Death Rides A Horse

My favorite street art that I saw this year.  My all-time fave is either the Godzilla with the Pope hat or the monkey Jim Morrison. 

One Damned Day at Dawn

My favorite fumetti stand, in the Piazza della Repubblica.  As a teenager, I dreamed of a world where you could have pizza for lunch and dinner, buy comic books off the street, and watch spaghetti westerns all night.  As an adult, I found it.

Live from Phantoscope!

Me with Henrique Couto at the Phantoscope High School Film Festival in Richmond, Indiana.  I was there as a festival judge and Henrique was there as a speaker to mold young minds.  I have known him since he was an impressionable high school kid in Dayton, Ohio and he has had an interesting and eclectic body of work since then.

Mental Floss

Not sure why I was carrying these Post-Its in my wallet.

Eric-Con 2013

My brother Eric and I always try to do a day of gaming for his birthday (also my dog's birthday but she isn't as good with throwing a d20); I lost three out of four.

There Were Plants And Birds And Rocks And Things

A promise to hike on the first 60 degree day.

Low Rider

Brain food.

Between Dada and D'Amato

I must be real, I'm in a book called "Fervid Filmmaking!"  I am mentioned in the article about Sex Machine, a movie I co-wrote with Christopher Sharpe, reviewed in this tome featuring "cult pictures of vision, verve, and no self-restraint" (and I can attest that I have at least one of those).  This book does state that I am a novelist, so I wonder if they got me confused with the actual author John Dalton?

This is conspicuously sitting on my coffee table, in case you come by.  Until later I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Kindler, Gentler Machine Gun Hand

Check this out:

THE CINEDELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL presents

Sunday, April 14, 2013, 7:30 PM
ARMY OF WOLVES (2013) World Premiere

Deep behind enemy lines, a new war has begun  As the story goes, the Nazis turned to occult-based experiments during the waning years of WWII in an effort to thwart the Allied forces through unorthodox means.  The successful Lycanthropy Experiment was one such experiment, an attempt to breed an army of gun-toting werewolves, but the whole thing went horribly wrong as a group of American soldiers will soon discover.

Filmed amongst the rugged landscape of Central PA (Germania, Ansonia, and Morris to be precise) back in 2005 by the Polonias alongside frequent collaborator Jon McBride (WOODCHIPPER MASSACRE), additional footage has since been shot and the film has been re-edited into its current and final incarnation.  Filled with regional actors, strange visual effects, and inventive camera work (wolf-cam!), Army of Wolves is a real treat for low-budget horror fans and the cinematic adventurous.

If that doesn't appeal, you can still see me getting legit machine-gunned in the face in the trailer here.

This movie has been rattling around for a long time.  Check out some thoughts on it here.

Bookworms

So somehow I have read at least 50 books a year for the last five years and not burned the eyes out of my head.  Every year I pick a Top 10 favorite reads.  Below are the Top 10 for each year 2008-2012, reordered as a list of favorites from #1 to #50.  I might reorder them slightly if I were to do this again tomorrow but my top ten there are solid faves that either mean a lot to me or introduced me to new ideas or have stuck with me.  It's winter, read something!

Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

The City and The City by China Mieville

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon


 The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill

Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie


The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks
 
The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer



Up in the Air by Walter Kirn

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

 Embassytown by China Mieville

Easy Money by Jens Lapidus

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jessi Adler-Olsen

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline






The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe

Babylon Babies by Maurice G. Dantec

Missing by Karen Alvtegen


 Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
 
The Wandering Ghost by Martin Limon

The Wheat Field by Steve Thayer

 Real World by Natsuo Kirino

The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason

 Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

 Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

 Citizen Vince by Jess Walter

 Bossypants by Tina Fey
 
Blackmailer by George Alexrod

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Resolution by Robert B. Parker

Favorites Reads of 2012

I narrowly skated into keeping my promise of reading 50 books in 2012, but made it at the end thanks to a couple of snowbound days right after Christmas.  I had vowed to try to read a little smarter, and thus maybe a little slower, but I think I have a good top ten list favorite reads to show for it.  And here they are:

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt


The Dog Stars by Peter Heller


The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters


He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson


Easy Money by Jens Lapidus

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jessi Adler-Olsen

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Happy Reading and I am off to 2013 and hopefully 50 more.

Happy Holidays!

God bless the beasts and children.  And this dog.

October 23, 1987

After Nine Days, I Let the Horse Run Free

Do you remember that part in the book Interview with the Vampire (not the movie) when the vampire has to bury himself deep in the ground and then come up a couple of decades later as a new person after everybody he knew before forgot he was alive?  That is basically what I did in 2009.

