• Skip to content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Official website of writer Aaron Johnston

  • HOME
  • NOVELS
    • The Hive
    • The Swarm
    • Earth Awakens
    • Earth Afire
    • Earth Unaware
    • Invasive Procedures
  • PORTFOLIO
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
  • Novels
    • The Hive
    • The Swarm
    • Earth Unaware
    • Earth Afire
    • Earth Awakens
    • Invasive Procedures
  • Graphic Novels
    • Speaker for the Dead
    • Ender in Exile
    • Formic Wars: Silent Strike
    • Dragon Age
  • Plays
    • Posing As People
  • Essays
    • Ender’s World
    • The Authorized Ender Companion
  • All Books

Sidebar/Content

Rent and Read Millions

December 5, 2005 By Aaron Johnston

A few months ago I read the young-adult novel Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce and thought it one of the best books of the year. It tells the story of Damien Cunningham, a young British boy who, after the death of his mother, develops a near obsession for Catholic Saints, learning their names, the dates of their lives, and the various responsibilities they now have as those on the Lord’s errand. (Saint Peter is the patron saint of locks, keys and security. Saint Catherine of Alexandria is the patroness of fireworks).

Damien’s mother died in a catholic hospital where the tiny figurines of saints were plentiful, and Damien believes that his mother, because she was so pure and virtuous, must be a saint as well.

Damien finds all these facts about saints at totallysaints.com, a real website created to correspond with the book. It’s a fun site if you have a moment or two.

Damien’s life changes — and the real story begins — when a bag of nearly 230,000 British pounds (that’s money) falls from the sky onto his cardboard hermitage. Damien, believing the money has come from God, sets out to do good and help the poor. But Anthony, Damien’s older and unnaturally money-smart brother, has different plans: they’re going to invest the money. And spend it.

But the clock is ticking. The British are destroying all their pounds and converting their currency to the Europe-wide one, the Euro. So Damien and Anthony have only a limited number of days to get rid of all that cash. And as Richard Pryor taught us so many years ago in Brewster’s Millions, blowing a big wad of cash isn’t as easy as it sounds. And Damien and Anthony, because their children, have an especially hard time of it since no adult will give them the time of day.

The story is wonderful. And the narrative, written from Damien’s point of view, is so sweet and endearing that you want to reach into the pages and adopt the kid.

And that’s why the film is so wonderful as well. Alex Etel, who plays Damien, and who had never acted before in his life, is so convincing as the pure-hearted true believer that you want to sign whatever paperwork is necessary and adopt this kid. Special kudos goes to Danny Boyle, the film’s director, for bringing all of the magic of the book onto the screen.

And the score is wonderful, some of the best upbeat choral music I’ve heard in a long time, the kind that when you listen to it, you just feel grateful for life.

And bravo to Frank Cottrell Boyce for adapting his own novel into one of the best screenplays this year and proving to the Hollywood establishment all clean, family-focused storytelling is alive and well.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Blog

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

November 22, 2005 By Aaron Johnston

Fans won’t be disappointed by the newest film in the Harry Potter series. I saw it last night. It was fantastic. Of a possible four stars, I give it four and a half. Lauren and I went with our friend Scott, who had actually seen the film already but liked it so much the first time, he wanted to see it again. And with theater tickets at ten bucks a pop, a willingness to see a film twice in the theater is no small praise.

The story surrounds the Tri-Wizard Tournament, a competition between representatives of the three schools of magic, one of which of course is Hogwarts, Harry’s school. Harry’s name is somehow selected to participate even though a representative of Hogwarts had already been chosen and only students seventeen or older are eligible. (Harry is fourteen.)

Harry’s forced participation, as anyone who has read the book knows, is all orchestrated by dark wizards hoping to return the mack-daddy of bad wizards, Voldemort, to power.

The stages of the competition are so suspenseful that I found myself grabbing Lauren and bringing my hand to my face in a oh-no-Harry’s-going-to-get-it-for-good gesture. This is edge of your seat action.

