Vintage Film Reviews: A Wrinkle In Time (2018)

This is a review I wrote about the film, A WRINKLE IN TIME, directed by Ava Duvernay that was posted on Facebook on March 15th, 2018. I wanted to post it here to keep for posterity.

Thanks to MoviePass, I went and checked out A Wrinkle In Time tonight at the movies. The books were my favorites as a young boy. I remember actually getting detention in the 7th grade for getting caught reading one of them in Science class, a class I tried to purposely fail for some 7th Grade reason.

Watching the movie, I remembered being that awkward shy fat kid who didn’t really have any friends, who was picked on and beat up in school every day. Watching this movie, I remembered that boy and tapped into him and I could see what this movie was reaching for and I think that’s why it held so much over me. I remembered getting the shit kicked out of me for wearing Rustlers or having a lunch box instead of a brown paper bag… I remember what it was like to be an outsider, yearning for something more and I remembered what brought me to those books in the first place.

Because of my love of the source material, I didn’t hate the movie. I actually rather enjoyed it for the most part. The end was clunky and I felt like somewhere down the road they took a machete to the source materials and cut massive amounts of the heart and story from the books.

I like some of the ideas of what they have left, and some of the new things they made up, but It felt like they cut oh so much meat off the bone that all you were left with was the scraps of a much better meal and I know what that meal tastes like so I can imagine it why I’m eating the scraps of how good it could have been and I think I just answered why I liked it.

What I remember from the books, which is a little bit foggy. I own them, but probably have not read the first on in about 8 years… The original novel is about the inter connectivity between ourselves and the universe. How we and the Universe and everything in it are all a part of each other. These children are on a mission to save their missing father and save the universe. The book had a message that was much more about how only the power of LOVE could defeat the darkness that is advancing on our universe.

Whereas in the newest film, it’s lessons are to LOVE YOURSELF and find your strength from within to defeat the darkness. I like the idea and I like the lessons of that idea, but by making that the core concept of the film, it took away a lot from other ideas from the book left in the film.

So characters like Calvin had much less to do in the new film and much less a role to play in the new story than the old. PLUS WHERE WERE THE BROTHERS? You left in boring old Calvin, but got rid of the brothers?!?!? What the hell.

The bad guy at the end of the universe. The darkness coming to over take us all was much more scarier in the book. Oh and Charles Wallace is a psychic child who knows things and is “creepy” and the kid who played him in the film was OKAY, but more annoying and less Creepy. I kept wanting, this character, which is suppose to be one of the most impressive minds in the universe to be a little more otherworldly like he is in the books. I kept thinking I wanted him to be more GAGE from Pet Semetery. haha

Also, and why make this extraordinary mind adopted in the film?! In the book he’s the son of two of the most brilliant minds on earth, so it makes sense he’s so…. Otherworldly, but in the book he’s just a psychic adopted kid.

But seriously, we felt no menace at the end of the film towards this Ultimate big bad…. So it felt flat.

Okay. I’m nitpicking and I’m probably still buzzing off that edible…

OH AND WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE CREATURE MRS WHATSIT CHANGED INTO FROM THE CENTAR THAT WAS ON EVERY COVER OF EVERY BOOK THE THE LEAF CREATURE!?!?! What the hell!

But still. With all that said, I enjoyed the film. I think it will be great for young children and I really hope it opens them up to the book series. The books gave me strength and hopefully it will continue to do so for generations.

Adults who are not fond of the source materials… Stay away. I don’t think there will be much for you here beyond some cool looking popcorn scenes.

And the movie right now has an IMDB score of 4.2, but I would give this something like a 6.2. Not horrible and worth to watch on Netflix on a dark and stormy night….

(As I get down here to the end of this I realize I’m probably definitely still buzzing on this edible and probably shouldn’t post this. Did I even say anything worth a damn at all? Oh well. I spent all this time on it, so why let it go to waste.)