I started a new day job career, but it was an excuse to stop screenwriting for a while.  Back in 2008 I saw the end of what was going on in DVD and thought I would take some time off to look at what the next model would be post-80s video store boom and post-90s DVD store boom.  Despite a few really interesting changes, like Netflix Streaming, I don't know that the new model is really there in the same way it was during those two crashing waves before (and may never be).

I really think the new future for the independent writer is the ebook.  With Kindles and Nooks flying off shelves and free/cheap downloads from Amazon by the pound it has that Wild West feel that the heady days of Direct-to-DVD did, when I was working on Among Us and before we were done shooting the distributor wanted four more. 

People are so starved for ebooks, the way they were for  my mockbusters like The DaVinci Curse, that writers are putting up all kinds of things and doing pretty well, or well enough.  Readers are willing to take chances on things they wouldn't normally, and all kinds of niches are springing up.  This, by the way, is how I built my fragile screenwriting career, in that long tail.

I have been afraid that if I wrote about this, however, I would have to do something about it, like many of my friends who also worked in the D2DVD market and then moved over (looking especially at Gary M. Lumpp, Scott Phillips, and Bill Cunningham) as well as some pals who published tree-killers but have a new life in the e-world (looking especially at Allan Guthrie).

I have been slowly, achingly, trying to write again after a couple of false starts, clawing myself up from the cold earth.  I have written an entirely screenplay over a long weekend, but my brain doesn't seem to be wired for other types of writing.  I am thinking if I write it here, somebody might hold my feet to the fire to keep going.  If I have any real updates, I will put them here.  I do have a title:  The Gun with the Blonde-Eyed Green.

Until later, I'm at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

#BWIFF2012

I just got back from my third great year at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival with probably the strongest field yet of screenings and lots of interaction with filmmakers--I believe 20 out of 32 films screened in competition had representatives there either IRL or through the magic of Skype.  I really loved the french film A.L.F. which was the unanimous choice for Best of Fest, but there was plenty of other stuff on my personal favorites list, including Quitter, Machinehead, Being Bradford Dillman, The Guy Who Lived In My Pool, The Hole, I Am Bad, Things I Don't Understand, and Future Inc.; and a couple of really solid documentaries, including Average Joe, Kinderblock 66, and 5 Days in Denver.

Powering Up at BWIFF

I've said it before, you will never go hungry in Palatine.  One of my favorite things besides watching hours and days of films and then talking about them with people is going to eat at great places in the area.  Number one for me is Billy's Pancake House where we host the annual Filmmakers Breakfast and I continue to winnow away at my twilight years by trying (and failing) each year to eat something called a Meat Skillet.  I also always stop at the 24 Hour donut shop Spunky Dunkers, where you expect you might see Raymond Chandler banging away on a typewriter on the last stool.  And this year we had dinner at a new place that looked like a set Robert Rodriguez could film a shootout in.

Whiskey-ites

Part of my enjoyment in going to film festivals is living my life vicariously through more talented people like Gary Lumpp, Michael Noens, and Steve Coulter, who I took my (I think) sixth annual photo with.  They look the same, I am getting fatter and balder.

#Shedpocalypse Rising

72 hours over 13 days, 15 boxes of nails and screws, 8 flats of shingles, 12 tubes of caulk, 4 cans of paint, 3 banged thumbs (all mine), 8 Band-Aids, 1,100 pounds of lumber, lots of water, a summer of record heat, and primary operations have been completed on my new shed/mancave.

Back on the Book Beat

The latest installment of "Book Beat," my long-running column for the magazine Pomp and Circumstantial Evidence, a part of the Magna Cum Murder Mystery Conference at Ball State University:

STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG BY KATE ATKINSON

A retired British policeman impulsively buys a child from a drug addict; a sometime private eye rescues a dog from an abusive man at a park; and an elderly actress struggles with dementia while co-starring on a hit detective show; how these stories cross, loop back, and fold in on each other forms the heart of Started Early, Took My Dog.

I picked this up on a whim based on the title alone, having never heard of Kate Atkinson.  I found a rewarding, complex mystery that may be one of my favorites of the year.

The story picks up threads of the notorious Manchester Ripper case of the 70s and reaches all the way to contemporary times, following the life arcs of many complicated, fully-realized characters, including tarnished cops and well-meaning criminals.  The diverse storylines, which include a humorous running background thread about a cheesy cop show, are very nicely tied up at the end.

Atkinson is a fine literary writer with all of the requisite beats for mystery fans.  Recommended. 

