Reading/Watching Log #63

If there was a theme to this month’s reading/watching material it was the Italian Renaissance, though that ultimately only counts for two of the many things I worked through in March. Alice Hoffman's City of Masks is heavily based on the Venice of this time period, whereas three seasons of Medici covered five generations of that famous family.

It also ended up being a month for Robin Hood due to being reminded (somehow) of the old BBC show, which I loved dearly and which broke my heart, so I sated my thirst for this particular legend by tracking down the two most recent filmic adaptations (though "recent" is relative, as one of these movies is already over ten years old). 

I also finished my last library book of the year. From now on, I have to read my OWN books. and hopefully make a substantial dent in the giant piles of books dotted around the place.

Victor and Nora: A Gotham Love Story by Lauren Myracle and Isaac Goodhart

I can’t resist these graphic novels: YA takes on the adolescent years of recognizable DC characters. Having exhausted most of the top-tier heroines, they’re now moving into more obscure figures – though anyone who watched Batman: The Animated Series as a kid knows all about Victor and Nora Fries. Could anyone forget Mr Freeze sitting in his cold cell, watching the ballerina revolve in its glass music box, always together but forever apart? That did something to us!

It’s an irresistible tragedy, but I was curious to see how it would be readapted for this particular branch of standalone comics. Myracle makes some good choices, namely that Nora is allowed to be more than Victor’s (quite literally) fridged wife. Reimagined as brown-skinned and South Asian, Nora Faria is suffering from a terminal illness that will eventually take her motor functions and memories (and is symbolized in the panels by a rather terrifying raven with hands).

She and her family have returned to Gotham City to be close to the resting place of Nora’s deceased mother, which also throws her into the vicinity of Victor Fries, a young science student. They meet, they fall in love, they grapple with the fact Nora doesn’t have much longer to live.

It’s hardly cheerful, but there are some great visuals throughout. Nora is depicted in shades of pink, while Victor gets blue – and naturally, when they’re interacting everything is in muted purple. Though things have to end a certain way for Nora, she’s allowed agency and a personality in the lead-up to the inevitable, and though the nebbish Victor is given an unnecessarily bleak backstory (he’s responsible for the death of his brother in a house fire) it’s nice to see him pre-cryogenic suit.

The subject matter means there’s a list of suicide hotline numbers at the back of the book, though Amazon.com tells me that this is the first of two intended books, so hopefully Nora will get out of the cryogenic pod in due course. Hey, Harley Quinn busted her out on that show.

Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block

It’s been years since I last read a book by Francesca Lia Block, and I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up. These are the books you first read as a teenager and believe are completely profound: your first experience with purple prose, magical realism, and/or subjects like drugs, sex, teen pregnancies and LGBTQ rights (it was the late eighties, and this was still fairly rare in YA fiction, at least in my neck of the woods).

And yes, they’ve definitely dated – there’s cultural appropriation, fetishization of dark skin tones, and several non-white characters who have seemingly nothing else to do with their lives than impart wisdom to a bunch of teenagers... but like I said, the stories were written in the late eighties/early nineties. You couldn’t get away with it today, but it’s up to you whether or not you want to tolerate it in the context it was originally written.

Because there is something undeniably intoxicating about Lia Block’s writing: she writes modern fairy tales that are surreal and yet oddly comforting, in which her protagonists set out on journeys of self-discovery in places like Los Angeles and New York, which are filled with wish-granting genies, conversations with ghosts, and magical clothing that transforms the wearer into something else. These threads are interwoven with more “mundane” issues, such as substance abuse, dysfunctional families and sexual awakenings.

Dangerous Angels is actually an anthology of five novellas that make up what’s usually called the Weetzie Bat series – a bit of misnomer, as Weetzie is the protagonist of only the first story. Various friends and family members provide the focal point for the rest: her daughter, her adopted daughter, and her gay best friend. In each one they grow to maturity, learn truths about themselves, and find their place in the world.

It sounds rather formulaic, so... look, I’m just going to give an example of her prose, the true drawcard when it comes to her work:

A strong wind came. It dried the leaves to paper and the paper to flames like paint. Then it sent the flames through the papery hills and canyons, painting them red. It knocked over telephone poles and young trees and sent trash cans crashing in the streets. The wind made Cherokee’s hair crackle with blue electric sparks. It made a kind of lemonade – cracking the glass chimes that hung in the lemon tree outside into ice and tossing the lemons to the ground where they split open. It brought Cherokee the sea and the burning hills and the faraway garden. It brought her the days and nights early; she smelled the smoky dawn in the darkness, the damp dark while it was still light.

You’re either intrigued, or rolling your eyes. And yes, the character is really called Cherokee. And no, she’s not First Nation. Oof.

