coffee and cut into a pie and watched it.  Well, what do you know?  We enjoyed it.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

The plot is goofy.  James is an American 4th grade art teacher named Matt Taylor.  In the opening scene we see him propose to a fellow teacher named Heather in the classroom and next we find Matt at the altar of a church in Rome where he will marry Heather and celebrate a deluxe honeymoon in Italy.  But she leaves him at the altar leaving only her engagement ring and a Dear John letter.

The rest of the film is Matt trying to contact Heather by phone to beg her to reconsider.  But because he couldn’t cancel the honeymoon he is travelling around Rome and Tuscany with a group of honeymoon couples visiting romantic Italian locales as a tourist.  And it is with this group that he meets Julian and Neil, two new husbands whose brides are very much present but who are neglected while their husbands rally round Matt trying to force him to accept the loss of Heather and move forward with his life.

Their distinctly dysfunctional advice and help manage to make Matt even more miserable but with the help of some locals (including a sympathetic Italian woman named Gia who owns a small restaurant) Matt begins to make sense of his capsized life.  Eventually Matt finds a new love (of course) and all is well.

Other than James none of the main actors are well-known (at least to me) but the opera singer Andrea Bocelli has a small part as a fictional version of himself.  But this is not a star-driven film.  It is a small romantic comedy that manages to bring a smile to your face and even a few small laughs.  It isn’t too sappy so as to embarrass a man in the audience but it doesn’t hurt to have your wife or girlfriend there to justify your presence as a man at such a non-conventional film.  But I will openly admit that I definitely enjoyed the movie.  Recommended for couples and fans of Kevin James.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 12MAY2026 – Good Stories for the Movies

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Interesting thought what would make good Sci-fi/Fantasy Movies. Previously much of sci-fi and fantasy was off limits as the settings (and other races) were unachievable at any price. Movies like the Avengers pictures, Project Hail Mary, Lord of the Rings and the recent Dune show that the capability is there (although at a steep price in some cases.
Some I can think of are:

Lensman series: Start with Galactic Patrol, tweak SOME of the characters (e.g. make C. MacDougall a full blown doctor instead of a nurse). The No Female Lensman will be a hard sell (with one exception) but I think it has to stay. At one point J Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame was looking at this in the early 2010’s but I think the rights expired

Zelanzy’s Amber Series. Nine Princes in Amber starts as a noir pulp mystery and then goes weird. Casting will be hard, the initial movie shouldn’t be too hard/expensive, though, as we move through things, the movie cost goes up. Do it right, and it will be no problem

Heinlein The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, No aliens, mostly indoor shooting, a rogue AI this actually might be a cheap one and done right would be a stunner.

Connie Willis To Say Nothing of the Dog . Again mostly indoor shoots and outdoor in some equivalent to the River Thames River C. 1890. Get all the Victorian costumes from the BBC for a few pence. A comedy, a time travel story, a mystery, rescuing an extinct species, and some romances rolled all into one. It’d make a great date movie. Again, I think casting will be critical, people are going to have to really sell their roles and the number of modern actors who do that well are limited.

Matt Dinniman Dungeon Crawler Carl series: I just ran into this. It is a riot about how Earth and its populace get turned into a reality show of a dungeon. all the fantasy animals will be a bear and having a magically enhanced Persian cat as a main character may present issues, but again, limited sets, and this will draw the male/gamer audience back to the theater (and their Dates may just enjoy themselves in the process)

Any other thoughts on these (or others)?

More Movie Talk

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So, I had some fun re-imagining “THEM!” as a 2026 sci-fi reboot.  Alright what’s next?  Well, John Carpenter beat me to the punch with “The Thing.”  That was a reboot that in many people’s minds outdid the original (“The Thing from Another World”).  But a whole bunch of classic sci-fi movies have already been redone (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars, War of the Worlds).  So maybe we don’t need another reboot.

As I said in my discussion of Weir’s “Project Hail Mary,” what we really need are new movies.  Sure, they’re mostly just variations on the million science fiction stories that are already written but even small differences can freshen up old ideas.  Instead of any more trash from the Star Wars industry why not give us some pulp?  Burroughs or Doc Smith or Howard.  Those stories were made to be put on the big screen (or the smaller one in my living room).  And I read where they’re working on bringing back Schwarzenegger as an older Conan.  That would be perfect.  A beat-up old Arnold playing a beat-up old Conan with the right writer and the right director could be the perfect swan song for him and a wonderful treat for us if they abandon all the woke crap and let Conan be the barbarian he’s meant to be.

