My Big Lost Question

Where is Richard?  And Miles?  I need more Miles.  But Richard!  Just look at him.

Lost writers, I am WARNING you: they better be doing something awesome.  And I better get to watch it soon.

Musings on Return to Cranford

So, I watched the second part of Return to Cranford last night with my counterpart. And though I was extremely disappointed that country Doctor Gaius Octavian Caesar didn't appear, it was

thoroughly enjoyable. I rented the first series, Cranford, via Netflix a few months ago and was blown away by the quality writing, acting, and cinematography. I'm not used to BBC miniseries

looking so nice. I should say that I haven't been watching many NEW miniseries recently.

You see when I was unemployed and living on my own, I watched a ton of TV on DVD and a lot of movies/shows on Netflix's Watch Instantly page that looked like they might be sort of okay. This includes (actually really good) BBC miniseries of classic literature including:

The Way We Live Now, which introduced me to the work of David Yates before he took over the Harry Potter series, and features the ALWAYS enjoyable Cillian Murphy and Matthew Macfayden. Also, one of the most atrocious American accents I've ever seen on British television.

Daniel Deronda, Hugh Dancy and Romola Garai!

Wives and Daughters, with Michael Gambon and Rosamund Pike in supporting roles and one of the cutest, yet most understated, love stories in the lot.

The Buccaneers, with a young, villainous James Frain! who I just discovered will be Franklin Mott in the new season of True Blood. Oh, the wonders of IMDB.

And North and South, starring one of the most attractive noses ever put on film.

Now, about half of these were filmed in '90s. And I'm sure my picture suffered because I was watching them over the internet and not on the 52'' flat screen in my parent's living room. ButCranford and Return to Cranford, were just GORGEOUS. Gorgeously lit, gorgeously shot. And all the people are attractive in this distinctly British television way, where everyone looks like a normal person--not plastic or too chiseled--but with really great skin and hair and expressive eyes. It was amazing.

Let me gush some more. We actually watched the second part of Return to Cranford on the Masterpiece Theater website because we forgot to DVR it last week when it aired. And the gorgeousity still came through, despite major pauses to buffer and a disappointingly small picture.

I don't have much else to say. And, as this post has been all over the map anyway, I'll wrap up by saying that I absolutely love watching these BBC adaptations of classic literature and am on the hunt for some more good ones. Once I send back my current Netflix rentals I will definitely be searching out more. Any recommendations, non-existent readership?

Magic Kingdom for Sale, but No Girls Allowed

I recently (and I mean just-an-hour-ago recently) finished Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold!. And let me tell you, I had some problems with it. Now, I would not normally have finished a book that I disliked this much. But the problem I had here was that I kept waiting for it to get better, to turn around and a make a comeback, to maybe for FUCKING ONCE break a cliche or twist a trope and have something interesting happen. But no. Again and again I was disappointed. So, now I really hate this book.

Many of the reasons I hate this book are explicated in this blog post. But the post's author left out one big glaring problem: THERE ARE TWO WOMEN IN THIS ENTIRE BOOK. You heard right, folks. Of all the people in the Magical Kingdom of Landover, two women (who are alive) have names and dialogue. One is GOOD and one is EVIL, both are hot.

The evil woman is called Nightshade. She is a witch who lives in a big boggy canyon, and is evil. Really, I have no idea what this witch is supposed to do all day: Her canyon is lifeless and she lives in an illusion castle, ostensibly waiting for Ben Holiday, Lawyer-King, to show up so she can double-cross him. Which she never actually does, because Holiday blows some dust in her face first and TAKES AWAY HER FREE WILL (but it's okay, we're told by fairies that she was planning on doing the same thing to him). He extracts all the information he needs from her and sends her to her doom. That takes care of that.

And that's not event he worst of it, since the good woman never has any free will of her own anyway. Her name is Willow and she is a buxom, green skinned fairy who turns into a tree. And, by the way, this is so disgusting to Holiday that, after he sees her do it the first time, he can barely look at her for half the book. Anyway, Ben comes across Willow bathing in a lake. When they meet she immediately falls in love with him, declares SHE BELONGS TO HIM, and spends the rest of the book following him around while he angrily rebuffs her, then mostly ignores her.

