When I watched season 2 of Rome, I expected great things.  Just like in season one.

But the character arch had literary died off in act 3 of season one.

The acting was flat, the drama and tension not there, repetition of theme had soaked into the blood, and bone of the series it was not a wonder Rome Season 3 did not occur.

Which leaves us with a quorum?

How do you sustain yourself season after season on television?  I can name a few series that maintained their level of originality (M.A.S.H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Carol Burnett Show, Archie Bunker, Hill Street Blues, E.R. and so on).

Most series fall down flat after a view seasons.  It used to be if a series had potential (the X-files it was allowed to develop an audience.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files_(season_1)

The same applies to novels.  The late suicide author John Kennedy Toole earned the Pulitzer Prize.  His novel  A Confederacy of Dunces is supposed to be a comedic masterpiece.  Yet the style is difficult for me to read.  He warms up the reader putting his protagonist in an absurd scenario, then comments on that scenario via the protagonist.

One has to wonder what would have happened if he had, wrote a sequel?

With the lack of sales, I am still proud of my book Siolam, but without sales, I doubt there will be sequel.  The public is fickle, they want what they want and I write what I choose too unless paid to do otherwise.

http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-J-Banks/e/B00I33S10C/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Listening to I heart Radio   Tania Maria Dear Dee Vee, reminded me of my concert experience with Brasil Brasil.

Then I find a book written by the late Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World (1957)

Along with that the November 17, 2015 Variety that focused on Latin America .Sooooooooooooooooo. 

Why on antenna T.V. are their not too many/ any Latino programs.

http://www.latina.com/entertainment/tv

  I included one Latin supporting character in my book Siolam.  A brief passage sort of like those two TV shows that currently air on on broadcast television

As Come with Me came on I heart Radio by Tania Maria, I remembered my small amount of Brazilian Portuguese and my Spanish. Maybe when my protagonist gets to  Cuba in my new novel I will add three Latino supporting characters.

In that Variety  issue their is spread on  an  up coming Latino  film pros p 102  Gabriela Amaral, Almeida, Gema Juarez Allen and Laura Mora and Jayro Bustamante.

But the past had always featured a Latino slice of Hollywood, I won’t go past the seventies With Chico and the Man, Miami Vice, it slips a bit then we come up with  George Lopez.

Now we have the adventures of a Virgin.  Isn't the American T. V. screen big enough for the Latin sound?
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/11/141054903/from-ricky-ricardo-to-dora-latinos-on-television

I read an article that in the 1990’s Saundra Santiago and Quincy Jones were going to develop a Latino Empire show isn't it time for that show.  Santiago, La Bruja Daphne Ruben Vega, John Leguizamo etc could all be in that  slice of American entertainment.

Si o no.What do you think?

The modern world (if such things or terms exist in 2015) has high definition.  But back in 1967, TV had in color.  The texture of suede, dust on cloths and pimples were all in display.  Deep, rich film colors, 35 mm even back then looks better then HD.  The cinematographic process was spherical.

35 mm film verses HD

Cinematography.com answers the spherical question.

http://www.cinematography.com

I  hope season 2 of the Invaders gets better, so I wont have to continue dissecting the film lighting.

How many times do you have to reread your novel?

Usually one too many.  To place my book on Kindle I have to change 253 conversion errors.

Yes, errors those are not in the print version.  When you upload a book it's usually in one or two formats *.pdf or *.docx; Adobe or Microsoft extensions.

But for electronic readers, well, you have to deal with mobi.  This means using caliber or mobi pocket two of the free eBook converters.

Originally, the book was to be published on Kindle today, but there is a problem.

Time, do I continue my second edit of the new novel or find the conversion errors.

To find the errors requires that I reconvert the mobi file to word or I can convert the *.docx file to a multipage HTML file.

If you want to see what some of my print and electronic books are like.  Click here http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-J-Banks/e/B00I33S10C

Today is another short blog.
Upcoming
The Invaders Season 2
Rome Season 2
V if I can finish watching it.
Miami Vice Season 2

Wrote a half page on  the second novel.  As I  change the focus and read   Bad Business by the lae  Robert  B. Parker, I think this second novel will  improve upon the first novel which is prertty good.

Siolam- A Black Bart Western on amazon.com

So I set up a blog on a mobile device so I can keep up over the holldays.
Missed yesterday.

Today I almost missed the rest of my life.

Live for today. God will protect you and if he she doesn't write from the other side.