In fact, the dragon sequence was better than the book, with the horntail chasing Harry all over Hogwarts and clawing along steep rooftops in an effort to burn him into a charbroiled wizard on a stick. (Harry was riding his broom at the time.)

But action sequences don’t make a movie. Great movies are the result of great storytelling, and Goblet achieves that and then some. For starters, the characters and performances are believable, with particular kudos going to our three stars: Harry, Ron and Hermoine. Hermonie has always delivered, but Harry and Ron are finally keeping pace, showing emotion that most actors their age can only dream of pulling off believably. And, yes, the emotion is high in Goblet. Bad things happen. Terrible things. People get hurt. And evil is more apparent than in any other Potter film to date. This movie earns it’s PG-13 rating. But thank goodness it did. Anything less would have been water-downed grade-school pandering. This is a coming-of-age story for Harry, and director Mike Newell delivers exactly that.

Look for other great performances by Brandan Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher, and Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter, the self-loving tabloid writer for the Daily Prophet.

Oh, and watch for the unrecognizable Ralph Fiennes as the Dark Lord himself, who is actually more evil than I could have imagined him. Don’t bring the kids for this one. They won’t sleep for days.

So the Potter films have improved with each installment. Goblet is the best to date. If the franchise can keep that up, I’ll be a very happy fan indeed.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Blog

Superman Returns Teaser

November 22, 2005 By Aaron Johnston

The teaser for Superman Returns, which hits theaters next summer, is out. You can see it here.) I’ve watched it half a dozen times now, and it still gives me goosebumps.

For the informed, Superman Returns is being directed by Bryan Singer, one of the most talented young directors in Hollywood right now. His credits include the recent X-Men movies as well as The Usual Suspects, which is one of those lots-of-plot-twists character pieces that I enjoyed immensely but, because of the violence and profanity, can only watch once.

Superman Returns also has an unknown actor in the lead, one Brandon Routh (rhymes with south), who looks so much like Christopher Reeves in some of the publicity photos that it’s a little eerie.

As for the story, suffice it to say that Superman has been away from Earth for a few years, and when he returns, he finds Lois Lane with a child and engaged to be married. Plus Lex Luthor has some diabolical plan, I’m sure. Oh, and I think there are aliens involved. Anyway, it’s a departure from the previous Superman films, which is good considering the third one co-starred (wince) Richard Pryor and the fourth one was about nuclear arms proliferation. Ugh.

Oh, and I’ve always despised Margot Kidder (Christopher Reeves’s Lois Lane). She has this raspy smoker’s voice that makes me cringe. Plus I don’t find her the least bit attractive. (Call me shallow but if I’m going to stare at a face for two hours, I’d prefer it be easy on the eyes.)

So the new Superman movie will be different in some ways. But not in all ways. As the teaser suggests, there is some elements of the last few pictures that will carry over to this one. And it’s here where Singer shows his genius.

The Score
John William’s score from the first Superman movie is arguably one of the best film scores ever composed. It’s certainly one of the most memorable. Luke, who’s only seen about five minutes of the first Superman movie can hum some of the tune. That’s how catchy it is. I love the score. It’s nostalgic. It conjures up all these great memories that I associate with the wonder and magic of Superman. And that’s because it SOUNDS like Superman. It’s majestic and powerful and suspenseful and everything that is the man in tights.

Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, who played Jor El, Superman’s Kryptonian father in the first Superman movie, is back as well. But how can that be, you ask? Brando has been dead for, what, a few years now? The answer is simple. When filming the original Superman, Brando recorded a lot of voice over for the film, much of which wasn’t used. So Singer has mined these recordings and plugged a few of them into the new movie.

But this is where the trailer trips up a bit. There was a REASON why these recordings weren’t used. They’re condescending.

In the trailer, Brando (Jor El) explains why he sent Kal El (Superman), his only son, to Earth. And it’s a little insulting. According to Jor El, we earthlings “lack the light” needed to live peacefully. And we have a “capacity for good,” but without Superman to guide us, we’re lost sheep.