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North Bay Bands to Watch concert showcases Napa Valley talent – Napa Valley Register

January 24, 2025 No Comments

Article for the Napa Valley Register about the North Bay Bands To Watch Concert at Jam Cellars Ballroom. We chat with and cover the three bands playing the concert, and speak of why this concert is important to the Napa Music Community.

Bands Featured include: Mama Said, Weekend Youth & Magenta Ray.

Dwayne – Chris Fogal on his new project with Andy Tanner (New Noise Magazine #14 -Dec 2014)

July 20, 2022 No Comments

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. Chris Fogal must not like his haircut, because this is a man of many hats. He’s the lead guitarist and vocalist for the vastly underrated pop-punk band The Gamits, and the lead guitarist for TaunTaun, now a Denver metal institution. On top of those two bands, Fogal owns and operates one of Denver’s premier recording studios, Black And Bluhm. It’s there that we chat with Fogal about his newest project, Dwayne with Andy Tanner from Laymen Terms, Andy Thomas from Tin Horn Prayer and Switzerland’s Michael Marti from Goodbye Fairbanks. Fogal, you already have The Gamits and TaunTaun. What do you get out of starting another band? Well, TaunTaun doesn’t do much anymore and the Gamits had just finished a bunch of touring overseas so it seemed like the perfect time to do the Dwayne thing. I really needed to write some stuff that had nothing to do with either of the other bands. I also have a new band from Switzerland called Midrake in which I play the drums so I’m up to 4! In January it looks like I might be in 5 bands! You’ve known both Andy’s for years with Tanner being from Laymen Terms and Thomas from Only Thunder and Tin Horn Prayer, how did Michael Marti come into the mix of things?Michael is our Swiss friend that I have been touring with for about 13 years on and off. We are super tight and even go on vacations together and stuff. We always talked about doing a band together so it was him and I that started Dwayne. Originally it was gonna be the two of us with acoustics so we could just have an excuse to get in a car and drive all over Europe eating food and partying. It became a whole band later when the songs started coming together. That’s when I called on the Andy’s to join the party. Recording technology has advanced so far and so drastically over the last few years, you can do almost anything without being in the same room. You own your own studio with Denver’s Black in Bluhm, What stops you from having more Frankenstein projects such as this one?Well nothing really. Right now I’m beginning collaboration with a couple buddies. I shouldn’t spill the beans until it actually happens but one of them is in the middle east and one is in California so yeah, there are no limits these days! With your other bands having such exciting and memorable names, why did you drop the ball with Dwayne? I never thought the Gamits was a very good name but at the time we came up with Dwayne I was pretty drunk and I wanted a name that raised no expectations and was not serious in any way. I asked my friend Dan something like ” what’s a stupid name from the 70’s or 80’s?” and the first thing he said was Dwayne! I don’t know why but I thought it was super funny and out of the whole list of potential names it just stuck. What are the future plans for Dwayne? How are you going to pull off double duty on a Gamits/Dwayne tour? We just got some great news on the label front and the tour front so in November we do a short midwest tour with both bands, then it looks like the album won’t be out until January so we will do some more USA shows after that. Then we head to Europe for Greotzrock and at least three weeks of tour over there. That’s not until May so there are no plans past that. I’d like to record more soon. Oh, we will also have a flexi vinyl record in November with a B side not on the album and a couple downloads that are on the album so there’s that.

Vintage Interview: The Ataris in Longview, Texas circa 1999. Interview about Hotel fireworks shenanigans.