I'm sorry, let me repeat, Willow tells Holiday that she BELONGS to him because of some sort of prophecy that is never precisely explained. She is a blank slate. She has no character apart from fantastic beauty, mitigated by creepy transforming into a tree magic (which would be seen as awe-inspiring by any intelligent 40-year-old man), and an all-consuming love for a man she saw once and spoke to for a moment. She exists to be supportive for him, uttering only hackneyed 'believe in yourself!' dialogue. She has no past and no future. She is everything that's wrong with the way women can be portrayed in a fantasy setting.

Now, I admit that character interactions are...more complicated than I have portrayed above. But don't I know it? I spent three quarters of this book making excuses for Brooks and hoping he'd turn it around. But when you come right down to it, this book doesn't give a damn about women. And that's disgraceful!

Magic Kingdom for Sale was published in 1986. So my initial thought was, well it was the '80's? Fantasy was kind of a conservative genre? But when I finished the book, I turned the page in my Landover omnibus and there it was, a wonderful passage from Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, quoted in front of the next Landover book, The Black Unicorn. The Last Unicorn was published in 1968 (I looked it up) and features three strong female characters--the Unicorn, Molly Grue, and Mommy Fortuna--which is good for a cast of characters that small. And if we're going to go into numbers: I would be happy if MKfS had even two strong women, but the fact is, it has none.

This pisses me off (even more), because Willow and Nightshade could be sooooo much more awesome, very easily. If Willow rejected the prophecy, but felt herself compelled to accompany Ben for other reasons, say...to save the goddamn kingdom. And only fell in love with him after seeing what a good man and strong leader he was. Or if Nightshade unexpectedly helped Ben with the dragon, if she maybe had some minions to protect (ones the she might have human feeling for) or decided it wasn't so cool to hide out underground while the magic kingdom destroyed itself.

Christ, if ANY of the people in this book felt motivated by anything other than self-preservation it would be sooo much more fun. Instead it's just a slog about a bored rich man who doesn't want to die, trying to appease other greedy and cowardly men into helping him out, while wandering around the countryside blundering into danger and bludgeoning any magical creature that becomes an obstacle, whether it's intelligent or not. And I thought the fact that Ben Holiday was a lawyer was going to mean he'd be talking people into cooperating, making them see reason. Brooks does a lot of telling on that front, not a lot of showing and it made me madder and madder every time it happened. Nightshade was just the last straw.

So, after that tangent, all I have to say is: It seems to me like Terry Brooks hates women. So I won't be reading any more of his books, thank you.

Oh also, the kobolds who take care of the King's household are monkey men who can't speak. So, there's that.

Issues

Having issues with my text color. This is sort of a test.

Richard Kelly: Friend or Foe?

I'd like to talk for a minute about my fascination with the film director, Richard Kelly. Or rather, my fascination with his body of work. By which I mean Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, and The Box. (He also wrote Domino, but I heard it sucked and I didn't see it.)

Let's start with the last: The Box was incredibly disappointing. And I would like to blame it on Cameron Diaz, since I dislike her. But I can't, because she was pretty good. In fact, all the performances were good. Kelly seems to be genuinely talented when it comes to coaching actors. It's the writing and, at times, the directing that is wildly inconsistent.

"Oh, is that all?" you ask.

Now, I have to say The Box was very competently directed--from what I could tell, hell, I'm no expert. It just didn't make any sense. It was just kind of by the numbers while simultaneously being way out there. (VAGUE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!)

The heavy-handed, but at the same time non-committal, allusions to God and the Afterlife? The inexplicable and poorly done water effects? That Arthur C. Clark quote (repeated at least twice a la Southland Tales)? WTF Richard Kelly?

He wrote and directed Donnie Darko: For fuck's sake. Everything that Kelly screwed up in The Box and ST is pitch perfect in Donnie Darko. The plot is resolved. The sci-fi trappings are handled with a light touch; just specific enough to be plausible and thoughtful, but just vague enough to prevent confusion and keep the mystery. The back story does not eat the plot of the film. And Justin Timberlake does not have an incredibly awkward voice-over explaining what just happened on the screen. These are of course just examples, and I'm probably forgetting the really important things that really bothered me in his sophomore and junior efforts. However.

The problem is: I really liked Southland Tales. Like, a LOT. Like, I saw it twice in the theater and just re-watched it with my sister. Like, I have a major problem with Seann William Scott now. I mean, because I love him so much. That kind of problem.

