Entertainment

The copyright issue that we need to watch…

/ Lark Anderson / Leave a comment

I am encouraging EVERY writer, artist, and creative type to head on over to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website and read Alan Dean Foster’s claims against Disney. Not only is it BONKERS if true, which I have no reason to believe it isn’t, but it has to potential to affect every single one of us.

If you see the hashtag #DisneyMustPay trending, this is the reason why. Read it from the source below because details are so often butchered when reading regurgitated accounts.

Click HERE or below:

#DisneyMustPay Alan Dean Foster

Romance & Quarantine

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By Lark Anderson
April 20, 2020

Hello Friends!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. I’ve just been so busy with projects and clients that I haven’t had the time.

But suddenly, with the covid-19 crisis, my schedule has cleared. Hooray???

I hope everyone is doing well and remaining safe during this difficult time. My heart goes out to anyone who has experienced loss, whether it be a job or a loved one.

During my social distancing, I’ve also been diving into some books. Right now, I’m reading Death in Neverland by Isadora Brown, and after that, I’m going to pick up a grimdark fantasy, then I’ll return to romance again.

Another thing I hope to do is update my blog more and give shout outs to the books and authors that I love!!!

So, stay tuned! I’ll have new content coming soon.

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Don’t F**k With Cats

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By Lark Anderson
February 11, 2020

True Crime Docuseries

CAUTION: SPOILERS EVERYWHERE

Don’t F**k With Cats(DFWC) came on my radar after watching an episode of Command Zone on YouTube(it was their recommendation). I don’t think I would have considered watching it otherwise, but it was worth the time.

DFWC is a true crime docuseries showing internet sleuths investigating and identifying a cat torturer. 

I’m going to start by saying, it is very well done, but I can’t necessarily recommend it to the masses. It will affect some people negatively, and it’s not worth the bad feels it ignites in some cases. I’ve watched horror movies since I was a child, and even I didn’t really want to see some scenes.

That being said, there is a lot to learn from the true crime docuseries, and I think it would be useful as a teaching tool for some lines of work.

It starts with a woman who goes online under an alter ego and finds a video of a man murdering kittens. Outrage ensues, and a vigilante group forms thereafter, pitchforks are grabbed. 

Now, this group grows huge rather quickly and encompasses many different types of people. I’ll put them into two distinct categories: 
1. The emotional investigators.
2. The analytical investigators.

Because I’ve done fraud investigations, skip tracing, and business analytics, I identify more with the second group. The data analytics portion is the best part of the series. I know what it’s like to track down shady people. There’s a thrill involved.

And I’m not overly emotional. I’m not a pitchfork grabber. I wouldn’t harass anyone online other than a snarky comment usually meant to be good-natured, especially because in the logical portion of my brain, I know it could impede an investigation. I would gather evidence, try to get access to more information, and report it to the police.

That is NOT what happened, and the first group really fucked up. They harassed a man that seemed to have issues but didn’t commit the crime, and low and behold, he committed suicide.

The level of rage I felt during that moment of the show validated how I feel about many online communities—which is not good. It’s easy to harass with anonymity in today’s internet world.

But there are fucking consequences.

After the death, the group splits, and honestly, it should have split sooner.

They eventually receive the name of the pet torturer, but even with a name, it’s wasn’t easy to catch him. Especially because he’s a globe trotter—you’ll have to watch to get more details on this.  

Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity throughout the situation is that they didn’t play on the guy’s vanity. If I were investigating, I would have enlisted a producer to assist me with offering him a position on a reality show or something. Have someone famous go online and be like, ‘Who is this guy? We think he’d be perfect for whatever fake reality show we’re filming?’ He wanted to be famous. BAIT HIM! You can even pretend to be a producer yourself.

I’m no necessarily criticizing as much as I’m putting on my ‘investigator’ hat and anticipating what may have caught him sooner.

Back to the show. Eventually, the animal torturer moves on to humans, which he had threatened to do, and a video is posted of him killing a man bound to a bed. There is a puppy in the video, and this is where things get weird.

