Saturday and Sunday

Yesterday was warm enough to sit out in the yard for a little while, reading Kaleidotrope submissions. So that’s what I did. I sometimes worry than I’m being a little too choosy, after I’ve rejected a dozen or so stories in a row, and then one comes along that I don’t want to reject and I think, “Nope. Just choosy enough.”

After dinner, I watched American Hustle, which I wish I could say I enjoyed more than I did. At this year’s Golden Globe Awards, Tina Fey joked that the movie’s original name was “Explosion at the Wig Factory,” which really isn’t far from the truth. There’s some good acting in the movie, but a lot more over-acting, and a lot of over-the-top hair and costume design, all in service of a fun but kind of thin story — a very loosely adapted version of the Abscam investigation. It’s not hard to see why the film was nominated for ten Oscars last year. But it’s also not hard to see why it didn’t win a single one.

After that, I watched Area 407, which I can’t even pretend was any good. It’s exceptionally terrible, even by the low standards of found-footage monster movies, apparently ad libbed over the course of five days, and man does that show! It so very, very bad…and for that reason, it was absolutely wonderful.

I watched it with friends over Twitter, which is something we do semi-regularly — Heather has a rundown of some of the comments we made — and it was kind of magical. Heaven knows I’ve seen my fair share of terrible movies, but every now and then one comes along that’s terrible in all the right ways. This was definitely one of those, and I had a blast live-tweeting it with everyone else.

This afternoon, I went to see Captain America: Winter Soldier with some in-person friends. I enjoyed the movie, which is fun and has some nice little moments from its leads interspersed with all the acting — I don’t Steve’s ever going to get to ask out Kristen from Statistics — but there’s not a whole lot to say about it, really. I mean it’s no Area 407.

Anyway, before the movie we had our weekly writing group, and this is what I did:

“You gotta write it down,” Trevor Kettleson said. “His speech recognition software isn’t working at the moment.”

“This is the robot?” Dean asked. “Your investigator?”

“He doesn’t like that word,” Kettleson said. “Either one. It would be more accurate to call him a…’cyborg consultant.’”

“From outer space?”

Kettleson sighed, sat forward in his chair. “While technically accurate, detective, pre-judgmental language like that will only make it more difficult for Roger — “

“The robot. Roger the robot.”

“ — our consulting cyborg to adequately assist you on this case. It’s true that Roger’s cybernetic components were outfitted on a space station orbiting an abandoned planetoid, but the fact that this all happens three hundred years in the future — “

“I’m not here to prosecute your cyborg, Mr. Kettleson,” Dean said, all smiles, “just trying to get a lay of the land. Everyone who came through the time vortex was granted immunity, that’s the law. How I feel about it doesn’t matter.”

“It might matter to Roger,” Kettleson said.

“I’ll try not to step on anyone’s toes,” Dean said. “Especially if they’re made out of titanium.”

“Our firm has the utmost respect for Roger’s investigative skills. I urge you to turn to him as an asset.”

“He just doesn’t talk.”

“Oh, he talks. He just can’t process speech presently. We’re doing everything in our power to remedy that, but…well, we are talking about technology three centuries more advanced than our own.”

“And was Paige Caldwell working on this remedy?”

“Was — ?”

“Dr. Caldwell. The victim. Was she spending a lot of time working directly with Roger?”

“Well…I — it was one of her projects, yes. It’s been a team effort. Certainly you don’t think that’s what got her killed, or that Roger — ?”

“You said yourself she didn’t have any enemies.”

“That I knew of, yes. But, detective, that’s a very wide leap to naming Roger as a suspect.”

“I’m just thinking out loud, Mr. Kettleson” Dean said. He stood up and moved towards the door. “If I start making allegations, believe me, I’ll put them in writing. I wouldn’t want Roger to miss them.”

Three hours later, with the cyborg’s pneumatic-powered hands at his throat, Dean Hendricks thought he might have made a mistake.

“Make it look good,” he croaked. “We need her to think you’re really trying to kill me.”

Silently he cursed himself, remembering Roger’s speech recognition problem. He just hoped the cyborg remembered the plan. Those steel-tipped fingers were pretty tight around his windpipe. But they weren’t going to flush Caldwell out of hiding if they didn’t put on a good show.

And that, pretty much, was my weekend.