Rami Ungar The Writer

The New Alex Cross Movie

Posted: July 12, 2012 in Living and Life
Tags: entertainment, films

I am one of many fans of the Alex Cross books by James Patterson, and I was super-excited to hear they were making a new movie based on Cross, one of the more famous books in the series (but not the first, believe it or not). But then there’s that age-old worry fans, writers, and just interested people in general will think about: will they do a faithful adaptation?

Well, looks like yes and no, based on the trailer that I just watched. Apparently in the film, Cross lives in Detroit instead of Washington DC, and our villian, Jim “The Butcher” Sullivan, has had his history and MO reworked quite a bit by the screenwriters. Plus it doesn’t seem Cross’s partner and best friend John Sampson is getting a big-screen translation (again!). However most of Alex’s family–his kids and his irrascible grandmother–will be making an appearance for once, along with Alex’s wife, and they’re a major part of who the character is.

Plus the usual explosions, gunfights, and deaths will be worked into the story, but then again it’s a movie, so what do you expect?

And will this new adaptation be any good, let alone better than the previous Alex Cross films, Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider. I guess we’ll have to wait till October to see if Tyler Perry can top Morgan Freeman in the role, and if the filmmakers of this century can top the filmmakers of the last century. In the meantime, check out the trailer below.

What Not To Do When Making A Horror Movie

Posted: July 11, 2012 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
Tags: entertainment, films

Alright, so last night I thought I’d celebrate “Aasif” getting published by watching a scary movie (if you have no idea what I just said, please head to the last post). What movie did I watch? Candyman, a horror film involving a guy with a hook who appears when you call his name Bloody Mary-style. Did I enjoy it? Not really; there were so many things just wrong with it. This has led me to this post, where I will go over things from the point-of-views of both a fan of horror and a writer of horror and say what I think you should do when you’re making a horror film.

So, for those readers not really interested in horror, so very sorry that this post isn’t aimed at your interests. For those of you who are fans of horror, please take notes and let me know if I missed anything, so that i can do a follow-up post if necessary. Alright, on we go. Here’s some things you should avoid if you’re making a horror film:

1. Don’t go crazy on the sequels: Yes, I know I’ve already had time to complain about the nauseating amount of sequels out there these days, but horror movies are the worst offenders, and as the number of the films gets higher, the quality of the films get lower, which is why most of these films end up becoming direct-to-DVD after a while. Seriously, after a few films, you gotta know when to stop. After all, movies aren’t like novels; you can only pack so much into an hour-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hour show, especially if you’re doing a slasher, where it’s heavily reliant on blood and guts to scare your audience and less about character development.

2. Make it believable: I once read an interview in which a fantasy writer was asked what makes a good setting. His answer (and I’m paraphrasing a bit): “You have to make it believable. You can’t write a story and say, ‘I’m going to have a world where everyone has guns but nobody uses them’. It just doesn’t make sense.” The same can be said of just about anything in storytelling: make it believable. That’s what’ll keep people interested in your work. Otherwise you’ll have a lousy time at the box office. A good example of this is Priest, which came out last year if I remember right. The problem was, if your species is being eradicated by a bunch of monsters, you wouldn’t put the monsters on reservations, would you? I don’t think so, and that’s why the movie failed.

Another example is the movie Leprechaun, whose titular character was too comical to be scary (and I still have no idea why there was five sequels). That was a major reason why that movie was panned by critics. And Candyman also had some trouble in the scary villain department. Our killer ghost looks like a well-dressed African-American man in nice clothes, so even with the hook on his arm he doesn’t seem all that intimidating. It’s only until you see what’s underneath his clothes that you start to get why he’s a monster, but you’re still not scared. Honestly, would it have killed the filmmakers to give him some scary contact lenses to accentuate his ghostliness? Even better, make his face swollen and covered in honey, because after all he died by bee sting.

