Hello folks! It’s time once again for the Weekend Wrap-Up, in which I blather on at length about whatever I’ve been writing, reading, and doing. It’s not really a complicated or a novel concept.

Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we?

What I’ve Been Writing

So, the story I was working on for most of February is a bust. Or rather, I don’t think it’s quite ripe yet, which is a shame because the anthology I was going to submit it to closes in 3 days. But I don’t want to crap something out just to submit it, so I’ve shelved the story for now — I still like the idea and the character I came up with, but it was still too nebulous after multiple attempts to write. Sometimes things just don’t work.

Instead, I’ve shifted my focus to an epistolary short story for a different anthology. Rather than simply using letters, I’m telling a contemporary story through posts on multiple social media sites. I’m excited about this one and have more of a solid idea than my previous, so I’m more optimistic about finishing this one on time. That said, the epistolary format, particularly written out as text, is really weird, and I’m not quite sure how to format it. I may send a query to them first to get a better idea.

Thinking about my writing goals for the year, I think October through December, instead of writing short stories, I’m going to do NaNoWriMo – October prepping for it, November doing it, and December finishing it if there’s anything left (there probably will be). Hopefully by then I’ll have completed around 9 or 10 short stories, and even if they aren’t accepted, I’ll be a strong writer and ready to dive into another long form project. It’s all about leveling up this year. Gotta get to the next plateau.

What I’ve Been Reading

Zeroes – Chuck Wendig

I finished Chuck Wendig’s Zeroes, which was a consistently fun ride from start to finish. There were some great surprises in store. I love how Chuck Wendig’s work is always marketed as fantasy and science-fiction, but deep down, it’s horror. There were some great creepy sequences involving AI and tech. I’m jealous of his creativity (and let’s be honest, his productivity).

Necrotech – K.C. Alexander

I’ve moved on to K.C. Alexander’s Necrotech. So far, it’s lean, mean fun. Sort of a cyberpunk noir-esque story about a mercenary who wakes up unsure how she got here, and realizing something has gone wrong with her crew. I’m still a bit early, but there’s already been a wonderfully horror-esque scene involving overclocking cybernetic enhancements.

The book so far sort of treats the tech like magic — in that in several fantasy books, completing a particularly powerful spell saps the caster’s energy and can result in health issues, the body breaking down, etc. And that’s what happens if you overclock your body in this world — the nanites you contain for enhancements try to compensate, but can eventually begin cannibalizing from your own body to help you. It’s a gruesome and very effective limit. I look forward to reading more.

What I’ve Been Watching

I watched quite a few things this past week. Before my D&D game for last Monday, I ended up rewatching Tombstone (one of my favorite movies of all time) because I’m playing a Kenku Gunslinger, and I wanted to lean into as many western cliches as I could, which lead me into watching Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead remake as well (which I also love, sans the gross, unnecessary, and extraneous pedophile/rape subplot, which…another post for another time, I think).

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

First up, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. I’ll admit, that I wasn’t quite as hyped to see this one as the first one that came out five years ago. Though, to be fair, I wasn’t excited to see that one at first either — that came from word of mouth from people saying, “No, I know it sounds dumb, ut it’s actually really good.”

This time, someone finally piqued my interest on Twitter by mentioning it addressed the weakness of the first film, in which Legos are still very much set up as a Boys Thing, and the incompetent male main character is rewarded with praise and accolades even though most of the work was actually done by the woman character.

As far as that aspect goes, I quite liked it. It plays with gender a little, although not quite as explicitly as I’d have preferred, and it also plays with narrative structure in fun ways. The conflict is both more complex and more simple than you’re led to believe, and the main plot I actually found pretty enjoyable.

The film consists of a dual dual narrative structure — I wouldn’t really call it an a and b plot because both seem to take up equal screen time — and the second story that gets intertwined with the first isn’t as compelling to me. It explores heroism and toxic masculinity in a way that squarely points at many of the very stories Chris Pratt himself has starred in of late, and while that was admirable and at times cleverly done, I also felt like it was fresher and handled better in The Lego Batman Movie.

In all, I felt like it was missing something, like a dish with good flavors, but not enough salt — it felt like it was just shy of really being something impressive. Still fun, poignant, and funny, but just a tad flat.

Tales from the Hood 2

In the same vein as The Lego Movie 2, after watching Tales from the Hood for the first time ever a couple weeks ago, I decided to check out the much belated sequel on Netflix. I knew it had come out to mixed reviews, but many of those on Amazon seemed mad that the movie was filled with racial justice themes which makes me wonder if those people even watched the first one.

I ultimately gave it 3 stars on Letterboxd because I really wanted to like it…but I just…kind of didn’t. It was comprised of 5 stories: “Good Golly,” “The Medium,” “Date Night,” “The Sacrifice,” and “Robo Hell,” which is the title given to the wrap around segments.

