Film – Timothy Johnson

December 12, 2023May 31, 2024

2023 Year-End Wrap-Up and Glance Forward

This year was a bit slow on the publishing front, but I did have two short stories get out there in the world. The first was a post-apocalyptic tale about unlimited power over finite resources, good intentions, and robots, appearing in Haven Speculative’s June issue. Read “Touch of Ruin” here.

The second is a more personal story about grief, loss, and brotherhood, and it won the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival Short Story contest in September. This was a bit of a milestone for me, and I was touched and honored the story won the contest. Read “A Winter Bloom” here.

Aside from those two publications, this year has been another one chock full of rejection. So it goes, right, Kurt? However, I did finish my next novel, titled American Spirits, and I’m seeking representation for this one. If you know any agents who might be interested, send them my way.

My Favorite stories of 2023

This time of year, I see a lot of favorite lists getting passed around, and I thought it was high time to do that myself. After all, I’m nothing if not a fan of other storytellers’ work.

March 10, 2023March 10, 2023

What It Means that HBO’s The Last of Us Is Good

Book-to-film adaptations can be hit or miss, but it seems like a rule that video-game-to-film adaptations are always bad. Good and bad in any artform are, of course, matters of taste, but there’s a persistent, nagging sentiment in popular media that, when filmmakers consider a video game adaptation, they take its success and built-in fan adoration for granted. Producers wield more power than actual talented filmmakers and writers, and the whole affair leans further into entertainment for entertainment’s sake, because the popular sentiment of video games is still driven by people who think Mario and Luigi saving Princess Peach from Bowser’s clutches is the standard in video game storytelling.

(Relevant note: The plot of the forthcoming Mario adaptation is that Mario and Peach are trying to save Luigi from Bowser this time.)

I consider myself a little weird as a fiction writer with some academic decoration, because I am a life-long gamer. We’re not as weird as you’d think, it turns out, but in many literary circles, video games are still considered anathema to good storytelling. I think, considering some of the truly great writing and storytelling I’ve experienced through video games in my life, that’s tragic. The literary world is warming up to TV and films as legitimate mediums for good writing, but video games are still viewed as a medium for children despite the average age of a gamer being 33, and their artistic validity beyond their use of art as resources is still questioned.

(Sure, this is an old post, and Ebert is a bit of a punching bag on the subject, but it’s illustrative of the argument, which I’d argue is flawed because the distinctions he made aren’t independently exclusive, but that’s not what this post is about.)

This year, HBO released a series adapting a video game called The Last of Us, which was developed by video game studio Naughty Dog. I played that game in 2013, and it not only redefined for me what good storytelling is in video games, but it also demonstrated a new potential for immersive storytelling experiences that only video games can provide: in this way, I felt The Last of Us offered new justification not only for the validity of video games as art but that we should consider video games a new artform in their own right.

I can’t overstate the profound effect this game had on me as a storyteller, and it isn’t a game that made me want to make games. It’s a game that made me want to tell better stories, and I think that’s important: the influence The Last of Us had on me transcends the medium.

I can’t think of a better definition for art.

September 14, 2022September 26, 2022

Predator, Prey, Feminism, and You

Predator is one of my favorite films (and Arnie’s best, IMO). With Prey releasing this year, it’s getting roped in with the “woke-ism” (or whatever) conversation as forcing feminism. However, one of the reasons why Predator is exceptional is because it’s a feminist film.

Yup, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during the height of the American action film, made a feminist film.

(FYI, spoilers for both films below.)

April 13, 2019February 17, 2023

Under New Management, The Walking Dead Shambles On

I haven’t written about The Walking Dead for a while. I haven’t felt like it’s been worth writing about for a while. But now that it’s under new management and a major cast member has exited the show, I was interested to see where the series stands after nine seasons, an eternity on network television.

(Coincidentally, this ended up being 3,600 words, an eternity on the Internet, so if you don’t feel like reading that and want to leave right now, I really can’t blame you. I wrote it, though, so I’m posting it, dammit!)

November 4, 2018June 11, 2019

Thor: Ragnarok, A Review In Questions

I grew up reading comic books and was firmly in the Marvel camp, more specifically with the X-Men.

For the last couple years, I haven’t watched any Marvel movies (save for the X-Men movies, but they’re in their own bubble universe). It wasn’t for lack of desire. I just missed them at the theater, and then I missed them at home, and before I knew it, I was like seven movies behind. I wasn’t going to jump back in with the latest at that point, and the new ones kept coming out.

So the lady and I have been catching up, and we finally got to Thor: Ragnarok. I liked it. It was fun. Trouble is I feel like the filmmakers did everything they could to not make a Thor movie while making a Thor movie. I don’t think they were subtle about this (there is no other reason for them to cut Thor’s hair than for it to be symbolic).