The “Superman as Savior” angle works only to so many degrees. And this is overkill.

Perhaps you think that harsh criticism. After all, Singer and his writers didn’t pen the voice over. They’re just using what was available. But the point is they used it. They didn’t have to. They chose to.

Superman is a hero. He saves people from danger and stands for truth and justice. But he doesn’t teach us what good is. We know what good is. That’s why we admire him. He’s a superhero, not a God.

This isn’t to say I don’t have high hopes for Superman Returns. Quite the contrary. It looks amazing. The footage for the trailer is stunning. I particularly enjoyed one over-head shot of citizens of Metropolis all frozen in wonder, staring up into the sky at, what we can assume is, Superman.

In fact, I felt the same way about the trailer: I stared in wonder. This is going to be good, folks. I’ll forgive Brando and the original writers for their touch of overkill. As far as I’m concerned, Superman Returns is THE movie of 2006.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Blog

The Best Book of Many Years

November 14, 2005 By Aaron Johnston

I’m not one to use superlatives often. Call everything “the best” and people will begin to place a lesser value on your opinion thinking you’re won over too easily. But here I can say with confidence that this is indeed the best book I have read in many years. In fact, it might very well be the best book I’ve ever read, or at least one of the top three or four. In other words, I can’t say enough about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

What’s amazing to me is that this is a debut novel. It took Susanna Clarke ten years to write it, but it’s her first. Set in pre-Victorian England during the Napoleonic wars, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is part Jane Austen, part historical fiction, and part Lord of the Rings. It tells the story of the two titular magicians who rise to stardom in England centuries after English magic is all but forgotten and decayed. Magic used to be prevalent in England, thanks mostly to the long reigning King of the North and first great magician, The Raven King.

But practical magic eventually ceased, and England was left with theoretical magicians, scholars who studied magic but who had neither the skill nor the inclination to actually DO magic.

Enter Gilbert Norrell, whose goal it is to bring about the restoration of English magic, but whose paranoid disposition prompts him to horde all the books OF and ABOUT magic and then prohibit anyone (including his only pupil, Strange) from reading them. Strange, for his part, is a tall, somewhat arrogant gentleman who learns much of his craft by trial and error. (He’s forced into this method since Norrell won’t relent the books filled with spells and enchantments.)

I don’t want to give away too much of the story. You’ll have to experience it for yourself. I knew hardly anything about the plot when I began reading and that, I’ve decided, is the best way to approach it. I would do you a great disservice by revealing more here. All I can say is that you won’t regret picking it up. Of course, you may find it a bit heavy; it’s 800 pages long and at first glance seems a bit daunting. But trust me, when the last page is turned, you’ll be begging for a thousand more.

It’s terribly cliche to say so, but this book is pure magic.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Blog

Hotel Rwanda

November 9, 2005 By Aaron Johnston

The film has been out for more than a year now, but Lauren and I just caught it on DVD. It tells the true (or mostly true) story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, who, eleven years ago, during the genocidal atrocities of that country, turned his hotel into a refugee camp for more than a thousand people, in effect saving their lives from the murderous Hutus who were killing every Tutsi tribal member they found. More than a million men, women, and children were brutally murdered in a mere three months time. Sadly, the rest of the world turned a mostly blind eye.

The film is a hard one to watch, and despite its political potency and eye-opening account of a horror that went mostly unnoticed elsewhere, I can’t recommend it. It’s just too disturbing. The PG-13 rating is questionable. I’d push this more into the R territory, not because the violence is gratuitous — it isn’t, it’s real — but because the subject matter is too painful for any teenager to witness.

In one scene, Don Cheadle (who plays Rusesabagina and earns the Oscar nomination his performance garnered him) tells everyone staying at the hotel to call their friends in other countries and plead for help. “Make them think that if they hang up with you and do nothing, you will die,” he says. “Shame them into helping us.” And in a sense, that’s precisely what Hotel Rwanda does, it shames us. It reminds us that as a community of world citizens, we’ve ignored Black Africa. We’ve shrugged at their problems, however horrific, and, as one reporter in the film states, “gone back to [our] dinner.”