And if we digress into fantasy, I wish they’d try again to make a movie or a series out of the Dresden Files.  Jim Butcher’s series of books are some of the most entertaining and filmable stories in urban fantasy.  Of course, I wish they’d start by doing justice to Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter series first.  With the combination of interesting characters, vivid monsters and high caliber weaponry they would make a very exciting series of movies.  But I suppose instead we’ll get more nonsense like “The Rings of Power.”

But of course, what’s really needed by both the larger movie audience and the film-makers’ bottom line is a cable series based on Jake Barter’s “The Sniper.”  The combination of economically but vividly drawn characters and remarkable plotting make this story the most cinematically perfect vehicle for a studio to reap the harvest of multi-billion-dollar profits.  Joseph Boghadair is an iconic figure and the many fascinating sub-plots and characters will spawn a whole series of sequels and spin-offs that will explore the multi-faceted world that the author is creating.  New technologies and industries are waiting for Paul Connors’ empire to recover from the ravages of war and reap the benefits of the new political situation that Bogey’s “war” has created.  And the political changes that will sweep across North America will change life on the whole planet as better ways for humans to cooperate and socialize and organize themselves politically emerge.

I am toying with the idea of including some short stories in this “world” I’ve built and putting those out next as a short-term addition to the saga.  That will allow me to push off in several directions at once before I commit to any one story for the next novel.  Well, that’s enough for now.

Giant Ant Suspension of Disbelief

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War Pig mentioned the rumor that there is a studio remaking “THEM!.”  My reaction is an unqualified, Yeah!  But I immediately thought to myself, “Hey wait a minute.  This isn’t 1954, it’s 2026!  What about the illogic of an insect fifteen feet long weighing thousands of pounds, breathing by passive diffusion of oxygen through spiracles?  And how about the other unscalable aspects of its anatomy and physiology like weight and strength of exoskeleton vs. the thick bones found in large land animals like rhinos and elephants.”

Sure, I’m being a spoil sport.  If we want giant ants living in the sewers of Los Angles we should get them.  And look how timely it would be.  Imagine a nighttime forage of giant ants finding it’s way to a homeless encampment just by smell alone.  Now, there is the danger that this could be considered cruelty to animals.  And most homeless could be considered poisoned bait.  After all, if an ant ate one of these denizens of the City of Angels might it not die from a fentanyl overdose?  I mean, that’s not really fair, is it?  The ant is just doing what millions of years of evolution (plus a century of radioactive fallout) has taught him.  It’s not his fault that Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom have put these temptations in his way.  To him they’re just appetizers.

So, maybe there should be some hand-waving and exposition to provide an infodump to explain how rapid evolution adapted the giant ants so that they now have an internal skeleton and an efficient circulatory system but somehow have preserved the external appearance of an ant.  And here’s where AI can come in handy.  In order to have the necessary gravitas to sell the audience on this cockamamie science of giant ant biology we will need Santa Claus.  We will need an electronic avatar of Edmund Gwenn to play Dr. Harold Medford.  He alone can walk us through super 8 film clips of ants.  However, we can recast the part of Dr. Patricia Medford.  For this part I would recommend Sydney Sweeney as she possesses unique personal assets which will not lend her scientific gravitas but which will boost the movie’s financial bottom line significantly.

All in all, I think a remake of ‘Them!” could be an enormous hit.  I think to make it more topical; it would make sense to recruit Donald Trump to play himself as the President who employs all the massive resources of the US military to combat these deadly and terrifying creatures.  Perhaps we can shift the anti-nuclear message of the movie if we show how nuclear weapons can be used for good.  Perhaps the outbreak in Los Angeles proves too far advanced and a decision must be made by Trump to nuke LA.  It can be stressed that almost all of the human population escapes (maybe only Bass and Newsom are being held hostage by the ants).  And so nuclear weapons become not only the cause of the problem but also the solution!  Then we can have Santa Claus and the hot chick give that speech where they talk about opening a door into a new world where anything is possible, even giant crickets in the inevitable sequel.