January 12, 2018January 12, 2018

Ranking Marvel’s Netflix Series

I recently caught up on all of Marvel’s Netflix series, and I found myself compelled to compare them to each other. It makes sense. Following the formula set by the Avengers film sequence, each superhero has his or her dedicated series, and then in 2017, they came together to form The Defenders.

First a note: All but one of these series have only produced one season, so things could change. The creators could right the ship or sink it. I don’t expect my rankings will change too much, considering these first seasons will always exist, but crazier things have happened. Also, this is all spoiler-free, so if you haven’t seen all of them yet, never fear.

Here’s where I see them standing, worst to best.

Continue reading “Ranking Marvel’s Netflix Series”

January 3, 2018June 11, 2019

The Last Jedi Reaction

I saw The Last Jedi a couple weeks ago, and like most of you, I hrmph’d out of the movie theater, feeling an immediate need to reflect upon what I’d just seen. For those first 24 hours, I experienced strong emotional waffling as seemingly warring factions in my brain attempted to win out. I expected this tension would continue to evolve, but it didn’t really. I think both of my minds are right.

I’ve decided The Last Jedi is a really good Star Wars film in its own right, but in context of the series and its surrounding culture, it’s mediocre and even harmful.

This is less a review and more a reaction. That said, I spoil the hell out of the film because I found it really unsatisfying to discuss my points in general terms, which leads me to my first point [final spoiler warning].

August 6, 2017June 11, 2019

The Dark Tower Is … *sigh … Solidly Okay

I just got back from seeing The Dark Tower. I’m a stewer. When I see a film, I generally can’t talk about it immediately afterward. I have to let it stew in my mind awhile. When my wife asked me what I thought about it, I found I had fairly instant thoughts on where the film succeeds and where it fails.

[This review is spoiler-free, by the way.]

It’s been years since I read the books, and to be honest, I have a love-hate relationship with them. I love the core story, what Stephen King was trying to do, but ultimately, I think the series is flawed in several major ways. So I was eager to see a reimagining that wasn’t a strict adaptation. I was excited to see a story using those core elements without having to conform to the original narrative.

That’s what we have with the film, and if you want to read more about my thoughts on all of that, click here.

The reason I bring this up is to give you a point of reference on my expectations. I take no issue with the film deviating from the source material. In fact, I welcome it. And all of that stuff, the faithfulness, the adherence to the original story, let’s pack that up and set it aside for now. Let’s just talk about The Dark Tower film as a film on its own.

I enjoyed it. Ultimately, though, I’m disappointed.

July 31, 2017June 11, 2019

Why I’m Excited for the Dark Tower Film (And Why I Understand If You Aren’t)

The Dark Tower film adaptation comes out this Friday, and while there’s a general buzz about a cool-looking film where Idris Elba plays some kind of cowboy knight from some kind of ethereal realm and Matthew McConaughey plays some kind of wizard with creepy fingernails, and there’s, like, gunslinger kung fu (gun-fu?) and stuff, excitement among fans of the novel series appears mixed.

It has all the makings of a summer blockbuster, and it has Stephen King’s name attached to boot (which arguably is a liability in some circles). But there’s this nagging baggage it seems to be lugging around.

If you haven’t read the series, you probably have a friend who has. Go ask them where they sit on this one, and you’ll probably get a moderately animated shrug, which is weird, especially for a franchise of this magnitude and prestige.

So what’s the deal?

(Minor spoilers for the book series below, but if you haven’t read it by this point, I don’t think you’ll mind. Either way, proceed at your own risk.)

May 29, 2017June 11, 2019

In Defense of Passengers

Last night, I watched Passengers, the film starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence whose characters wake up far too early on a colonial spaceship that’s en route to a new planet. I think it’s a film that certainly has its flaws but is ultimately worth a viewing for any fan of character-driven science-fiction. It’s a film that, given a fair shake, deserves attention for some solid storytelling and acting. But critics panned it.

With such an interesting premise and two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, you might think it was a solid bet. So what happened?

It’s conjecture, and a film’s failure and success is contingent on innumerable factors, but I think Passengers is another film where the critics got it wrong. What’s more, the film sufficiently and specifically addresses the most substantial problems in the second half, which makes me wonder if the critics who panned it checked out after a major development in the first half in which a character does something utterly, morally repugnant, something that is a huge risk in the realm of storytelling, something good stories have to do to be memorable and effective.

Spoiler alert

I spoil the hell out of the film below, so if you haven’t seen it and plan to, you may want to wait to read this until you do. But before you go, the bottom line is Passengers is a wonderful film, and you should watch it. If you’re interested, don’t be like me and let the critics dissuade you.