That sounds like a damning statement, but there’s some truth to it. Had these atrocities occurred in Europe, US troops would be called to aid immediately. But Black Africa . . . well that’s different.

The reasoning for this negligence is NOT, I don’t think, as the film suggests, because Black Africans are black. It’s because we, the rest of the wrold, are ignorant of their circumstance. Their society is totally foreign to us. The word “tribe” conjures up a certain primitive barbarism that we, the average, Westerner simply don’t understand. In short, we’re ignorant, stupid in fact. We see the problem as something distant and unintelligible and, because we feel powerless to the evils causing it, we do nothing.

After the film was over, I felt deep sadness and shame, meaning that Hotel Rwanda achieved precisely what it set out to do: move its audience from ignorance to social awareness. But I also felt grateful. Suddenly my own problems seemed minute and insignificant.

Will I watch it again? No. Am I glad I saw it once? Yes. Definitely. Should you watch it? Well . . . that’s up to you. But be warned. It won’t be a pleasant experience.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Blog

Lifeloop at Western Illinois University

November 6, 2005 By Aaron Johnston

Last night I returned from Western Illinois University where I had spent the two previous days. The school was doing a production of my one-act play Lifeloop based on the short story by Orson Scott Card of the same name. D.C. Wright, a friend of mine from BYU who is a theater professor at the university, flew me out to see the show and meet with a few of the students.

It was a fabulous production and I enjoyed seeing different actors breath life into it. The set was more dressed than the original production and included a circular fringed sofa and a chair in the shape of a giant hand. The cast was strong and fully committed. The crew was very kind and all performed their tasks just as expected and unseen. After the preview (I wasn’t there for any of the actual performances), which included a small audience, D.C. had me do a brief Q&A.

While at the school I also visited two acting classes, a playwriting class, and an improv club. The other faculty were very hospitable and all welcomed me warmly. I thought that very impressive considering I’m someone of such little consequence. In the playwriting class I attempted to do “1000 Ideas in an Hour,” an ideation session that Scott Card does whenever he visits schools, but this was my first attempt at conducting the activity, and it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Either I asked the wrong questions or it doesn’t work as well for constructing a play. Probably the former. It’s supposed to work for all forms of storytelling. I just did it wrong. In any case, it fell a little flat. Fortunately I didn’t mention that it was Scott’s activity and thereby spoil his good name.

The other classes went off without a hitch, and I was more than a little relieved that I had a decent answer to all the questions they posed to me.

I was surprised to discover, however, that most of the acting students — be they undergrad or MFA-seekers — knew little about the acting environment of LA. Basic knowledge about unions and headshots and agents and managers was all new to them. Lauren told me that as a theater student at BYU, she never received any practical training either. D.C. said that such was the case in every university. They’ll teach the craft, the technique, the various theories, but they won’t teach the day-to-day skills every surviving actor needs: how to get an agent, how to audition, and most importantly how to sell yourself in a highly competitive talent-based field.

The students were great. They smiled and shook my hand and thanked me for coming. I was right at home with them and more than once felt a pang for the glory days of BYU theater. There’s something about theater people. We all share a love of the stage and therefore seem to bond immediately. Either that or we’re all crazy. All in all it was a wonderful trip, and I enjoyed myself immensely.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Blog

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • …
  • Page 20
  • Page 21
  • Page 22
  • Page 23
  • Page 24
  • Page 25
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Now available

The bestselling prequel series to Ender’s Game continues

Follow Me

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @AaronWJohnston

Subscribe to receive updates via email

Enter your email address to receive new posts.

Footer

Follow Me

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email.

I’m not a professional photographer, but I love to shoot.

Click the image to browse titles.

Copyright © 2022 Aaron Johnston

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.