Breaking it down segment by segment, I liked “The Sacrifice” and “Robo Hell” the best, “Date Night” and “The Medium” were okay but lacking, and “Good Golly” was the weakest one, but probably the second most ambitious.

Overall, I feel like the movie was rushed, which feels odd to say because it took SO LONG to get the sequel made. “Good Golly” and “The Medium” felt the most like the original by tone and by subject, but both felt a little confused as far as what the point of the stories were. these are morally plays like The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt, but the actual point I felt got lost in favor of a narrative twist that didn’t fully jive with the message it seemed to be setting up for the rest of the segments.

“Date Night” was the most thematically clear, but was also really predictable. The exact same concept was already done in “Amateur Night” in V/H/S, and I hate to say it because those movies are pretty garbage, but I liked that one better.

“The Sacrifice” I think is the most ambitious, and the only one of the segments I would call really good. It doesn’t quite stick its landing for me as far as the resolution — there are some problematic readings with how the segment resolves the conflict — but overall, it’s enjoyable, well acted, well directed, well shot.

“Robo Hell” is predictable. In some ways, it feels like a callback to the doll segment in the first film with how it handles the white jail owner. it’s also basically Robocop, which isn’t a spoiler because it telegraphs what is going to happen well well in advance. This gets the highest marks from me because…well…I loved Keith David as Mr. Simms. he managed to channel a lot of the same energy as Clarence Willaims III from the first film, and I would love to see a Tales from the Hood 3 get made just so I can see more of Keith David’s take on the old undertaker horror host.

I also really wish, instead of a series of anthology movies, this could get picked up as a TV show. I would love to see what other filmmakers of color would produce — black filmmakers, obviously, but also Latinx.

Isn’t It Romantic

And last, but not least at all, Isn’t it Romantic is a romance genre spoof in which Rebel Wilson hits her head and wakes up in a romantic comedy in the vein of When Harry met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and Sweet Home Alabama. It’s directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, who also directed the horror spoof The Final Girls, and he was an excellent choice. I was a bit trepidatious walking into this one because it feels like most of the other films I’d seen Rebel Wilson in, she was continuing to play Fat Amy from the Pitch Perfect movies, plus I’d just been burned by actual romantic comedy What Men Want.

Thankfully, this movie is a ton of fun. It’s a very loving send up of the romantic comedy genre’s cliches of the past. It was amazing just how much it felt like this movie should’ve come out in the 90s or early 00s, and I say that in the best possible way. The tone was pitch perfect (no pun intended). The performances were fun and funny — Rebel Wilson does great and brings a softer performance than I’ve seen from her, Liam Hemsworth is charming and cute and funny, and everyone else plays their dual roles (real life vs. rom com) with aplomb.

A particular plus? NO FAT JOKES. I can’t recall a single joke made at the expense of Rebel Wilson’s size save one self-deprecating moment where she gestures at herself negatively, but that was in the pre-rom com bit, and it was about her overall timid, make-upless, over-accommodating self.

If you like rom coms, do go out and see this one. There’s musical numbers, kissing in the rain, and many of the other tropes you know and probably love, and all of it done with a warm wink and a grin.

What I’ve Been Doing

Beyond writing, I haven’t been doing much of late. We’re preparing to make some relatively big life and financial changes soon. I’m nervous, but excited, and I’ll talk about more once those go into full swing. For one thing, I plan to invest in another Chromebook — I had one a couple years ago, and loved it until it met a sad death under my wife’s foot.

I bought an HP Stream because i wanted the ability to install software on it, which was a huge mistake. It has so little memory, I can’t actually install anything on it without bogging down its processing speed, and it’s already so slow from windows 10 hogging all of its memory that it’s basically a paperweight. At the time, I was using yWriter to plot out my novel, but after winning NaNoWriMo in 2017, I got a discounted subscription to Dabble, and it’s been fantastic — browser based, syncs to cloud, and a more stripped down version of Scrivener or yWriter. Anyway, now that I use Google Drive or Dabble for the vast bulk of my writing, I don’t need something that can install regular software anymore.

We also watched a couple episodes of Marie Kondo’s show. It’s okay — it’s not as heartwarming as Queer Eye, so it hasn’t been something we’ve been clamoring to binge, but it did get us interested in going through our stuff to try to clear some things out. We significantly reduced our wardrobe, and I went through and purged some books as well. It speaks to how much stuff we have that it didn’t make a LOT of difference, but we plan to do another pass soon to try to reduce things a little further.

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And that’s the wrap up for this week. How has your week been? Done anything your proud of and want to share? Watched or read anything you want to chat about? Comment below! Or, if you’d prefer, you can drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter. I’d love to hear from y’all.

‘Til next time!