Rebooting Heinlein’s Starship Troopers

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I was watching a video where it discussed sci-fi movies that were going to have a sequel or reboot made soon.  And one of those movies was Starship Troopers.  Now the video spun the fact that the original 1997 motion picture lost money as a case of mistaken identity.  If you saw that movie you know that the director wasn’t faithful to the spirit of Heinlein’s book.  In fact, he used the movie to satirize the Heinlein plot as a story of fascism gone wild.  Paul Verhoeven used all the avenues available to him to paint the government in Heinlein’s novel as basically a nazi-like regime.  He even dressed the military officers in what looked like nazi uniforms.

And according to the narrator of the video the movie failed because audiences mistook the satire Verhoeven produced for actual approval of fascism.  Now I tend to believe that the movie failed because fans of Heinlein’s book read reviews that told them that the movie was a criticism of Heinlein’s story and not an honest presentation of the themes of the novel and stayed home.  This would seem to be a more reasonable explanation for such a popular book failing to attract its audience to the movie.

Now, the video debated whether the director who is supposedly making the new movie would copy Verhoeven’s lead and make the new movie a satire or would instead follow the book’s interpretation of the story.  I guess the guy making this video is hoping for a satire that clearly explains ahead of time that it is mocking Heinlein’s story.  This seems a wildly absurd idea.  If the original satire lost many millions of dollars, who would think it was a safe bet to try the same strategy again and expect a different result?

Now I can’t claim to know whether thirty years later there still exists a large enough audience of Heinlein fans to make a faithful screen adaptation of Starship Troopers a big success.  His original fans have aged pretty radically.  And the later generations are hardly the kind of people who would espouse a world view that requires military service as a perquisite for the right to vote.  So, I wouldn’t see any reboot of Starship Troopers as a guaranteed box office success.

But by the same token if it was made with state-of-the-art special effects and gave us an exciting glimpse of what interstellar warfare might look like, I wouldn’t be shocked if it was extremely popular.  There have been several very popular science fiction war movies in the last ten years and the special effects were very good in some of them and made the movies spectacular to watch.  If you take that technical capability and add a sympathetic hero and his journey through the military experience, I could see young and old viewers enjoying it.

Honestly, I’m not even sure this reboot is going to be made.  Hollywood has lost a lot of money in the last five years and I’m sure they’re getting nervous about big budget science fiction movies.  But I guess I’m secretly hoping someone will do Starship Troopers right, the way Heinlein wrote it.  Fingers crossed.

Project Hail Mary Box Office Update: $616,588,738

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Well, it’s official, Project Hail Mary is a moneymaker for Amazon.  The info says it cost $200 million to produce.  Even if they spent another $100 million to advertise (which they wouldn’t have to because, of course, they’re Amazon!) that still puts them in the black.  And this is all in advance of what they’ll make streaming the movie on their own platform after the end of the theatrical run.

Box Office Data

Well, well, well.  So people will go to the movies if you give them something that isn’t woke slop.  If you give them entertaining story telling they’ll pay you money to watch it.  Shocking.  Wake up Disney.  Amazon is eating your lunch, you fools.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler – Some Observations on the Book

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So, I had so much fun comparing the book and movie for “The Thin Man” that I to read Chandler’s “The Big Sleep” so that I could compare it to its movie too.  And once again I’m reading it from the Library of America edition that I already have.  The book came out in 1939 and the movie in 1946.  The pre-war and post war difference probably is significant.  But we’ll just leave that alone.

And let me state for the record that this review is full of spoilers.

First off, I’ll state for the record that although I’ve always enjoyed the movie immensely, I found the book much more interesting and satisfying as a story.  The biggest difference between the book and movie is the characterization of the Sternwood daughters Vivian and Carmen.  In the movie the role of Vivian is a mostly sympathetic character who becomes the love interest for the Marlowe character.  But in the book, she is almost as reckless as her unbalanced sister Carmen.  And whereas in the movie Carmen is an exhibitionistic spoiled woman-child in the book she is truly psychotic.