3. Motive: This goes back to the “make it believable” thing, and was something I thought a lot about while watching Candyman last night. Our villain seems preoccupied with making sure people fear him. Why? That’s not explained very well. I I were the ghost of a man who was murdered by racists who cut off my arm and caused a hive of bees to attack me, I’d be more into getting revenge…on anyone I can get my hands on. Yet Candyman still wants people to recognize him. Okay, but what’s the purpose of that?

Point of the story is, make sure you have a motive that people can understand, and if you don’t, explain it, or do what Prometheus did and make it so that even if you don’t know the motive, it doesn’t matter, there’s other stuff going on right now.

4. Know what your audience has come to see: This was my biggest problem with the remake of Friday the 13th. We all went to that film to see Jason tear up the screen anew. What we got was more like a bunch of hypersexualized co-eds parading around naked while a serial killer watched and picked them off every few minutes. Yes, the Friday the 13th films are famous for their sexiness, but that’s supposed to be an added bonus, not the main attraction. What we come for is to get scared. If the filmmakers had focused more on building tension and making the deaths more dramatic and less time on filming bare-breasted girls, I think we’d hear me rant less on this film.

5. Recycling is bad: Boy, that sounds bad out of context. However it’s important to keep coming up with new stuff. You can’t expect people to be satisfied with the old chase-and-kill scenario twelve times in each film. You’ve got to make each film unique so that the moviegoers can gush about an individual scene afterwards. Take Scream 2 for example: there was that moment where Sidney and her best friend were trapped in a police car with an unconscious Ghostface and the only way out was to crawl over him. That scene scared the heck out of me! That’s why the second film in that series was better than the first. However, the filmmakers didn’t seem to do that four films 3 and 4, and that’s why I don’t like those films.

So don’t recycle. And if you have to, try to make it look like it’s not.

6. It’s not about the kill, it’s how you film it: Too many times have I seen a character attacked and murdered and not been freaked. Why? Because the lead-up to it and the way it was filmed wasn’t terrifying in the least! There are brilliant scenes in movies like Final Destination and The Woman in Black that you didn’t know was going to happen until it happened, and that’s what made them scary. This can also be applied to just building up for a small scare, such as in the Paranormal Activity films. If you study those films and see what they did, you can scare so much more easily.

Otherwise, you may make a film like some others I know where everybody’s like, “Oh, she’s gonna get it, it’s coming soon…she’s dead. Oh well.”

That’s all I have for now. Got any other ideas? Let me know, I’ll write another post on this subject.

Aasif: Getting Published In September

Posted: July 10, 2012 in Progress Report, short story
Tags: Kony 2012, writing

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, another one of mine is getting published! Oh my god, so happy right now! The illustrious magazine Mobius, which deals with literature involving/revolving around social change, has decided to publish a short story I sent them, and it’ll be coming out in their fall edition in September (I’ll do a post then when it comes out).

“Aasif” was inspired by the Kony 2012 video, which I’ve covered before on Rami Ungar the Writer. I thought about doing a story involving child soldiers and the warlords who force them into killing, and then I started writing. What resulted was “Aasif”, and I’m so happy it’s getting published.

If you want to visit the website for Mobius, maybe see if you have anything that matches their criteria, the link’s below. Gotta go, I’m dancing in my kitchen.

http://mobiusmagazine.com/

Understanding Psychopathy A Little Better

Posted: July 9, 2012 in Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: books, Snake, writing

I decided that I wanted to do a little studying of psychopaths, since I’m writing a novel involving serial killer. I heard about a book by journalist Jon Ronson called “The Psychopath Test” and decided to take a look at it. I learned a lot (but I won’t be doing a review of it for my own reasons):

For instance, while “psychopath” and “sociopath” are practically interchangeable terms, “psychopaths” and “serial killers” aren’t, which I think some people believe. Serial killers may suffer from any of a hole host of mental disorders besides psychopathy (bipolar, delusions, schizophrenia, psychosis, etc), or they may just be motivated by the usual suspects for committing crimes: greed, anger, or for a thrill. Psychopaths are individuals who are unable to feel emotions, probably due to a problem in their amygdala.

