Quint – Genesis (book one)

A Corrupt, Desperate Body-Cop and Vengeful, Young Call Girl Chase Payback and Revenge in Post-Bioist New York City

Book Cover

Soon to be Available On Amazon Kindle and in Paperback

Summary:

A corrupt Body-Cop and seductive call girl chase payback and a billion dollar score in Post-Bioist New York

In the near future when cutting edge biotech renders human beings virtually disposable, Alain Murray, a desperate burnt-out hero of the Sterility War, makes ends meet as a Body-Cop cheating inner-city folks out of their government replant claims. When Kaishi Tai, a beautiful call girl, gets her arm blown off in a near fatal shooting, Murray considers it just another “dump” job until the seductive Kai persuades him to rip off the powerful corporate exec who set her up. Inadvertently exposing a deadly plot they now must blow town or step up to stop the catastrophic disaster he has planned. Out manned and out-gunned and with only a ragtag crew of sketchy war vets, street people and a cheeky smart-car, they take a stand to save the City.

REVIEW- Snowpiercer (a film by Joon Ho Bong)

From the opening montage setting the world in which you will spend the next mind bending 90 minutes, you get that frosty little tingling in the base of your seat that slices it’s way up your spine, crashing through the pan of your skull like a Kelvinesque sliver of ice…

Snowpiercer is a great ride!

Based on the 1982 French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, which was just released in the US in 2014, the story has been updated and bit and rendered in a way that sucks you in from the first frames.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a SciFi epic that focused on story and characters instead of glitzy special effects. Don’t get me wrong. Snowpiercer is beautiful; from it’s terrifying vision of a world gone cold to the dark and sometimes shocking interiors of the namesake train. This movie hits you in the guts and yanks them out on the tip of a molecularly sharp fire ax. In short; it forces you to engage your brain as you shit your pants on the rollercoaster.

Without giving too much away, we open with a short flashback on an attempted fix to global warming (oh don’t groan, no preaching. Just a set up) which has backfired sending the entire Earth into a global deep freeze (a la Snowball Earth) for the past 17 years. All life on the planet has died off except for this tiny microcosm; The Snowpiercer. An indestructible, titanium alloy, nuclear powered supertrain a mile long and rocketing around the entire Earth once per year to avoid freezing in place. Crammed onboard are humanity’s (and the planet’s) lucky survivors who managed to obtain a first class ticket or alternately, passage in the back end steerage section. Ripe for a class war to emerge.

Packed in the rear, like cattle, living in squalor and subject to Nazi like fascist military treatment from the “Fronters”, “Those From the Back” plot their coup to overthrow their oppressors and battle their way, car by car, to the “Engine” where they imagine, salvation and God awaits. The notion is clear as all great thought provoking SciFi should be, this is a metaphor about class struggle in the world, between the haves and the have-nots. Those that strive to bind and those that will shed their last drop of blood to break those bonds.

In this case the director has done a brilliant job to mash up the entire world into the a few cars of a speeding train. A horrific vision of all of humanity, represented here and like specimens in a petri dish, we are riveted and helpless to turn away as they bleed and evolve before our eyes…a “Mad Max” Darwinian social experiment with its finger smashed permanently on fast-forward reminiscent of the work of an early William Gibson.

Be warned, this is NOT just a mindless action film. There is a deep and profound theme and mystery entwined in the plot as Curtis (Chris Evans- Captain American), in one of his best performances, leads his group of rag-tag rebels on a hell bent mission to take the engine. And as each car is breeched… as each drop of blood spatters to the deck, new clues and new twists are encountered until final assault when all becomes startlingly clear.

I highly recommend Snowpiercer and hope you get a chance to see it in a theater packed with other people if only to enjoy the sighs and gasps of your fellow travelers in this visionary consensual hallucination. As of this writing it has been slated for only limited viewings in the US.

(Chris Evans, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer, Kang-Ho Song, Jamie Bell…)

MP

Mike Palma

Head Scribbler

ScreenPens, Ltd.

Alien – Imgur – You thought you knew everything about Alien

https://imgur.com/a/VWsI3

It’s been the seminal horror/ sci fi mashup film of all time and has stood the test for over 30 something years. Hundreds of films have ripped it off and tried to surpass it but Alien still beat them all. The creepy atmosphere, the "trucker" space jocks, the most frightening and nightmarish antagonistic creature in the last half of the century and the first half of this one.
Here on Imgur you’ll find the some of the backstage and pre production gems that have never been seem before. No more spoilers. Click on the link and ENJOY.

MP

Attention Filmmakers: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Want to Make Your Dreams Come True with ‘Project Greenlight’

What a great time for burgeoning scribes! Affleck and Damon take a break from saving the world to remember the little guys. Bravo Boys! We eagerly look forward to BOTH the winning film and of course the TV reality expose! I’m flushed like a schoolgirl and using too many !!!!!! Thanks Boys #projectgreenlight

Mike P
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID

Review: Third Person (a film by Paul Haggis)

I had the unique pleasure to attend a small intimate viewing of Paul Haggis’ new film, Third Person, this past Thursday night at the newly renovated Picture House Theater in Pelham NY. A quaint 500 something seat revitalization of a wonderful era past. The perfect place to view this film which works to recreate the thought provoking multi-plot film style of  the 1970’s; Hollywood’s last Golden Age. This is a favorite time of mine when maverick filmmakers like Scorsese, strove to break from the cliche ridden, mind numbing political (and sexual) correctness of the previous eras.

We, the audience, are the titular “Third Person” baring witness to this rich multi-plot narrative (similar to Haggis’ Academy Award winning Crash) which follows three intertwined stories subtly related to each other and which thematically explore the same ground; Infidelity. Infidelity in not just in the pedestrian sexual or marital terms we see in most commercial films but in the deep, gut wrenching, core foundation of all infidelities… The breaking of Human Trust.  The film probes the knife point question: What chance does love have without trust?

The  primary story line follows Michael (Liam Neeson)…

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