I’m currently reading the earth chapter in Maxine Hong Kingston’s book   The Fifth Book of Peace.

You cannot let anything stop you, whether it is no sales or a million sales of your art or books.  Currently watching the Rolling Stone’s Mick Jagger produced movie too,   Get on Up at the 1 hour 42 min mark there is a scene where James Brown and the band are  performing in Paris.  Paris the recent scene of death, yep, even with that you must move on to achieve your dreams.

What do you believe in?  In the earth chapter, Maxine exposes us to the spirit world of Caodaism.  Seems the Vietnamese vets resided in the spirit word of this and that.  You had to do what you to in Nam to survive  (my late cousin Leroy Banks Jr, my Uncle Leroy Banks Sr. played his horn in W.W.2 and my mechanic the late Tony Kennedy {his mom was from the UK})

What will you do to achieve and write your dreams?  Remember what James said work hard and its show and business.  You have to work hard to create your  art  and work even harder to sale your works, but  as Maxine has said do it all in peace.  Her first book of peace burned with her house.  The second one keeps  us going on and on.

Once I watched a documentary on the Black list and a long time ago on VHS a film Robert Deniro stared in. The theme freedom of expression verses tyranny.

Sort of like todays climate.  Different opinions with one group having lots of power.

 I want to see Trumbo based on the life of James Dalton Trumbo.  I read an article in the Sunday NY Times11815.  Hunted and Hunted.

Trumbo the author of Roman Holliday etc.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0874308/?ref_=nv_sr_2

Screenwriters, authors and journalists are always on the hit list of the powerful after all with a few taps of a  keyboard one can influence a lot of people to do good things or bad things.

Most writers don’t  have an agenda, some do.

As a screenwriter, novelist and journalist my goal has always been to inform and entertain.

As an actress who recently ran for Ms. California told me the other day.

Keep writing.

You too.

Live your art.

http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-J-Banks/e/B00I33S10C/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1447944474&sr=1-1

So ten years ago when I was a dilettante of cable and had HBO I watched Rome, in parts.  Today I binge watched Rome Season 1.

Compared to a lot of dramas this six-disk set was entertaining, informative and great drama.

Produced by the BBC  and shot in Rome, it was a great 720-minute experience.  It took a day and a half to get through this library rental.

I hope that I can find Season 2; I read the Wikipedia season two recap and that season looks even better for Cleopatra is in four episodes.

I’m not sure why it took another two years to produce this series with 10 episodes but season one is spectacular featuring two heroes of the 13^th Legion who tag along with Octavius, Pompeii, Cesar and Marc Anthony.

The writing is very tight.

10/10

The title of this docu drama The Overnighters

Is well appropriate.

First, you have all the elements of the drama three wise men, a minister, and a hostile community and of course God.

With all that, you have a documentary about displaced Americans seeking work in the fracking oil fields of the West.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263996/

Nice concept.

Drama in that a minister with a secret.  (I won’t’ tell, no pun intended) houses men and a few women in his church, house etc.

Called by God he allows offenders with a rough past into his home.

The media doesn’t like it; his neighbors don’t like it and well eventually the legacy of the west lands on everyone’s head that is in the way.

Sort of like in Siolam.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=siolam

So in honor of Nikki Finke I said would never post on deadline Hollywood again.  But I did.  Forgive me Nikki.

They posted this list and I had to comment.

 http://deadline.com/2015/11/wga-west-and-east-name-annie-hall-funniest-script-1201619667/

They have Annie Hall as number one.  Really.  I remember they use to line up for Woody Allen films but number one.

This is Spinal Tap, The Producers, Bridesmaids, Borat, Sullivan’s Travels, Rushmore, Waiting for Guffman, Office Space, The General; Moon Struck could have all been nixed from my list.

The last film was Shakespeare in Love, I just found that used at the library.  I always thought that was a drama, a romantic comedy at best.

What would you put on your list?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=siolam

So in consideration of my lack of sales and that my page views are set in the USA and Moscow, I’m doing the third rewrite of the second novel.  I think I might just start it off in Moscow with Natasha.  I know I know, but what other name could I use.

Anyway I was 85 pages in did the first read through and edited.  But now, well, I think I have to go totally commercial.  In today’s world, it’s all they want.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=siolam

The other day a person asked me about the book.  They said they would buy it.  This happens every time I see them.

I told another person who entered the conversation I had wrote eight books.  They were not selling he said it was a long-term project.

He also said maybe you should try something else.

