Movie Review: Run Hide Fight

Zoe (Isabel May) is somewhat of an unusual high schooler, in that she’s comfortable handling guns because her father has taught her how to hunt. (Although, such teens who have been introduced into a healthy gun culture are more common than some think.)

But something’s gone wrong with Zoe emotionally. As one teacher flat-out tells her to her face, she used to be outgoing and cheerful. Now she’s withdrawn and become flippant with her teachers. She even tells the only friend she has left, “This is high school. Nothing that happens here matters in the real world.”

So on senior prank day, she’s not impressed by the hijinks that go on. But when a van crashes into the cafeteria and students dressed in black cold-bloodedly shoot a number of other students, everything changes.

Covered in blood, Zoe manages to escape the school. But then she slows to a stop. Will she turn around to warn other students to run? Will she fight? 

Run Hide Fight is quite the unusual movie. It shows in gritty detail what a prolonged school shooting looks like, without being exploitational. If you make a comment on this, please don’t mention politics. Some reviewers think they see partisan politics in this movie, but the politics is in their heads.

Everything rests on Isabel May’s shoulders, and she does carry the movie. It pretty much zips along from start to finish. She does not play Zoe (which means “life”) as an over-the-top action hero. She is actually terrified during much of the movie. And Zoe has to work out her emotional problems during the course of all the violence.

Isabel May is twenty, so she was nineteen or twenty when she played the seventeen-year-old. She mentioned in an interview that fear of a school shooting was a real part of her life.

Is Run Hide Fight a great movie? It has a few continuity problems, and a few of the scenes seem forced. But it is well worth watching, and I am not aware of any other movie like this out there.

(If you don’t want to see several students get shot to death, and if you can’t stand the sight of blood, this movie is not for you.)

As a little social commentary, I have been shown more than once the standard workplace video that shows the options of run, hide, or fight in an active shooter situation, and the pragmatic explanations of when to use which option. But schools are given only one option: hide. Schools lock down in an active shooter situation.

There was a situation at a school that won’t be mentioned here, in which students in a completely different building were locked down, instead of being allowed to flee. This makes no sense, especially since some shooters go from classroom to classroom. Certain administrators have decided this is the lowest-risk option in terms of insurance and public image and their own careers, but the students’ lives are not given the highest priority.

I feel sorry for teachers who are stuck in this system. If they go against administration policy and have their students flee, they could be sued if a student gets injured. It wouldn’t have to be something as dramatic as a student getting shot. If a student breaks an ankle while fleeing, the teacher could be in big trouble.

Those videos that businesses use to show their employees to run, hide, or fight should be remade featuring teenagers and shown to high schools. It gets trickier with ages younger than that, but the blind insistence on a one-size-fits-all policy is an act of cowardice that does not serve students well.

Phone Dies, Phone Lives

My cell phone seemed to die recently. It just wouldn’t power on. I knew I hadn’t run the battery down too much, and even if I had, it should power up enough to tell me the battery was low. So on a hunch, I replaced the battery.

Instead of the top-of-the-line S series of Samsungs, my phone is from the mid-level J series. I chose this particular phone because the battery could be replaced. There are too many reviews of the more expensive phones where a minority of buyers gave one-star reviews because the battery stopped working after a couple of months.

I think my phone is on the 3G network. At some point, when 5G phones become standard, I may pick up a cheap 4G.

Barbara Shelley Passed Away

Barbara Shelley, an actress known for her statuesque beauty, passed away. Some of you may know her as Sorasta in some 1984 episodes of Doctor Who.

I know her from the 1967 movie Quatermass and the Pit, which was shown in America as Five Millions Years to Earth. This had a stunning effect on me when I was young. Unlike most female leads of the time in such movies, she played a crucial role in terms of research. She showed a skeptical Dr. Quatermass that the pit being excavated had a history going back centuries of odd occurrences. She also pointed out that the older name “Hob” for Hobbs End was a name for the Devil.

This movie is still available on eBay. There is a mini-series with the same name, but the movie has this badly-lit cover.

Barbara (which was the character’s name) had a couple other crucial roles in the movie, which you’ll have to watch to find out. I won’t show the poster for that movie, because it is horribly exploitational. But here is part of the poster for Village of the Damned.

I cut out the weird top of the poster. This was the original 1960 British version, which was far more creepy than the much louder 1995 American version.

Not Making the Cut

Getting writing advice is a tricky thing. I hired a freelance editor to go over my fairy version of The War of the Worlds, tentatively called Fairy War. She gave a lot of interesting advice. Of course, it’s up to me to decide what to accept or decline.

Fairy War mainly takes place in the London area, but I had some side chapters take place in Seattle. The freelance editor thought my story was too long, so she advised me to cut the Seattle chapters.

public domain

I did so, keeping the Seattle chapters in a separate file. After that, I made other cuts that shortened the story by about 10,000 words. But then one of my beta readers said it dragged in the middle. That was where my Seattle chapters had been the most dramatic. Also, a former agent who gives online advice I really trust says agents and editors expect fantasy to be a little longer than I had thought. (The addition of fairies makes my story more on the fantasy side.) Although beginning writers should not push the limits, I’ve decided to add the Seattle chapters back in.

However, when going over these chapters I realized there were too many minor characters. I’ll have to eliminate one of them. So it turns out a pixie named Mona will not make the cut. Here’s the scene where she’s introduced.

#

Wycliffe was about to inquire what more he could do to help when a barmaid came over, smelling of rose water, holding a tankard they hadn’t ordered.

She set it down gently. “I apologize for interrupting.”

They stared at her in curiosity. Then Portia reached out and glided her hand down the barmaid’s arm. “Fellow pixie.”