When I first saw the movie, it was like a car crash that you can't look away from and a puzzle that you're this close to solving all wrapped up together. I immediately wanted to see it again so that I could try and figure it out. What went wrong? What is Kelly trying to say here? What biblical figure is he supposed to represent? What is her motivation here? And what exactly is liquid karma (besides the stupidest name for a alternate energy source/drug that makes you lip-synch The Killers)?

The trouble with that kind of attraction to a movie, is that it steadily gets worse the more times you see it. You figure out what that plot device is and the exact chronology of what's happening. You dig out all the metaphors and allusions you can. You speculate on what went wrong and build a pretty good theory. (which I might expand upon in future, if I'm so inclined). And ultimately you decide that it doesn't matter what Kelly is trying to say, because he failed.

But still, you have a soft spot for that big, little, train wreck of a movie that you just couldn't stop thinking about last year.

Or at least I do. And then I get sad when I realize, if The Box is any indication, it's probably all going to be mediocre movies for Kelly from here on out. No flashes of batshit crazy genius like Southland Tales, or tasteful science fiction indies like Donnie Darko. And I had such hopes for him.

Red Right Hand, by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

I feel like not enough people talk about how awesome Nick Cave’s song Red Right Hand is. I mean, it is from 1994, so it’s not surprising not many people are talking about it. And it’s not like I just discovered it today either. I’ve had Nick Cave’s Best Of since high school when my brother burned it for me.

But this song has so many badass images and such a creepy, foreboding atmosphere while still being catchy. My only wish is that it was a little easier for a soprano to sing along with.

Remember, you’re one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan, designed and directed by his red right hand.

St. Elmo's Fire, 1985

Director: Joel Schumacher

Writer: Joel Schumacher, Carl Kurlander

Notable Actors: Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Aly Sheedy, Mare Winningham, Judd Nelson

One Sentence Summary: 80’s Brat Packers portray recent college graduates breaking up, pairing up, or failing at work/life, all while learning the value of friendship and incredible sexiness.

Starting off: I have to say I have a soft spot for 80’s teen romantic flicks, and though this one lacks some of my favorite boys it did make me love Andrew McCarthy more than I ever have before (he’s a big weeny in Pretty in Pink and kind of bland in Less Than Zero) and Rob Lowe is always fun to look at. The girls are cute and I had never seen Mare Winningham in anything before. Wikipedia tells me she was not a member of the ‘Brat Pack” crew. Also, let’s discuss the term Brat Pack…

It’s dumb. It sounds ridiculous. Wikipeida also tells me no member of the group ever referred to it as that. Which is good. Apparently Emilio Estevez was the ‘leader’ and they partied a lot and acted together from time to time. Big deal. You know what’s even dumber though?

The Frat Pack. I love you guys, but really? You’re going to embrace it? At least these 80’s kids were cool enough to ignore the media labeling. Really? Paul Rudd, you’re a ‘pledge’? Not funny and not cool guys. I don’t approve.

But really, about the movie: Emilio’s story could have easily been cut out. I would have enjoyed the movie so much more! It doesn’t have anything to do with the other Elmo kids, plus it’s CREEPY. It’s just his sick obsession with Andie MacDowell, which I might have been okay with if she had ever given him any indication that she reciprocated his feelings, besides going on one date with him four years before. It’s just bad writing. Which is sad, because the performances were pretty good all around. Except Demi, she didn’t really have the chops for that meltdown.

Her story was kind of jammed in there too, but you felt like she was part of the group because she was paling around with and confiding in the other girls. Emilio never did that; he was always off on his own being creepy. Maybe Demi’s plotline was just a bit more believable.

Other thoughts: I could have done without Rob Lowe’s sax. Really 80’s? Saxaphone players are sexy?

Another word on the ‘80’s. Fashion! I know it’s come back and I like what I see out there nowadays in the back of the H&M. But I hope to god we don’t get frumpy florals and baggy angora sweaters too. They weren’t even baggy, they were poofy and completely shapeless. Oh, and those big lacy collars, ugh! It was a pretty good time for men’s wear though. They actually made Judd Nelson look good in his little suspenders, pretending to be a politician and a ladies man, and not the criminal he really is.

Now I have to go watch the Breakfast Club. “Smoke up, Johnny!”