August 27, 2021 No Comments

What can I say looking back at this all those years ago? Some cool stories, but I was still figuring out what and how to do interviews and make them interesting. You can see some of the out of the box ideas like, “What kind of video game would the Atari’s be?” And things like that. I do remember Kris being very kind to us, and I really remember leaving this chat enthused. I also stole Kris’ Porn Star T-shirt. I later tried to give it back to him some 10-15 years later and he politely declined it and we had a good laugh about my dumb ass fanboy stealing clothes right off a touring musician’s back (or in this case the sweat soaked shirt was left on the table where we had our chat.) Photos also by Damian, who never really did master how to be a concert photographer. I had the chance to see The Ataris, back in August of ’99, when they opened for Good Riddance at the Galaxy Club in Dallas. I was impressed by their show. I was surprised to learn of their chance coming to Longview, Texas and I jumped at the chance to interview Kris after the show. Currently the band is signed to Kung Fu records with two releases, “…Anywhere but here,” and “Blue Skies, Broken Hearts … Next 12 Exits.” They also have an EP out on Fat Wreck Chords, “Look Forward to Failure.”-Damian– Damian: So Kris. How many times have you had your heart broken?Kris: Hmm… About four times that really mattered. Damian: It seems every song on the new album is about a girl. Any particular reason why?Kris: I wrote most of those songs over like a couple year period and I was going through a lot of changes in my life. I think that it was basically that the record was a transition from like moving from one place to another and getting over past things and trying to move along with my life. There were a lot of things I left behind when I moved.Damian: SO, How is your relationship with Kung Fu Records?Kris: We can’t complain too much. They definitely got us to where we are today as far as they helped me start and move out to California and get our first record out. You know we basically did all the other work ourselves. Went out and toured ourselves. We fuckin played shows for five people across the country a couple of times and once we put out the EP on Fat, that boosted our sales a ton and Fat Mike was kind of responsible for the ripple effect of us actually starting to blow up a little. So I give Kung Fu some credit and I give Fat some credit. Now the only problem we have with Kung Fu is that kids are telling us theat they can not find our records on Kung Fu, but they can find the one on Fat. So we’re working with Kung Fu. We’re trying to make the best of this situation. We’re doing fairly well as it is. We want to keep eye to eye with our label.Damian: Now I heard you guys were suppose to do a full length on Fat, but something happened with the EP and Fat canned ya’ll.Kris: Nope. That’s completely false. We never had any kind of intentions of doing a full length on Fat. We have one more record on Kung Fu and weather or not what we do after that is unknown. We’d like to do a full length on Fat after that and I’m sure that it would probably work out but that is sooo far away. I’ve got the whole new record written and we probably won’t record. We’ll just be touring for the next year, I’m sure. We’re probably going to go to Europe and tour and probably Australia and come back for another U.S. tour. Then we’ll probably record. So our next record probably won’t come out till 2001 at this fucking pace.Damian: Now I saw you guys play with Good Riddance in Dallas, there seemed to be more of a hardcore type audience, did you feel alienates in any ways playing with them?Kris: well you know some crowds are hit and misses. All the other shows we played with the Good Riddance have been excellent. We’ve done a lot of shows with them. Same way with a lot of other bands. We’ve toured a lot with The Vandals, We’ve toured a lot with Lagwagon, A lot with the faster Fat style punk bands or whatever they tend to draw a more punk, you know, whatever type of audience. And We’ve grown on people like that. Its like we can’t win every audience over. We just take the good with the bad and try to make the best of every situation. If one guy is being a fucking chump, that’s fine. Let him be. In the end, we’re still gonna have a good time.Damian: So how have you evolved as a sing writer since the first album?Kris: I think that when I recorded most of the first record I recorded it probably from like sixteen till, actually fifteen till nineteen or something and during that period most of my musical tastes were pretty standard. I didn’t branch out and listen to a lot of variety. I was pretty Ramones, The Queers, Decedents, The Misfits. That stuffs all pretty good. Now I listen to such a wide variety of things that I’m influenced by so many different types of music and so many different types of bands. That’s definitely helped my song writing as a hole and also learning stuff from being in the studio with different people. Working with Joey Cape in the studio was a hole big learning experience. That guy is one of my best friends and I totally respect him as a song writer. He’s given me a lot of tips