Author: Scott Waldyn

Letter to Amazon

/ Scott Waldyn / Leave a comment

babys-day-out

[I sent the following to Amazon on Friday, June 26, 2015. I will post Amazon’s response as soon as I get it. Hopefully it makes someone over there laugh.]

Dear Amazon,

 

Before 1994, zero babies in the United States were discovered wandering construction sites. It was a statistic worthy of praise and one in keeping with the rest of the developed world. In the years following, however, the number of construction zone-related baby walkabouts has steadily increased. In 2013 alone, approximately 429 babies in the United States were found wandering construction sites, all of whom were apprehended while attempting to scale the steel beams of up and coming skyscrapers. Having babies crawl around these dangerous work zones is hazardous enough, let alone the fact that all 429 were without hardhats.

And why, exactly, this appalling rise in infant excursions to future building sites? Three words: Baby’s Day Out.

In 1994, Baby’s Day Out hit theaters, and it inspired generations of infants to reenact the adventures of a small child, Baby Bink, as he wriggled across treacherous landscapes. While presented as a humorous escape from a handful of opportunistic robbers, the reality of Baby Bink’s escapades is frightening. Think about it. 429 babies were crawling out to the outer edges of a steel beam, in hopes their weight would tilt the beam, so that the opposite end would hit a GROWN MAN in the TESTICLES!  While these babies clearly risked accidental suicide, they also toed the line of manslaughter, meaning they could be imprisoned for years, thus ruining any chance at a normal life afforded to less adventurous babies (especially if tried as an adult).

As I stated before, the rise in these incidents is STARTLING! What’s even more alarming is that we’re only talking about one small fraction of the movie. Did you know that the number of infants attempting to use zippo lighters is on the rise? Did you also know that baby excursions to the zoo, without adult supervision, are also on the rise? How about the growing trend of infants crawling into the handbags of aloof women to take a nap?

My point is this: Baby’s Day Out is a dangerous movie to show children under the age of five, and for less than six dollars on Amazon.com, an infant, with the aid of a stolen credit card, can purchase this abominable movie.

With your help, Amazon, in refusing to sell and distribute this offensive film, the risk of infant injury and infant incarceration could drop. All you have to do is pull Baby’s Day Out from your marketplace, and by that simple action, a whole generation is saved. Please Amazon, let’s work together to bring that number of infants wandering construction sites back to zero. 429 is too high of a number for any respectable industrialized nation.

Together, we can make a stand. Together, we can do to Baby Bink what we did to Joe Cool — as allies, as Americans, as humans. Make a pledge with us, Amazon. Tell Baby Bink his pied piper days are over!

Thank you for your time,

Scott Waldyn
Mediator
Baby Workplace Safety Coalition

In Memory Of James Horner

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[James Horner, composer of countless iconic movie scores, died in a plane crash yesterday. I wrote a reflection piece about his body of work and the way his music has touched me on a personal level.]

I first discovered the name ‘James Horner’ in 1993. I was small and just starting to read, but his name scrolled across the screen during a viewing of The Land Before Time, a favorite film at that time. I couldn’t help but take notice, as I was receiving a film education early, from a father who loved to dissect the working pieces in order showcase and share the many components that made a movie such a mystifying, magical, and surreal art form. One of the elements he zeroed in on was the power of music. He’d blare it from the speakers when my mother went out some nights. My father would play movies in the other room when he made dinner, just so he could hear the sounds…

…because the film’s visuals were already firmly implanted in his mind, and by listening to the music, he could relive the story again.


The Land Before Time became one of the first film score obsessions I’d carry with me. I’d watch the movie constantly, sometimes putting it on in the background while I played with toys. The music hit all the right notes — adventure, terror, courage, curiosity, birth, death, and the breath of wonder of a world around us that was magical and new. In moments of doubt, when the burden of my parents’ divorce weighed heavily on my mind, The Land Before Time was a score that even promised hope, that asked me to endure and climb over the mountain to see what was on the other side. There was a whole world out there, and though the one I was familiar with was crumbling, a new landscape was on the horizon. Always.