There’s a female detective on the case, and eventually, the video is shown to her. She goes through how she watched the death and the murderer messing with a dismembered head of the man. At that point in the film, the murderer focuses on the dog, and the investigator is like, I just couldn’t watch at that point.

So, you watch a man being killed, dismembered(not sure if that is on camera), and the murderer playing with a decapitated head, but you had to turn it off when the puppy came on screen? As unfunny as what happened is, I had to almost laugh. WOW!

I’m not going to spoil the rest, so if you want to know anything more, you’ll have to watch. I tend to be very picky with what I watch, and I consider this a good investment of my time.

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Watchmen Theory

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By Lark Anderson
December 20, 2019

Dystopian, Action, Drama

CAUTION: SPOILERS EVERYWHERE

THEORY: Dr. Manhattan was never about love when he took on the job of domestic god—it just so happened to go in that direction. Let me explain.

It’s about a week after the Watchmen television series created by Damon Lindelof and based on work by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons concluded on HBO, and I’ve had time to digest it a bit. I think I know exactly why Dr. Manhattan returned to Earth, and no, it wasn’t for love.

First, let’s do a brief rundown of the season. I will not be describing all the relations and interactions between the characters, just a very basic review, as this is meant for people who have watched the entire season.

Watchmen opens with a scene of the Tulsa massacre, which happened nearly 100 years ago. A boy survives.

Present day, we see the state of the country far different from not only that of our real world but the world Watchmen left us with in its conclusion. We aren’t concerned with the cold war as much as we are tension within the structure of our society. Anger is everywhere, with no clear resolution.

Enter the Seventh Kavalry, a white supremacist group that had been laying low for a couple of years after basically taking out almost the ENTIRE police department in an event called the White Night. They have a plan brewing, and this is where I’m just going to jump to the end because this is all the setup you need.

The Seventh Kavalry plans on stealing Dr. Manhattan’s powers and bestowing them to a complete asshat.

In steps the AMAZING Lady Trieu(Hong Chau) who has her own plans for stealing Dr. Manhattan’s powers and taking them for herself.

Lady Trieu is the BEST part of Watchmen for me. Holy shit, I love this woman. I want more Lady Trieu, and it’s entirely possible we can get more of her in future seasons.

So, we have two opposing factions wanting to steal Dr. Manhattan’s powers. How are they going to accomplish this? It doesn’t matter. All that matters in this article is what actually happens with Dr. Manhattan and the intent of it all.

So, we find out that Dr. Manhattan has been disguised as Calvin Abar(Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), househusband to Angela(Regina King), the entirety of the series. We are made to believe he approaches her for love and to spend ten years with her before tragedy strikes. The whole tone of it is very romantic, and we see them spending years happily together.

But when Dr. Manhattan approached Angela, he was really just looking for a successor, and he can see every outcome, or rather the puppet strings attached to each of their lives. He knew Angela would be his best option.

So, he was looking for a worthy ‘heir’ to his powers. He knew he would demise, perhaps he wanted to, and he knew he could pass his powers on. It’s clear he wasn’t done with humanity yet, and so he wanted to leave his powers to someone he believed could truly better humanity.

I can’t say what his exact qualifiers were, but one can assume it was because she didn’t crave power, she clearly was a good person, and she hated Dr. Manhattan because she blamed him for the demise of her parents. I believe her hatred probably served as her best qualifier because she knew more than most what misuse or abuse of power can cost someone.

He also knew her future, the life she would lead, and how she would take in a coworker’s three children after his death. He knew that even when she almost died for being a police officer, she would not give up her badge.

Angela is better suited for Dr. Manhattan’s powers than Dr. Manhattan is himself because frankly, she gives a shit.

Dr. Manhattan, or rather Jonathan Osterman, was a scientist before being imbibed with superpowers. Angela was a police officer. Jonathan was thrust into being a hero. Angela was a hero before powers passed to her.

