David J. Williams

But first, the winner of Friday’s contest: Jeff Alsted of Orange County sent in the attached of BURNING SKIES proudly displayed in the front-table of a Borders in Irvine, thereby winning himself both the book (and the ARC) and avoiding the need to shoplift the #$# thing . . . . second and third winners were Sarah Billings in Seattle and “Mr. Scrubs” in Manhattan, so congrats to all and now everyone else can get out there and buy the book!

Ok, onto Terminator Salvation . . .  jesus, this movie sure has been taking its licks, huh?  Aintitcool gave it one of the heaviest bitch-slaps they’ve ever administered, and then Night at the Museum 2 took it out with yesterday’s trash. But folks, let me tell you a tale I call Riding the Zeitgeist.  Picture two Hollywood directors, trying to figure out their next big thing, and trying to decide whether to make that thing Star Trek or Terminator.  Abrams picks the former; McG the latter.  They both (and here’s the part where you have to bear with me) make decent, but flawed movies replete with some serious plot holes and inconsistencies, as well as a wooden character or two.  Abrams is universally praised for his film, and McG totally trashed for his.

Hmm.

Speaking as someone who’s (naturally) totally and ruthlessly objective, it seems pretty clear to me that it really comes down to the fact that once again, timing’s everything.  Because look, it’s spring.  Birds are singing.  Crickets are chirping. We’re trying to get past the fact that the economy is on IV.  This latter circumstance being particularly critical, because a big nostalgic optimistic flashy upbeat SF movie is going to clean the clock of a depressing post-apocalyptic movie EVERY FUCKING TIME under these conditions.  This kind of instinctual nose-for-audience is why JJ Abrams is at the apex of Hollywood, and McG’s handlers are going to spend the next few weeks trying to prevent bad news from reaching him.

But imho SALVATION was a good movie.  Not a great one.  Certainly nothing approaching Cameron level. And maybe that’s the real tragedy here: the Terminator bar is now officially reset to decent-action-movie rather than iconic-classic-you’ll-talk-about-for-decades.  But you know what?  I’m going to review it tomorrow instead, because this blog post is already getting up there and I don’t feel like writing a #$# dissertation.

Not yet anyway.

And while you’re procrastinating over that Tuesday inbox and gnashing your teeth over Terminator, why not check out BURNING SKIES?