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LITERARY ORPHANS ISSUE 19: Letter From The Editor [Reprint]

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This Letter From The Editor was originally printed in the latest issue of Literary Orphans on June 10, 2015. It’s my debut as editor-in-chief of the journal, finally coming out of the shadows and getting a little more hands-on with LO. If you follow me and haven’t checked it out, I’d heavily recommend it. Not just because I’m involved. If you read the letter, you’ll see that I intend for it to be something greater than myself, something greater than all of us.

I’ve decided to reprint the letter on my personal site because of all the outpouring of support I’ve gotten for it. I was worried it wouldn’t fly, but people love it. One commentator even said it was reminiscent of Thomas Paine. The comparison made me blush.


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Dear Orphans & Orphanettes,

When Executive Director Mike Joyce asked me to steer the Literary Orphans ship, I’ll admit, a sense of worry washed over me. Apocalyptic visions of cities crumbling to their foundations rattled me. I had memories of movies I had seen where all that stood of civilization was a weathered Big Ben jutting out of a pile of rubble. Mike was doing a great job, and the last thing I wanted to do was come in like a bumbling lab assistant and mix up the formula.

So I dipped into the LO ether. I revisited our earliest notes three years ago, back when LO was a mere thought, and imbibed those ambitions. I poured through old “Letters From The Editor,” starting with the very first one in Literary Orphans Issue 1: Babe. At times, my journey felt like being reintroduced to an old friend, and at other times, it felt like I had seen a ghost, as if I were viewing stills of a past incarnation no longer with us. It’s true that LO has gone through changes, many of which were cosmetic, but the same heart still beats at its core. It just looks different. The journal has grown into new clothes.

In my many notes I passed back and forth with Mike, one of the constants was this idea of Literary Orphans as a media identity. What were we? Were we a counterculture outfit? Were we a haven for the disenfranchised? Were we the explorers that sailed against the winds?

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Cultured Vultures Guest Post: The Hustler (1961) & Drunk Monkeys: Poltergeist (2015)

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Maybe I’m not such a high-class piece of property right now. And a 25% slice of something big is better than a 100% slice of nothing.

I have a special guest write-up at Cultured Vultures today. A while back, I rolled up my sleeves and welcomed the privilege to help with a movie review project the editors over at that pop culture oasis are working on. It’s a series of reviews based off the Top 250 films on IMDB. It’s a daunting construction, as the editors want to hit every film, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to lay a brick or two. I’m even more grateful they hosted my piece, as Cultured Vultures is such a fun zine!

At any rate, enough of my prattling. Here’s The Hustler.

 

 

For those of you who haven’t been following me on Drunk Monkeys…

(Image © 20th Century Fox)

(Image © 20th Century Fox)

…I’ve got a POLTERGEIST review ready for your perusal.

GEEK PITCH: Star Wars Spinoff

/ Scott Waldyn

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bryar_pistol

We already have a Star Wars movie coming out about the theft of the original Death Star plans. It’s called Rogue One, and it’s been described as a “heist” film. Other than that, we have little to no details on the story, characters, or structure of the film. It’s doubtful Disney will utilize the Expanded Universe (now called Legends) as a source to pull ideas from on this endeavor, but that doesn’t mean fanboys and fangirls can’t dream. With that in mind, I’ve presented a fun film pitch below incorporating one of the Expanded Universe’s most legendary characters, Kyle Katarn, into this new Star Wars canon. This won’t be a dream pitch for Rogue One, mind you. It’s a pitch for an all-new film to fit alongside Rogue One and the rumored direction of the new trilogy.

 

 

Open on a prisoner in some remote Imperial facility. He’s a human, male, with brown, disheveled hair and a scraggly beard. Day in and day out this prisoner finds himself working in the mines, dreaming of a handful of times in the past when life was tolerable. One of his recurring visions is of a woman, a redhead whose name he never learned, with whom he boosted stolen goods on the lawless world of Nar Shaddaa. There was the briefest of intimacy between them, one that’s all but gone, looping itself like a waking nightmare as time blurs the days together. The only breaks in his mental torment are when some of the other human-hating inmates pick fights with him. He fights back some days. Other days, our protagonist takes the pain. Because it’s all he’s got left. His is a life sentence.