I have written in several formats fiction, screenplays, plays, nonfiction yada yada yada.

The genres include romantic comedy, sci-fi, religious plays and musical plays.

Suggestions on my next genre?

I've been researching I.S.I.S, I.S.I.L. what ever their name for about six months now for the new book.

Not sure if its going to be fiction or a new cross fiction creative nonfiction.


Umh.

Vous pouvez toujours nos jeunes , essayer la dignité et la chose la journée est gagnée .

Mais , à la liberté , l'égalité et la liberté ne périront de la terre et se vaincre la tyrannie et de la folie à chaque fois.

Long live France and the people of Paris.

ENTOURAGE THE GOOD THE BAD THE REPETITIVE

So I saw the Entourage movie in 2015, a few months later that spurred me to rent a series from the library.  They had season 3, great since I had purchased and scratched up seasons two and four.  I also got season 6 on disk from the library.

Later on season 6.

The first thing you should understand about Entourage  is it is about four people in their twenties and thirties.  The focus is on sex, drugs and movies in various orders of arrangements.

But even with that focus the series  only made if for several years on HBO.

Season 3 was entertaining, Vince was Aqua man, and Drama had a TV pilot hit on his hands and well things advanced at least on plot.

Since I focus on character development  that was my intention in watching season 3.

The characters really didn’t develop, nope, nothing there.  Johnny Drama was Johnny, Turtle was Turtle and Ari remained the same.

People watch television for a reason once thy latch onto something they find attractive or devious and love it.

Entourage.  Hollywood, sex and of course good luck creates a mix that might last for seven seasons.

Without sales, I doubt  I will write another western. After all to write for free you don't need to be popular.

 The First screenplay Part two.

Now their have been several Death and the Families, the one   that was a prizewinner, the English one, and the American one.

The theme has always been a funeral.

Now when I first wrote this screenplay I had not heard of the first Death and the Family it was a play.  But when the other films were released  and you can be sure I checked them out on IMDB.

A title means nothing, absolutely nothing.  It might inform your audience but usually it doesn’t think of the Bond films.  Casino Royale, Sky Fall, Spectre, (did they establish the tone of the film)

Part two

DEATH and THE FAMILY

COPYRIGHT 1999

All Rights Reserved

Darrell Jerome Banks,Esq.

MARCELLA

Tenía un fetiche de la comida.

Billie

Marcella speak English I am not up to speed on all that shit.

Marcella

He had a food fetish.

Billie

He, I thought I told you to give up that life.  I thought we were the thang.

Marcella rolls her eyes.

Billie

I take it he doesn't like fast food, cause girlfriend this don=t smell like anything I would use on anything even if it involved sex.  When did this happen?

Marcella

Last night, that=s why I=m here so early.

Trini a bleached black blond is talking on the phone and taking cash from a long legged red head.

TRINI

Get the phone Billie.  It=s from Detroit.

Billie

Transfer it.

Billie reaches into his smock and grabs a cellphone.

Billie

Hello, this is Billie.

Marcella reaches over and starts talking to a regular customer.

Marcella

Yeah girlfriend, it was worth it he gave me this smell for one k.

CUSTOMER

Where do you work?

Marcella

Onyx=s Escort Service,(beat)

Marcella looks up at Billie.

Marcella

But I quit last week, (beat) still last night I couldn=t refuse.

Customer

So you did something with him.

Marcella

No sex, just hair, nothing else.  He picked me up at Page One down in South Beach.

Billie turns away from Marcella and the other customers to have a semi-private phone conversation.

INTERIOR SPLIT SCREEN

Aunt Bev

Hey William ain=t talked to you since your Mama=s funeral.

Billie 

I=m sorry I don=t recognize the voice.  Who is this?

Aunt Bev

You don=t, boy Detroit, ain=t far  from Miami.  Don=t let me fly there and whip your ass.  You still remember Big Bertha don=t you?

Billie unconsciously rubs his but and motions to Trini to turn the music down

Billie

Aunt Bev, I can=t hear you too good.

Aunt Bev

Just a minute William, stop grabbing my shoulder Zeke, I=ll give you back the phone.  Stop pulling on me, he just your nephew by marriage.  Wait, Billie while I put my teeth in.

Aunt Bev reaches over to the table and grabs her teeth out of a glass of whiskey.

Aunt Bev

Can you hear me better now William?

Billie

That=s much better, you must have them $10,000 dollar teeth in your mouth now Aunt Bev.  I don=t mean to rush you, but I=m in the middle of(beat)

Billie turns around, reaches down and smells  Marcella=s hair.