I also learned a few things about diagnosing psychopaths, including checklists used to identify psychopaths (which, if you should get your hands on one, you should not use thinking it’s a wonder tool for diagnosing killers; only trained professionals can really make use of those checklists, and usually in tandem with several other tools, including history of violence, interviews with patients, and several other factors. It still didn’t stop me from trying to diagnose real and fictional people, though). And the theory of psychopaths as some of the top people on Wall Street and in major corporations was explored, with some very interesting conclusions.

So, how does this relate to Snake? Well, I can say this much; my serial killer is not a psychopath (though another character certainly is!). However, he probably is suffering from another mental disorder, and I have no idea what it could be, so I’ll have to check it out once I find somebody who can give me an idea of what a profiler might think of my character based on just his murders. If you know anyone like that who could help, please don’t hesitate to tell me.

Serious Humor

Posted: July 8, 2012 in Reflections, Writing
Tags: writing

With a title like that, you know you wanna read this post.

Alright, after sufficient time to geek out over Anne Rice coming onto my blog and giving me a major boost in stats (see last post), I got down to reading a volume about a Japanese comic book that I liked. The series, Bakuman, is about two teens who team up to write Japanese comic books together. It’s very unique and lots of fun to read (especially since it’s a look into a very different industry than writing), but occasionally they teach me something about my own work. Like last night, for example:

In the comic book, the main characters were discussing with their editor about how to deliver humor in a serious comic book that isn’t delivered in an annoying or off-putting way. They called it “serious humor”, and during the course of the comic book the creators of Bakuman took many oppurtunities just to illustrate their point. There was one instance when they were discussing a change in the editorial department and how it was a very big change for many characters. Serious, right? But the way they illustrated the characters’ reactions was hilarious, and it didn’t detract from the work at all.

Pretty soon I started noticing this “serious humor” in some other works I read. James Patterson, in his Alex Cross novels, has had points where the characters said something that was dead serious, but it was delivered in such a funny way. Heck, even something Alex does or observes, while serious to him, is delivered in funny ways, and yet the reader is not put-off by it at all! Instead, the work is enhanced in a way.

And then I remembered, in the fifth chapter of my work-in-progress Snake, one of the characters says something and while he’s being serious, I’m cracking up while writing it. It’s funny that I wrote that the same day I read a comic book that explores the subject.

Conclusion: serious humor is not something easily tapped into, and it’s not something you calculate either. I guess you can say that you put it in when the time is right, that it just comes to you and you go with it. At least, that’s how I find it.

All for now. Oh, and I highly recommend Bakuman, it’s very interesting. Available in hard-copy and e-book format.

Thank You, Anne Rice!!!!

Posted: July 8, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report
Tags: review, writing

Okay, so you guys know how on Thursday I wrote a review of Anne Rice’s new book “The Wolf Gift” and compared her work to food (I know, it sounds corny when I say it like that, but just bare with me)? Well, later that day I sent Anne Rice a letter in an email, telling her how much I enjoyed the book. I also included a link to the review, in case she ever got bored.

Not only did Anne Rice go to Rami Ungar the Writer, which is something extraordianry in itself and worthy of celebration, but hse posted a link to the review on her Facebook page (ironic, considering I wrote an article on how people’s opinions of Facebook vary, and how I prefer my blog to Facebook). Within an hour, I had nearly 400 views! At first I thought my stats counter was broken! And then I realized what had happened. The next few hours was a huge high, with me going “Holy crap” and “Oh my God” over and over and over.

To all those who visited, thank you so very much for reading; having you there reading what I write means so much to me. To the Lord Above, You are always there when I achieve something great. Thanks for always being around.

And to Ms. Anne Rice, to whom this is all owed to, if you come back to my blog and read this, I just want to let you know I cannot express my gratitude in words. To be recognized by one such as you, whom I admire and have loved for years…it’s a true honor, in every sense of the word.