And allowing the Sternwood daughters to be pathological individuals they are, simplifies the details of the story that in the movie have to be sanitized in order to fit the Hays Code.  So, we can be told that Geiger’s “book store” lent out pornography to its customers and Carmen was being photographed naked by Geiger at the time when the Sternwood chauffer came in and killed Geiger and stole the exposed film of Carmen.  And so on with other parts of the story that don’t make sense in the movie because the seediness of the plot elements prevented their being openly stated instead of subtly implied.  So, we don’t have an explicit statement that Eddie Mars is not only aware of Geiger’s racket but also uses it to blackmail customers.

But the biggest difference between the two versions of the story is the disappearance of Rusty Regan (called Sean Regan in the film).  At the end of the movie Eddie Mars claims he saw Carmen kill Regan.  But because Mars didn’t even know what Carmen looked like Marlowe seems to reject this version of the facts.  This leads the audience to believe that Mars had Regan killed by Canino out of jealousy over Mars’ wife’s relationship with Regan.  But in the movie Marlowe suspects Carmen of the murder and he tests the theory.  After he had rejected Carmen’s sexual advances one night, the next day he tests her sanity.  He returns her pistol and tells her it’s loaded and she asks for him to teach her how to shoot.  After leading Marlowe to a secluded location, she uses the opportunity and angrily fires all six shots at him.  Of course, he had the gun loaded with blanks and after disarming her she goes into an epileptic fit.  And after bringing Carmen back to the house to receive medical attention Marlowe tells Vivian that he knows that Carmen must have murdered her husband after a similar refusal by Regan to sleep with her.  And Vivian admits to the truth of the killing.

I find this a much more satisfactory ending.  We’ve been shown the Sternwoods as a very sinister and dysfunctional clan and the idea that Vivian is somehow a sympathetic or admirable individual despite all the evidence to the contrary just rings false.  Chandler’s story is a grim tale that lacks the happy ending of the Hollywood movie that pairs Bogart and Bacall as a romantic couple.  But it’s a better ending and in my opinion much more satisfying.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett – Some Observations on the Book

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Someone my age or older if he is familiar with Hammett’s story, “The Thin Man” probably has only seen the 1934 film with William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles.  And as I’ve reviewed elsewhere, it is a fantastically entertaining movie made up of equal parts comedy and murder mystery.

I have a copy of the Library of America volumes for Dashiell Hammett and for whatever reason this past week I decided to read the short novel that the movie is based on.  And to start with I’ll say I wasn’t disappointed.  It’s a good story and well written to entertain the reader with vivid characterizations and plenty to keep your interest piqued.  But one thing it isn’t is a blueprint for the movie.  So, I thought it would be interesting to just give my impressions on how the book and movie differ and then to say which version was more satisfying.

The first piece of bookkeeping is the suitability for general audiences.  Now the film was pre-code meaning that strict censorship of risqué images, language and themes was not yet being enforced in Hollywood.  But even saying that, the film version of the story would today be rated (at worst) PG-13 due to violent circumstances in the plot.  But in reality, a G rating would not be a terrible stretch.  Several of the characters were criminals and murder and other crimes are the focus of the story but everything was handled in a sanitized portrayal.  The book however leans heavily into the seedier aspects of several of the characters’ lifestyles.  There is allusion to sexual activity and the violence that is portrayed is much more graphic than in the movie version.  And as an example of an unusual bit of reality one character is compared to a lesbian in her “hatred of men.”

And as far as the characterization of some of the more important people in the story, the two grown children of the eponymous “Thin Man,” Dorothy and Gilbert Wynant are described as at the very least highly neurotic and very possibly dangerously disturbed due to the terrible parenting of their mother Mimi.  And this differs significantly from Dorothy’s character in the movie where she is portrayed very sympathetically.  And as one of the main characters Mimi is definitely portrayed as a much worse person in the book than in the film.  In the movie she’s a greedy, manipulative woman but in the book she’s close to a psychopath.  She brutalizes her daughter for almost no reason and she lies pathologically at every turn.  At one point she becomes so angry at Dorothy that she goes into a sort of blind fury as she tries to get at her while Nick restrains her by main force.  She is easily the ugliest character in the book.