Billie

Ah, eating.  Can I call you back?  That is if it=s not important, nobody died has they.

Aunt Bev

Will, it's your father,(beat) he ain=t dead, but he=s planning on selling the business so he=s one step closer to the casket.

Billie

Selling?  Que Pasa? Marcella stop moving I=m trying to get down to your roots.

Billie grabs Marcella=s shoulder

Billie

Aunt Bev, Daddy told me five years ago he would never sale. As I remember it said I wouldn=t see a dime from the business until he was dead.

Aunt Bev

Will?

My first screenplay.

In 1998, I learned of a writer’s strike.  That’s when I started writing again.  I had quit a job working with juvenile delinquents and seven years into a career, decided then that, I needed independence and stability.  Almost twenty years later, the only independence I have found is in writing.  Yet that has its limitations.  Since then their have been two more strikes from the chosen elect of the WGA.  I recently applied for a job there so I’ll be nice with the elect.

It took almost a year to write and edit but here are the first few pages of this screenplay.

Excerpts can be found in my book Character Within the Screenplay.

http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-J-Banks/e/B00I33S10C

If you want to compare my writing, styles and how they have evolved check out Siolam.

http://www.amazon.com/Siolam-Black-Western-Darrell-Banks/dp/1515299236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446925773&sr=1-1&keywords=siolam

DEATH and THE FAMILY

COPYRIGHT 1999

All Rights Reserved

Darrell Jerome Banks,Esq.

FADE IN

EXT.-DETROIT SKYLINE-DAY

The eastside of Detroit has small streets on one of these streets sits a family run funeral home in need of repair.  Next door is a vacant lot and across the street is a large stately plantation style funeral home with a neon sign that says Jackson Funeral Home inexpensive but quality funerals.

INTERIOR WILLIAM=S FUNERAL HOME-OFFICE

An elderly man and a woman  sit at an oak table, solitary cards are spread out over the table with two rows of poker chips stacked nearby.  The man is despondent and the woman is crying and dabbing a napkin at  her eyes.  A group of men stands around the table talking and watching the woman play solitary.  The woman looks at the men shakes her and walks over to her husband who is on the phone requesting a person-to-person call.

EZIEKEL

I need to speak to Mr. Williams at the number I just dialed.  Yes, I=ll hold.

AUNT BEV

Give me the phone I told you I would call him.

INT. BEAUTY SALON-MIAMI SOUTH BEACH

Salsa music is in the background blasting from several ceiling speakers.  The shop is crowded with beautiful women having their hair washed, dried and curled.  Several anxious women are waiting for their blow and go in the lobby.

Billie William=s, the owner of the shop is at chair one, he is examining a Cuban woman=s hair.  He picks up a long lock of her hair and rolls it through his fingers like spaghetti.  He smells the hair.

BILLIE

No, that is not right this is not Revlon and it smells bad like etouffe and I definitely did not use that rinse last week.  Now Marcella how did you get this smell in your hair.

Marcella looks up into Billie=s eyes.

Spectre

The other day I wrote about the Empire Strikes back.  Imdb.com still gives that 30-year-old movie an 8.5.  Fan boys.

If only the Bond crowd was still kicking, the reviews on IMDB and ROTTENTOMATOES had a few ones and threes.

Before you read Siolam and give it a one or three remember this there is a difference between a novel and film.

Film cannot have loose ends, plot holes or a change in character development unless it’s something like the Sixth Sense or something like American Beauty.  In those two movies, the main character (the protagonist) stumbled through the movie unaware of what was really happening to him.

In Siolam Bart and Beth stumble from place to place in search of a gang of killers.

But if you like a good story regardless of anything try Siolam.

http://www.amazon.com/Siolam-Black-Western-Darrell-Banks/dp/1515299236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446925773&sr=1-1&keywords=siolam

Spectre is like that, Bond received a message from the grave from M and thus provides us with loop-to-loop helicopters and well kills.  After all, he is double 0.

But in his chase to find justice or redemption or is it he knows nothing but killing so he kills we find ourselves in London, Austria, Morocco,  and a few other places.  All shot on location.

I know why the 47 year old wants to quit they keep pairing him with 30 year olds when he has Rachel Weiss.  In the Sean Connery films the women were of equal age until, Sean returned in Never say Never Again.

Perhaps Daniel Craig will have to that to, save Bond from any group who seeks to harm the flag.  Queen and Country

6.5 of ten though I did nap a bit.