But look – it doesn’t come from a place of malice, just nineties ignorance. Ultimately the stories are about how love, acceptance and the freedom to tell one’s personal story is a great healing force, though Lia Block is careful not to sugar-coat it too much. There’s still pain, and people still make mistakes, and love itself is the “dangerous angel” of the title – basically life is pretty messy, and so is this book.

Aggie Morton: Peril at Owl Park by Marthe Jocelyn

The very last library book I’ll be reading this year! From here on out I’ll be attempting to make a dent in the TBR pile that never ends, so wish me luck on that.

An ongoing series that throws a young Agatha Christie into the thick of several mysteries, it draws upon some components of her childhood (a deceased father, an older married sister) and imagines many of the inspirations for her future novels – namely a young Belgian friend called Hector Perot who helps her with his deductive brain.

Aggie, her grandmother and Hector are going to Owl Park for Christmas, the estate where Aggie’s older sister Margaret has been living with her husband Lord Greyson and his niece Lucy. On arrival they realize there’s something of a party, with plenty of other guests and a troupe of actors that have come for the Christmas Eve celebrations. Of most interest is that one of the guests has brought with him a large and beautiful emerald, which he intends to return to its country of origin but is rumoured to have – you guessed it! – a curse.

Naturally there’s a dead body by the following morning. In all honesty, it’s not a great mystery in the sense that the red herrings and the clues and the suspects are all tied together beautifully in a Christie-esque puzzle box, but I DID really love the atmosphere and the character dynamics. Owl Park is remote, gloomy and frozen over (a perfect place for a murder) and the camaraderie between Aggie, Hector and Lucy is nicely done (I particularly loved the slight resentment that Aggie holds toward Lucy – it rang very true that she was concerned Lucy would build a stronger relationship with her sister considering they lived under the same roof, whereas Aggie lived miles away).

It’s a cute series, and a nice glimpse into the childhood of the famous mystery writer, but most importantly – my last library book of the year! Man, this is like going cold turkey on a minor addiction. What do you MEAN I have to read my own books??

City of Masks by Mary Hoffman

I had high hopes of reading all six of Mary Hoffman’s Stavaganza novels this month, to go with the theme of the Italian Renaissance that was provided with my watch of Medici (see below) but that turned out to be an utter pipe dream.

I read this book (and the next three) years ago and had fond memories of its premise and setting. Lucien is recovering from intensive chemotherapy when he's given a marbled notebook by his father to help him communicate if his throat is too sore to speak. With the book clasped in his hands, Lucien dreams of a beautiful city of columns and fountains, cathedrals and basilicas, canals and courtyards – and even stranger, a young girl dressed as a boy who insists that he's in grave danger.

Her name is Arianna, and she's disguised as a boy because she wants achieve her ambition of being chosen as a mandolier (what we would call a gondolier) to the Duchessa, sole ruler of the city of Belleza. Naturally it isn’t a dream, and Lucien is fascinated to discover that his illness has disappeared in this place: he’s full of energy and appetite, with a full head of hair.

From there the story flows back and forth between the two worlds. By day Lucien slowly succumbs to the aftereffects of his cancer treatment, but by night he is free and healthy in Talia, an alternate-world version of sixteenth century Renaissance Italy (with Belleza standing in for Venice).

Over the course of the six books, Hoffman pieces together her mythology, in which people known as Stravagante can teleport (or "stravagate") themselves between worlds with the help of a particular talisman, and inevitably get caught up in the political intrigue and espionage of the city – including warring factions, assassination attempts, and secret lineages.

The books are a lot of fun, with a rich setting and solid characterization, though Hoffman’s real gift is her descriptive prose. You don't just read about Belleza, you visit it along with Lucien, and you can tell she has a real love for the Italian city-states and their histories. Occasionally a fan-cast or a picspam based on these stories will cross my Tumblr dash, but it’s a sadly underrated set of books. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to continue with the series later this year.

The Uninvited (1944)

For the second time in a row, I’ve watched something the month before and forgotten to add it to the right log. I watched The Uninvited for my birthday in fact, after seeing a Tumblr gif-set of some scenes and immediately rushing to download it.  

Its place in the genre is quite fascinating, as rudimentary on-line research tells me that this might just be the first Hollywood film to treat the existence of ghosts as something real and tangible, as opposed to one’s imagination or the result of deliberate trickery. Released in 1944, it concerns two adult siblings buying a house in Cornwall for an unusually low price.

The two meet Stella Meredith, the granddaughter of the old colonel that sold them the house in the first place, and are intrigued by her odd behaviour as they start to make a life for themselves in the seaside town of Biddlecombe. It turns out that her mother died in the house and she has been fascinated with it her whole life, despite her grandfather forbidding her from setting foot there.