Of course, I won’t be able to know if you’ve been reading this post, so just to make sure you know how grateful I am, I’ll send you another letter tomorrow.

And after that, I won’t send anything else lest I look like a stalker (something we should all want to avoid).

Once again, thanks to everyone involved. You light up my life in so many ways, just by coming on and reading a post or two.

Review: Marvel’s The Avengers

Posted: July 6, 2012 in Review
Tags: entertainment, films, review

The poster for the Avengers movie.

As I said in the last post, I saw this last night and I thought I’d write a review of it as the third entry in my summer movie review series. However I’m pressed for time so I’ll keep it brief (hope that’s okay with everyone).

In this latest edition to the Marvel Cinematics Universe, we have the heroes of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor, plus a few new guys, getting together to fight Thor’s evil brother Loki, who’s allied himself with some monsters with a really hard name to pronounce and a minor resemblance to the Xenomorphs and Predators. The plot of this film, like the other ones, seems rather formulaic–meet guy with personal problems/flaws, guy has life-changing experience, guy realizes who he can become, guy confronts enemies, guy takes a break for various reasons from fighting evil–and yet I still find myself impressed and thrilled by the action of it all. Not too mention that they really did some great CGI effects on Hulk and Iron Man.

My one major complaint is that while I was promised there’d be some conflict between the characters involving Captain America and Tony Stark, plus Bruce Banner’s problems with the Hulk. I just didn’t see enough of that. I really thought the former two would have a shouting match that would devolve into a fist fight. There was none of that. Just a little trade of sentences. Where was the conflict exactly with the coming from two different worlds? And I thought Banner seemed to have too much control over Hulk. I mean seriously, you need to startle Banner with the Hulk to bring out the Hulk? Really? And what’s with the “I’m always angry” bit? If you were always angry, you’d always be big and green! Imagine having to find a car that matched your wacky melanin and fit your size!

I’d rate this film with a 3.6 out of 5, for–although impressive–being formulaic, having monsters look like Xenomorphs and Predators, and not showing the conflict I was promised.

Oh, and for those of you wondering what films are in this summer film review series of mine, let me tell you: Men In Black III (seen it), Prometheus (seen it), The Avengers (just reviewed it), Rock of Ages (gotta see it), The Amazing Spider-Man (just came out), Ted (still in theatres, last I checked), and The Dark Knight Rises (sitting on my hands till it comes out).

The Sequel Problem

Posted: July 6, 2012 in Reflections
Tags: entertainment, films

I was watching Marvel’s The Avengers last night (review to come after this post), and I started thinking about how sequels have become such a part of the movie industry. Every horror and sci-fi movie is made with the possibility that there will be a sequel should the film be successful. It seemed that once upon a time, filmmakers made a film just hoping people would like it and see it. Now, it’s all about “how much money can we make off of this, especially if we make another film or seven?” Heck, when Bridesmaids came out and Kristen Wiig said she didn’t want to do a sequel, filmmakers called her “ungrateful”, while the rest of the world applauded her for not making the same mistake as the makers of The Hangover! You see how bad it is!

Some of the worst culprits are horror movies, which always seem to have a part 2 or 3 or 67. Of course there are dramas and comedies that make a few sequels, typically just two for a nice little trilogy, but thankfully the number of movies that do this are small. And of course, you got your action films like The Expendables which get sequels because the filmmakers are banking on making money off the big names in the film.

Of course, I do believe there are some films that should get sequels. Movies that are based on book series such as Harry Potter or The Hunger Games make great franchises, and as long as they don’t change too much, shove too much in, or don’t divide too many books into two separate films, people will mostly stay happy. Other films are good enough that a sequel is warranted, such as The Matrix or Star Wars. And a few just bring delight, no matter who watches them (I’m thinking kiddie films like Shrek, Madagascar and Alvin and the Chipmunks).

However, there are several film series that should never have had sequels, and I can name a reason or two for each of them. I’d rather not, so I’ll just leave you with this: is it more important to make a film that people will enjoy, or a film that will generate lots of capital and sequels that will bring even more capital? You tell me.