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Why I Don’t Trust Broadcast News

/ Scott Waldyn / 1 Comment

fox_news_idiocracy

I was twelve years old when the world was supposed to end. They called it “Y2K,” and due to a potential computer glitch, expert analysts predicted massive blackouts, food shortages, and riots. The 21st Century was to be wholly different than the 20th Century, and the news advertisements leading up to this brave new world only intensified analysts’ fears. Chilling music underscored spooky graphics. Unanswerable philosophical questions scrolled across the screen as a cold, calculating voice told us when and where to tune in for an update. Was it true? Were we all going to die?

If the television was correct, my calm suburban upbringing would descend into George Miller-inspired levels of post apocalyptia on New Years’ Day. Entire neighborhoods would fall to a siege of less fortunate souls who would do anything for canned vegetables. These desperate people could kill, and if by some stroke of luck we weren’t invaded by the mobs, the icy chill of winter would freeze us to death.

It was a no-win scenario, and we, the viewers, were frightened into a corner, clinging tenaciously together as our boob tubes beat us over our heads with a combination of petrifying sermons and empowering sales pitches. In the final days before New Years’, our collective mortification swelling to a crescendo, there were a few lucky opportunists making bank, selling to the masses tools, gear, and survival equipment they would never need.

Anyone who lost a wallet during these final hours would call these opportunists “predators.” The newshounds who fed us our infotainment night after night called them “sponsors.”

It was on a cold January morning I realized I had been had. I woke up to find my home clean, well-kept, and perfectly normal. The television worked. My video games worked. My neighbors’ television sets and video games worked. And all our collective parents were their happy selves. None of the adults on my block had to go to work, and so they spent the first few hours of post apocalyptia sleeping in.

And the news?

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From The Archives: Letter to Marcus Theatres

/ Scott Waldyn

marcus-theatres-1385049892

I originally mailed this letter off to the corporate headquarters of Marcus Theatres on February 14, 2014. I included my home address with the letter but never received a response (probably for good reason). It was in response to an advertisement they played before every movie, one they have since removed and replaced.

 

Dear Marcus Theatres,

 

There was something about your advertisement, nestled after the previews and before the feature film, that seized hold of my attention. My head was locked into place; my eyes were pried open, directed solely at the screen as that wondrous spot of theatre shimmied its way into the deep recesses of my brain…

 

…and my heart.

 

I’ve seen it at least once a week, and like clockwork, the same performance grapples me snugly, like a plummeting Gotham-ite clutched tightly by the Batman amidst a free-fall from Gotham’s tallest clock tower. Like Hooper, submerged in that cage in Jaws, my world was rocked. Shattered. Split in ‘twain from Sir Robin of Locksley’s arrow. Nestled in those comfy theater seats, it was as if I were a fair maiden on Ryan Gosling’s couch.

 

But I’m not. I’m a man. Rugged. Testosterone-fueled. I eat my fried chicken with my fingers, and I’m heavily Reptilian-brained, like any filmgoer raised during the height of 80’s action cinema. And even I, this hardened, steroid-raging meathead, was sold on a Magical Movie Rewards Card.

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Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

/ Scott Waldyn

DMStarWars

“If the real world is a crisis of confidence and limitless possibility, Star Wars is the cure. It always has been. Since 1977, this film has been rousing the human soul from its slumber and demanding that it snuff out the silent acquiescence of fear. Because fear is the mind-killer. Because fear is the manifestation of evil.”

My Star Wars write-up is LIVE over at Drunk Monkeys today. This was one of my favorite film essays to write, and it was also one that took me forever. I wrote several different drafts before deleting them all and trying again, eventually consolidating all of my thoughts into this hopelessly optimistic reading of one of the greatest films ever made. Please read it. Please share it. Please enjoy.

 

UPDATE: The discussion around Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is now LIVE as well. In it, a few of us have an in-depth conversation about the film, its lasting impact, and key memories we took away. Check it out HERE.