Under the weather so I do ( sic) did  not blog yesterday.

Today learned through amazon.com all those F o L K s who said they had bought my book, obviously didn’t so.  oOPS  I told them not too and they didn't ( relatives, friends etc)  I dropped the price and set it up for kindle.  $14.95   bought 4  for consignment. Sales sales.

The new tag on Amazon is this.

1872 a Black U.S. Marshal and the daughter of a white sheriff seek revenge for her father's mother on the wild plains of Texas.

Bart is the protagonist.

Beth is the protagonist.

They are supported by a cast of characters as they pursue Big Ben and Kip from East Texas into West Texas and the Indian Territory.

A Classic western, as your read be sure to load your guns for this one has the excitement of a character driven story filled with a big plot that includes shootouts, lynching and justice.

http://www.amazon.com/Siolam-Black-Western-Darrell-Banks/dp/1515299236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446925773&sr=1-1&keywords=siolam

Star Wars the end or the beginning  of it all again.

The Empire Strikes back, dated graphics corny dialog, yet it has sustained itself over the decades because of the writing of the late Leigh Brackett and   Lawrence Kasdan.

With the upcoming release of Star Wars the Force Unleashed (the only trailer in the movies today that made me cry tears of joy)

There are books that cover the Star Wars story.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=star+wars+lawrence+kasdan

So I wont bore you with a thirty year old story.

If you want to read, the script try here.

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ina22/splaylib/Screenplay-Empire_Strikes_Back.pdf

By Act 2 of the movie, a fleet of star destroyers approaches the rebels and well they have to prepare for a gun assault.  This is where the graphics show their wear and tear in the DVD version.  Perhaps in   Blue Ray or HD things are enhanced.

But no matter the surface attack holds up as does cloud city.  Which brings be to the up roar over a black Jedi.  I discussed this with and ex TV writer.  It seems there is a big controversy about  the story line in the upcoming  Star Wars movie.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2855363/Star-Wars-actor-John-Boyega-responds-black-Stormtrooper-controversy-new-teaser-unveiled.html

and this one was interesting.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/19/racists-urge-boycott-of-star-wars-episode-vii-over-black-lead-and-most-of-them-love-trump.html

But if you like a good story regardless of anything try Siolam.

http://www.amazon.com/Siolam-Black-Western-Darrell-Banks/dp/1515299236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446925773&sr=1-1&keywords=siolam

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon still holds up over 70 years later.  It was released in 1941 a time of war and indecision worldwide.

Why does it hold up?

The answer to that question is always the script.

Daishell  Hammett the novelist also wrote the screenplay.

I would hope one day that Siolam would be option, developed and made into a movie.

Maybe I can write that script.

In the meantime, back to the class two pack The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033870/fullcredits/

. http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-J-Banks/e/B00I33S10C

Mad men 

Once I took out this DVD series, when I saw the Negro janitors and elevator men and no one else I knew once again Hollywood was in a Happy Days moment.

I watched an episode, and then returned it.  That was a mistake.  As in life, things are not always what they appear.

Don Draper, womanizer, family relation hater and of course the big man on campus.

If the Sopranos gave a different light to the mafia family Mad Men gives a different light to those who were called the greatest generation, (the WW 2 fighters who were middle aged in the early sixties).

I’m reading another book.  After this second novel, I think I will go back into nonfiction.

See my book Character within the Screenplay

http://www.amazon.com/Character-within-Screenplay-Beginnings-Completion/dp/1453718826/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

In Hollywood UK Alexander Walker has a perfect quote.  “To be an Englishman in the film industry is to know what it‘s like to be colonized.

Today the reverse effect has taken place name any blockbuster and it is an Australian, Englishman or Scotsmen who has taken over the industry.

But this book will serve as research for my continued effort to write a book on world film

Until then you enjoy Siolam.

---http://www.amazon.com/Siolam-Black-Western-Darrell-Banks/dp/1515299236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442695944&sr=1-1&keywords=siolam

Or any of this.

http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-J-Banks/e/B00I33S10C

 One more thing about the sixties, my mother worked she was not called girl,

 But according  to the preface of Walker’s book 90% of the finance for films in Britain was by the Americans and they left in the seventies for further venues. So if you  want to work you go where the action is in today’s films, everything has a China connection.

Think about that Hollywood is out to make a dime.  Sometimes it does as in  Silver Linings Playbook and other times it does not as in Burnt.