1222 BY ANNE HOLT

A terrible accident derails a train in a snowy Norwegian mountain pass, and the survivors--including a paralyzed former policewoman, a troubled teenager, a magnetic religious leader, and at least one killer--manage to make it to a ski lodge--where their real problems begin--in Anne Holt's thriller 1222.

Even though the novel has the locked-room trappings of an Agatha Christie novel 1222 is quite a crackling thriller, despite featuring an unusually dour protagonist (even by the high standards of the typically gloomy Scandinavian mystery) in the paralyzed, retired detective.

The storytelling is exceptional, ratcheting up the suspense as the reader learns about a mysterious passenger sequestered behind armed bodyguards, various political ramifications involving high levels in the Norwegian government, and an increasing body count.

Holt is apparently quite popular in her native Norway, and although this is one of the later novels in her series featuring the reluctant police detective I believe it is the first translated into English.  I hope to see more of this series.

WOLF TICKETS BY RAY BANKS

Two old friends--who bonded over shared sociopathic tendencies and various addiction problems-- find themselves chasing an old girlfriend who ran off with another man, a cache of drugs, and a prize leather jacket; soon things get worse, then worse again, in Ray Banks' Wolf Tickets.

I thoroughly enjoyed an early outing from Edinburgh noir author Banks, Dead Money, another very tough crime novel, so I was eager to pick this one up.  Once again this novel features two knockaround protagonists--although in this case with chapters in alternating voices--and a storyline that veers from sardonic humor to chilling spatters of violence.

The main drawback to Wolf Tickets is that at times I had a hard time delineating between the two voices; but this one also comes with a warning for the casual reader who is unprepared for various scenes of violence, torture, and abuse (of substances, other people, and The King's English).

This came to me from Blasted Heath, a highly admirable ebook publisher from across the pond who are putting out some crackling contemporary noir.  Recommended for fans of the hard-boiled.

RAYLAN BY ELMORE LEONARD

Federal marshal Raylan Givens takes on a variety of Kentucky criminals, from organ traffickers to corporate thieves to cold-blooded killers, in Elmore Leonard's Raylan.

Leonard's laconic, trigger-eager lawman has appeared in several earlier crime novels but has become more prominent since the FX television show Justified featured the character, in a solid portrayal by Timothy Olyphant.

Unfortunately I found the storytelling in this one more television-sized, picking up characters and situations from the show and sometimes riffing on them in different ways; but I felt Raylan never really creating a large enough stage for the characters, as one might hope for when freed from the constrictions of TV production.

That being said, it is a quick, enjoyable read and pretty solid for a late entry in Leonard's bibliography, which has run hot and cold in recent years.

Dawn of the Shed

So while I was goofing off in Italy the roof collapsed on my aged gardening shed.  I thought I would just order one from Lowe's and build it myself.  Shortly thereafter a truck pulled up with a little flat box that looked like the one I got when I built my daughter a kitchen playset when she was little.  Only this one weighed over 1,000 pounds.  2 hours of inventory in a 50+ page instruction booklet and then almost 25 hours of working through 9 boxes of nails in 90 degree heat and it's time for a good old-fashioned Amish shed-raising.  If I am still alive after I will post more pictures.

From Italy, with Gelato

Welcome back to Italy, the land of the shrug--maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe open, maybe closed, maybe electricity, maybe not, maybe the bus is running, if not go and have a nice plate of pasta and a glass of vino.  As you can see, they haven't cleaned up a lot since I was here last year.  This statue, in the Boboli Gardens, looks like something left over from Planet of the Apes.

The Good, the Bad, and the Nerdy

I spent a lot more time this year looking for fumetti on the streets of Rome and Florence; here is a very respectable stack of Tex comics, an inexplicably popular series that has run for more than 50 years about a Texas Ranger in the American Old West.  I bought several because they were easier to understand than some; even I know Tex shouldn't camp in Il Canyon Della Morte when there are mummies around.

You Say You Want A Revolution

I remained fascinated by the posters plastered around Rome.  This was my favorite last year, and this was my fave from this year; a poster for a Communist rally (who knew there were still Communists?) featuring a foxy young comrade yelling through a megaphone at, I think, Lou Dobbs.

From the Land of Sky-Blue Water

Rome has a reputation for healthful waters, and they pipe it out to you everywhere, as ubiquitous as a fresh plate of pasta (I recommend the carbonara, anywhere).  The fact that a fellow traveler observed a dog lapping from said fountain didn't diminish its sweet goodness.

I Wasn't That Uneasy

Polite Engrish in Rome.