“I heard what you’re planning. They’ll probably attack tomorrow, right? I want to help.”

Tingo looked at her skeptically. “I don’t know what fighting skill you have. And it’s not clear what us women will do. Perhaps you should stay here.”

#

Now we’ll never know what Mona would have done. So sad.

Mostly Harmless at the Mall

Last Saturday I went to Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, north of Seattle. I was shocked to find the restaurants still open in the food court, but with no place to sit down. All the tables had chairs stacked on top of them, with yellow tape sealing them off. Some metal tables and chairs were outside, but they were all taken.

So I sat down on a rock. This was not as arduous as it sounds; a number of large rocks are carved as horizontal monoliths so people can walk or sit on them. As I was eating, I noticed a seagull just sitting on the grass. It looked right at me as I took a picture.

It turned its head ever farther, as if deciding this human holding an object wasn’t a threat. Then it flew off. I don’t think it was cause and effect; I just happened to get a picture at almost the last second. 

I Voted

 

Pacific Northwest Writers Conference

As advertised, I attended a great writers conference. The Pacific Northwest Writers Conference normally meets in SeaTac (yes, the city thought that would be a great name for a place between Seattle and Tacoma), but it was virtual this year. I paid $175 for just the Saturday sessions. Was it worth it? Yes it was.

Easily the best session was by Nicole Persun. She’s comparatively young, but she is a great writing coach. Think of going to a gym and finding out a trainer there is young but has a lot of experience. Nicole gave a very detailed presentation on editing at both the macro level and the micro level.

Nicole J. Persun 

 Photo used by permission

I’m going to go over my manuscripts the way she said to.

Not to be ignored was Pam Binder. a very experienced writer who gave tips to energize the middle of a novel, which often sags.

A fascinating session was “Cop Talk and Procedures.” Officers from a number of different agencies shared their experiences. As everyone knows, police officers in New York City are visibly present and highly respected. In Seattle, they try not to be visible and are shown much less respect, though they have high standards for behavior. An important background feature for contemporary stories is the different levels of visibility of and respect for police in different cities.

Most realistic shows on police: The Wire is good for corruption and ethics, Southland has realistic characters, Barney Miller has realistic relationships, Breaking Bad has realistic cases, End of Watch gets the banter right. Hill Street Blues was also recommended for realistic relationships, but I know that commentators said they were consistently bad on how the law works.

I wondered if it was worth it to watch the awards ceremony, but when I tuned in, that was clearly the right choice. Aspiring writers had submitted their manuscripts in categories like science fiction/fantasy, suspense, memoir, etc. The looks on the faces of the winners, some of whom have presumably been more or less quarantined for a while, made it a joyous event.

It’s hard to explain how great the conference was. It was a relief, after so many things have been shut down.

New Printer—Part 2: Tricky Bit of Tech

 So I set my printer up with a USB cord, but how to make it work? The printer’s program on my computer demanded a PIN number. Why? I wasn’t signing on to some secret portal. It would be “on the printer.” The only numbers were on the back, and neither of them were labeled as a PIN.

Numbers blurry on purpose

So I entered the first one, and it was rejected. Then I was distracted by the printer screen, which had changed. It was displaying the PIN number. 

Screen blank on purpose

Who thought of this?! In what sense was this “on the printer”?

Okay, so it prints fine. Also, I tried the copy function.

Copy on the right

Some personal info hidden

As the saying goes, the copy is better than the original.

So, my gentle readers, you’ve been very patient (or you just skipped these two posts). On to the writers conference.

New Printer—Part 1

My old printer died. It was about twenty years old. It used the old 45 black ink, which places like OfficeDepot don’t even carry anymore. There had been an ominous sign: Earlier this year, it stopped printing pdf files. What came out was a line of machine language at the top of a page, then it rapidly grabbed the next piece of paper and did the same thing. It might have done that for dozens of sheets of paper if I hadn’t deleted the print buffer. Then it just stopped working last Saturday, when I was trying to print out my copy of the order of worship for my church. (I guess they don’t want someone at the door handing out the orders of worship, since that would be some form of contact.)

The old printer was an HP. After some research, I decided on a new printer, which would also be an HP. I’m not wedded to that brand; they make good printers.

When I opened the box, there seemed to be filler in one of the Styrofoam forms.

 

 

When I lifted one out of curiosity, they turned out to be the ink cartridges! I understand the need to be compact, but I might have just ignored them.

There weren’t any instructions—just pictograms that were like hieroglyphics. They were too crammed to be clear. I can imagine some executive demanding they all fit in one sheet of paper. If they had just allowed themselves two sheets, I’m sure there would be a lot less complaints and one-star ratings. But no, that executive must be patting the flunkees on their heads for cramming it all into one sheet.

And why are there no words with the pictograms? I paid over two hundred dollars for this. They can’t afford to have one set with English instructions, one with Spanish, and one with French? 

So after watching other people struggle with it on Youtube, I have it set up.

  

  

This is an HP ENVY Photo 7855. It is sleek. It is stylish. It if it comes in some other color than black, I don’t care.

One eccentric feature is the output tray. In this picture, which was taken from the left of where the previous one was taken, notice the black rectangle protruding from the right, which is the front of the printer. That thing juts out when printing, to be the output tray. That is not included in the official dimensions of the 7855, so take that into account. It can be gently slid back in. 

 

So anyway, it just printed the one calibration sheet. I can’t get the Bluetooth to work. I don’t have WiFi set up. So I did an express order for a USB 2.0 cord. I’m fine with using a cord. But they didn’t include one. Did I mention how much I paid for it?

Stay tuned for the sequel. And after that, I should have a fascinating post about a writing conference.