Review: “The Wolf Gift” by Anne Rice

Posted: July 5, 2012 in Review
Tags: entertainment, review

The cover of Anne Rice’s “The Wolf Gift”.

You know, it just doesn’t seem right to do a review of an Anne Rice novel without mentioning in the title that it was written by her, and there’s good reason for that: Anne Rice is a wonderful writer, a woman whose evolution from her early works to her latest writing can be seen by even people who are not well-versed in the study of literature. If I were to try to classify Anne Rice’s writing, I’d call it sophisticated horror, and that depending on what work you are reading, you can compare her work to some sort of food or drink: The Vampire Chronicles are, most appropriately, red wine; Lives of the Mayfair Witches could be an aged, sweet port; The Mummy as a leafy salad; Servant of the Bones as a French bread; and Songs of the Seraphim as a dairy dessert. I’m sorry, I just had lunch, can you tell?

So what does The Wolf Gift taste like? Probably a white wine meant for right before bed. It is an amazing work of fiction, and shows just how Anne Rice’s style has acclimatized to the Information and Technology age. From the point of view of reporter Reuben Golding, we see how he becomes a werewolf–or Man Wolf, as he prefers, and Morphenkind, as his species in the novel is referred to as a whole–and how his new abilities include an instinct to hunt down those whom we consider evil (rapists, murderers, etc.) just by scent. Along the way, Reuben must figure out how to interact with his family after his change, the question of whether he is good or evil, abomination or divinely blessed, and unravel the mysteries surrounding the house he lives in, where he is bitten, and what it all has to do with Morphenkind in general.

Although the book doesn’t have a central primary antagonist (two antagonists do appear throughout the story though; a werewolf who has “lost his way”, which is not what you’re thinking, and two Russian scientists with sinister goals), the obstacle that all the main characters must face is whether they are good or evil, and what it means to be given the Wolf Gift, and how it places them in the grand scheme of things.

One of the unique aspects of Anne Rice’s latest novel is that instead of looking at things from a supernatural/magical point of view as she usually does, she instead looks at the werewolves and their abilities from a scientific perspective, using that to explain the forensic conundrums of werewolf DNA and the passing-on of the wolf gift and how exactly it works on the body’s structure, endocrine system, and DNA.

If I had to discuss the main theme of “The Wolf Gift”, I would say it is purpose, whether it be individual, moral, or cosmic purpose.

I give this latest masterpiece by the woman who basically created the sexy vampire, a 4.4 out of 5, for outstanding plot, character development, and philosophical questions explored. If there’s ever a movie adaptation, I would love to write the script for it.

All for now, I think I’ll write Ms. Rice a fan letter (I do that for every new book of hers I read; she’s the only author I know that has an email address for her fan mail).

What I imagine the werewolves in “The Wolf Gift” to look like. Very scary, but actually very nice if you get to talk to them, and I mean that in either form.

Snake Prologue: First Draft Done

Posted: July 4, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: Snake, writing

I know thrillers are supposed to have short chapters but I never expected it to be this simple to finish! I mean, it’s just the prologue, and it’s only four chapters, but it still seemed to fly by. No wonder people like James Patterson can get several novels published in a year, averaging 1 novel per series they write in: they have the time of day to spend on several different projects!

Anyway, the first draft of the prologue of Snake is done. It seemed to flow through my fingers onto the keyboard, I tell ya, and I enjoyed writing it (though writing out the torture scene so as to arouse terror in a possible reader was difficult, I’ll admit). Overall, the entire prologue was 15 Microsoft Word pages, a little over 4,000 words, and the average amount of time it took to write a chapter was maybe an hour to an hour and forty-five minutes.

If you want to read a little of Snake, you can head back to about two days ago, where I printed a small excerpt from the first chapter. Warning, there are bad words in it, so if you object to such things, I suggest you ignore this final paragraph. Once again, happy 4th of July!