A.J. Maguire

Tag: movies

  • Geeking Out

    These past few years have been wonderful for my Geekdom.  First there was Iron Man, then Iron Man 2, then Thor, then Captain America … and finally, Marvel Avengers.  Seriously.  I’ve been in heaven.

    But I did miss out watching X-Men First Class in the theaters.  Luckily for me, I was able to snag a copy of my own and watched it tonight.  I’ll admit to a bit of trepidation walking into another X-Men film.  Story-wise, the previous X-Men films were sound (and by that I mean the plots made sense and came to logical conclusions), they just weren’t … well … they just weren’t the X-Men I had grown up with.  Rogue, for example, was one of my all-time favorite characters and … yeah.  It just didn’t jive for me.

    Though I confess Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was brilliant.  (Never has a man looked so good with so much hair.)

    What drew me to X-Men : First Class — aside from the fact that it was the X-Men — was really James McAvoy.  I’ve loved that actor since Children of Dune.  I would faint if the man ever read one of my works for an audiobook production.  (Which, by the way, is a crap ton more work than you would imagine.  I’ve been running Deviation through practice runs just in case I do give it out on iTunes for free as a podiobook, and it’s a headache and a half.)

    Anyway, Mr. McAvoy has a very distinctive voice.  And when I saw him as Professor Charles Xavier, I got a little weak-kneed.  Professor X absolutely has to have a distinctive voice.  Why do you think they chose Patrick Stewart to play the role in the other films?  Now there’s a man with a voice you can’t forget!

    So, McAvoy lured me into this new X-Men movie and I loved it.  The tension between characters was wonderful, and I admit that I was rooting for Magneto in places where I probably oughtn’t to have been.  But then again, the really compelling part of the X-Men for me as a reader had always been the struggle with prejudice.  So even in the comics I was often rooting for Magneto … or at least rooting for a way that there might be a peaceful resolution for his character.

    But anyway, this is me geeking out.  I loved the movie.  And I loved the Avengers, too.  (I took my son to see it on opening weekend and it really is a riot.)

  • Moral Compasses

    One of the joys of writing a character whose moral compass goes askew is that you never know exactly what is going to happen.  For instance, blackmailing a woman into a marriage would be completely wrong in my book, but to my sordid character Faxon Mylonas it is business as usual.  (For those familiar with the Sedition universe, you might recognize that name from the first book as the pipe-smoking shady character who gave Prince Brenson a hand when it was needed.)

    Writing Faxon has been a challenge and a blessing.  I’m not one to say that my own moral compass has always pointed true North, but there are certain boundaries that I’ve stayed away from.  When exploring Faxon’s character, his thought process opens up a whole slew of possibilities that I would never consider.  A prime example is in the scene I just wrote for him this week, where he “stretched the truth” in order to get an extra few vials of blood from someone.  (Don’t ask, it’s a complicated mess of Blood Magic.)

    But he got me to thinking about all those characters who I love whose moral compasses go a little wonky from time to time.  They aren’t necessarily villains, because they are mostly-kinda-sorta on the right side of the story line to be considered a good guy.

    The first one that comes to mind is Dexter from … yeah … that creepy serial killer TV show called Dexter.  If there ever was a character who made my sense of morality sit back and cry, it is Dexter.  (For those unaware, Dexter is a serial killer who hunts serial killers.)  By the end of each episode I was in a bizarre state of moral shock, condemning myself for rooting for this guy.

    The second shady character I can think of is Jack Sparrow.  I mean, we all know he will eventually lean on the right side of things, but there are moments where you just don’t know.  I also have to note with good old Jack that his moment of redemption at the end of each of the movies is just plain wonderful.  (Thank you, Mr. Depp, for always keeping me guessing as to which way this character was going to fly at any given moment.)

    The third character on my list is John Cleaver from Dan Wells’ I Am Not A Serial Killer.

    And after reading my list again, I’ve decided that there are too many titles in my life with “serial killer” in them.  I’m going to go read The Chronicles of Narnia or something.