And, unknown to her, her grandfather was one of the world’s original masked heroes, being the boy that survived the massacre.

I’m not trying to argue that Dr. Manhattan didn’t love Angela. All I’m saying is the reason he sought her out was to gain an heir. He didn’t love her until their last hour together, and what happens thereafter is HEARTBREAKING, but he got his wish, and his powers are now with someone who could truly make a difference and help humanity.

Shout out to: Jeremy Irons(Ozymandias), Don Johnson(Chief Judd), Time Blake Nelson(Looking Glass), and Jean Smart(Agent Blake) for being amazing in their roles.

And WTF ever happened with Lubeman?

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So….Yeah, I Write a Sitcom…

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By Lark Anderson
December 13, 2019

Me, sitcom writer…

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been working with producers to develop a sitcom. It’s been an exciting time for me, and while I’d love to share more information, I simply can’t at this time.

I will tell you this—it will make you laugh your ass off!

No matter what happens with it, I will come out of this experience a winner, because even if it eventually gets passed over by all the networks, I’ve made a lot of good connections, and I’ve had a lot of fun.

I’ve had some people ask me how I came across this opportunity. It was a culmination of several different things going on in my life. The people I was working with, the free time I had available, and blurting out an idea that the ‘right’ person just so happened to hear.

For the last couple of years, I’ve worked with many different people doing a variety of things. Basically, I’m a ‘project manager’ for my clients, beta reading, making corrections, lining up ARC reviews, doing ads, etc. Doing the little things people hate doing.

I’ve developed a great reputation due to the speed and quality of my work. These two things are incredibly important in the entertainment industry. I’ve also been told I’m easy to work with. I don’t upcharge if my clients go back and make significant revisions. I put all my efforts into positioning my clients for success, and it shows.

Now, I’m not saying others shouldn’t upcharge. People deserve to get paid for their work, but if I had to guess why someone would choose to work with me over others, I’d say it could be because they took this into consideration, but those aren’t my only good qualities.

I also make people laugh, whether it’s intentional or not. I’m not scared to point out my own flaws. I think outside the box. And I’m not afraid to try new things.

So, that’s my main project right now. I’ll be giving updates here and there, and I hope people like it as much as I like writing it.

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Knives Out

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By Lark Anderson
December 11, 2019

Rated PG-13 / 130 minutes
Crime, Mystery, Thriller

CAUTION!!! MILD SPOILERS

I went into Knives Out, hoping it would be in the same vein as one of the BEST murder mysteries ever produced—Clue.

Clue…it is not, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun, well-acted, and worthy of praise. It is directed by Rian Johnson, who also did The Last Jedi(which I HATED). Maybe murder mystery is more Rian’s calling?

If I had to compare it to any other movie, it would be Murder on the Orient Express based on a novel by Agatha Christie. (This is not due to how it ends as much as it is the way the story is told).

The movie begins with what appears to be an obvious suicide of Harlan Thrombey, and while I don’t want to go into HUGE spoiler territory, there is much more to this suicide than what meets the eye, and this is only discovered when Benoit Blanc(Daniel Craig) is anonymously hired to work the case.

The entire family is suspected of murder, and all appear to have motive. Benoit decides to investigate with the assistance of Harlan’s nurse, Marta(Ana de Armas)—who has her own motives to hide.

Look, I’m not going to spoil this for you. The movie is great, but it’s not worth seeing if you already know the killer and what happened. So you’re not getting any more of the plot out of me.

The Good:

The movie throughout is incredibly well acted. Don Johnson offers a standout performance, but Chris Evans is also unexpectedly good! I have never watched him outside of Avengers, and I didn’t expect to like his acting, but it was great.

The Bad:

The film relies on puking as a ‘human lie detector,’ and I just wish they had worked the truth telling angle differently.

Overall:

If you liked Murder on the Orient Express, you’ll like Knives Out as well. Now, stop looking up spoilers and go see it.

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