A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com I've moved our fourth Monday Book-To-Movie (BTM) again, this time to this 5th Monday of October due to the overloaded schedule of the Halloween season. But, so you can get a groovy Halloween post, I made sure to give it to you before October passes us unlike I did with September’s BTM )! A story by the early 20th century British author, M.R. James, such as "Casting the Runes" probably won't ring a death toll bell as does Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher”. And unless you’re a big watcher of b-rated movies like me, not even the 1957 movie adaptation of “Casting”, "Curse of the Demon", will even ring much of a bell. Yet both short story and movie are made really good. One of the biggest changes made to the story for the movie is that the monster is actually shown while, yet, not taking too much away from the suspense of the original short story.  The Short Story: 'Casting the Runes' "Casting the Runes" is abou...

Credit: Wikipedia /Netflix I've always loved "The Addams Family" characters ever since I watched reruns of the '60s TV show when I was a kid. I was sure to see the first movie that came out in 1991. However, after seeing the sequel two years later I became skeptical of anything “Addams Family” from there on.  I didn’t like the revived TV series from the late ‘90s and didn't even bother with the two animated movies that came out in 2019 and 2021. Just like I didn’t bother with Netflix's "Wednesday" series as much as it's been a big hit since its debut nearly a year ago. But I got an uptick in my own Addams craze late this past summer as it got closer to my area's production of a live "Addams Family" musical now playing at the Woodland Opera House in Woodland, CA. When I realised I was running out of episodes of the original series to watch on the streaming TV platform, Pluto , I thought I should read the original Charles Addams comic...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. In my post today, I answer the optional question of the month and I have details on the new deadline for entering the book and gift card giveaway that celebrates "The Fool's Illusion" 's 10th Anniversary!   Generative AI Question of the Month: The topic of AI writing has been heavily debated across the world. According to various sources, generative AI will assist writers, not replace them. What are your thoughts? Like other types of computer technology I've been fascinated with AI ever since I heard about it when I was a kid. As far as generative AI in particular goes, I think it's fascinating that humans can make a computer program that can respond on its own in a way very close to that of humans in wri...

Credit: Wikimedia / New Line Cinema Warning: There is a spoiler in this review. As I mentioned last post , today’s Book-To-Movie (BTM) review is actually for September because I was going to postpone it from its usual fourth Monday time slot. So, there will be an October BTM at the end of this month. For those of you who are new to my blog, in a Book-To-Movie we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. During the past summer, we reviewed in two BTMs H.G. Wells' novel, "The Island of Dr. Moreau", and its movie adaptations starting with the original 1932 film , then continuing with the 1977 one . Today, we're reviewing the 1996 version. This last one released during the 100th anniversary year of the novel’s publication and was intended to be a blockbuster but was, in the eyes of both audiences and critics, a flop. I don’t consider it a flop, but the problem I had with it is that it doesn't convey the horror or dark prophetic story-telling that both ...