As far as the characterization of Nick and Nora Charles, one thing that agreed in both versions is that they both drank hard liquor almost continuously both day and night.  Now in the movie it almost seemed to be a joke.  But in the book, it was just their routine.  I guess allowances would have to be made for the prohibition era mores and customs but to a modern reader it is very noticeable.  As far as their personalities they come off slightly harder edged than Powell and Loy’s remarkably affable screen personae.  Nick especially is quite willing to get tough with both men and women who get in his face.  At one point he has to stop Mimi from assaulting her daughter by lifting her off the ground and pinning her arms while holding her down on a couch while someone throws water in her face to calm her down.  In the final scene he becomes angry at the police Lieutenant Guild for not seeing that Wynant was the murdered man and knocks out MacCaulay as much out of anger as to stop him.  And in general, both Nick and Nora are not as “nice” as their screen versions.

The book characterizes most of Nick’s friends in upper crust New York City as morally compromised while his underworld acquaintances come off as “good fellas” if a little on the rough side.

Evaluating overall the contrast between the book and movie, what we have is a gritty detective story versus a film that is basically a light-hearted comedy as much as it is a murder mystery.  And considering the audiences that each of these stories were aimed at both are highly successful in their entertainment value.  The book was aimed at adults, probably particularly men.  The movie was a family entertainment with some double entendres thrown in for the adults.  But I think the short novel is well worth reading and I only wish he had written more stories for Nick and Nora.  The screen sequels never measured up to the original film but I’m sure Hammett could have provided more gritty adventures for his Nick and Nora.

Keeping My Options Open

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One of my oldest friends has been advising me on the possibility of making a film treatment out of my book and sending it to Hollywood to become the next “Project Hail Mary.”  What immediately came to my mind was Hollywood taking the story and making the evil president, Donald Trump and making Bogey a leftist trans-woman.  Yikes!

But what was surprising is that there is actually an AI capable of taking my story and converting it directly into a film treatment.  And it has an enormous capability to annotate the details necessary for actually filming the thing.  There are notes on casting each of the characters (appearance, age, personality, voice), locations, special effects, visual effects, weapons, special personnel (e.g., armorer), special equipment, weapons, etc.

And then it used the dialog from the book and adapted it for the screen; shortened and elided from it to bring the screen time into a realistic movie length.

Now I haven’t finished going through this document but so far what I’ve seen seems very interesting.  It’s basically my book.  And that’s exciting.  I was assuming the story would be too long for a movie without very serious pruning of scenes that I’m attached to.  But we’ll see.

Now, I’m aware that Hollywood doesn’t make movies from books that don’t sell millions of copies.  They’re looking for a built-in fan base for their product.  So, no studio in their right minds would take a chance on spending potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on an unknown story.  But it’s always fun to dream about these things.

And that brings me to Andy Weir’s story.  He self-published “The Martian” on Amazon and only eventually got a book deal when he had already built up an audience for it on his own.  And now he has two hit movies made from his books.  Think about that.  Someone who couldn’t get a publishing contract ends up with a smash hit movie that everyone in Hollywood probably hates because it has a white guy as its hero and he doesn’t have the usual diversity cast to allow the movie to be an Oscar contender.  They broke all of Hollywood’s rules to make this movie by not having a girl-boss as the hero surrounded by the usual multi-cultural struggle session ensemble.  It just brings tears to my eyes.

Chances are I won’t be duplicating Weir’s experience.  My book is not an uplifting tale of human endeavor.  Mine is a tale of revenge and destruction.  I openly attack the Left and my heroes are identifiable people on the Right.  So, no.  I won’t be getting a Hollywood deal.  Ever!

But despite all that I’m excited about what is now happening in Hollywood.  The Ellisons bought Paramount and have now shut down the travesty that was Star Trek – Star Fleet Academy.  They’re buying Warner Brothers and they’ll probably shut down the people making terrible stuff like “Supergirl” that’s coming out soon.  And now we see Amazon/MGM making stuff like “Project Hail Mary (PHM).”  That’s a pretty good chunk of Hollywood already.  And with PHM looking like it’s going to break the $600 million mark and become a big moneymaker, even places like Netflix and Disney will say to themselves, “Hey, why can’t we get into some of that “normal film-making” that those other guys are doing and make money for a change?  Let’s call that photog guy and get an option on, “The Sniper” before the Ellisons scoop it up.”

Or something like that!