By striking up a friendship with the siblings, Stella finds a way to explore the place, though there are already some strange occurrences happening within: an artist’s studio with an inexplicable chill, the distinct sound of weeping at night, and the strange behaviour of their dog. They accept the idea of a ghost surprisingly well, and the rest of the (extremely long) movie is devoted to trying to figure out the whys and wherefores of the haunting.

As it happens, there is a twist regarding the nature and identity of the ghost – one that I had guessed, but then dismissed when it came to the period in which this film had been made. But then... I was right! Colour me surprised, though if you want to know what I’m talking about, you’ll have to track it down yourself. If you’re in the mood for an old-timey black-and-white ghost story, this fits the bill.

Best in Show (2000)

I was curious to see whether this mockumentary came before or after the UK version of The Office, which I (as it turns out, erroneously) pretty much credited for the rise of this particular form of comedy. Turns out that the mockumentary has been around for much longer than that, and its popularity perhaps better attributed to 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap, written and directed by Rob Reiner.

Who is also behind Best in Show, released a full year before we were all introduced to David Brent and his office cohorts. So you learn something new every day.

This one takes on the world of dog shows, something that’s ripe for a send-up, though it plays out in a pretty unsurprising way: you’ve got the eclectic range of weirdos, the road trips to the venue, the clueless commentator and long-suffering hotel manager, the rising tension of the competition itself, and then the deserving winner. I can’t say I found anything laugh-out-loud funny, it was all just tepidly amusing.

I’m chalking this up to the fact that this is very much the mockumentary genre in its infancy. I’m guessing back in 2000, the mere use of the format, in which the camera follows around a bunch of hapless fools played by actors largely ad-libbing, was funny in and of itself. Over twenty years later, and there has to be a bit more to it than that.

I suspect I just came too late to this one for it to work its magic on me.

Robin Hood (2010)

I can’t believe it’s been ten years since this came out. This month saw me go down a rabbit hole of sorts, revisiting my very first fandom: that of the BBC’s Robin Hood, which aired between 2006 and 2009. It was a show that inexplicably chose to have Maid Marian brutally stabbed to death at the end of the second season, leading to a third that was bereft of any sort of heart or emotional centre. What they were trying to achieve with this insane creative decision is a mystery to this day.

So for the longest time I avoided Robin Hood retellings, wanting to forget the genuine sense of grief that the BBC version left me with. This movie was released a year after the show was cancelled, and catching up with it today, it’s clear that it was very much inspired by the whole “grimdark” mentality that was so prevalent at the start of the last decade, in which absolutely everything had to be dark and gritty. It’s also something of an “origin story”, in line with Batman Begins or Antoine Fuqua’s attempt at the King Arthur story in 2004.

Ridley Scott applies these narrative/tonal aesthetics to the legend of Robin Hood, which in many ways is a quasi-sequel to his Kingdom of Heaven, which came out five years earlier. Robin and his men (Will, Allan and John) are soldiers in King Richard’s army, returning home from the Third Crusade when the siege of a French castle goes badly for the English and Richard is killed by a lucky arrow.

Having already been put in the stocks for his disillusioned attitude toward the Holy War, Robin and his three compatriots make a run for it, disguising themselves as knights and booking passage on a ship bound for home. Their disguises are taken from a group of ambushed knights, one of whom asks Robin to take news of his death to his father: Sir Walter of Lockley.

On doing so, the blind and infirm Sir Walter asks Robin for a favour – to impersonate his dead son Robert so as to prevent the Crown from seizing his lands and title. Having already been introduced to the man’s daughter-in-law, the recently widowed Marian, Robin quickly agrees.

It’s always fascinating to see how each new adaptation of Robin Hood plays with the familiar storyline and characters, adding or removing certain details or concepts so as to focus on a particular aspect of the legend that the writer/director finds most interesting. What Ridley Scott brings to the table is a deeper interest in the political intrigue and tension of the time (even with drastic historical liberties taken) including some real-life figures that seldom get the chance to appear in any Robin Hood retelling: Eleanor of Aquitaine, King Philip Augustus of France, and William Marshal.

I honestly don’t think Isabella of Angoulême has been seen in a Robin Hood adaptation since Robin of Sherwood back in the eighties, and we even get a brief glimpse of Isabella of Gloucester, John’s first wife.

Also of interest is the fact that Sir Robin of Locksley is actually no such person; his real name is Robin Longstride, and for most of the film he’s impersonating the actual Lord of Locksley at the behest of Marian’s father-in-law. Likewise, all the characters skew much older than what we usually see, with most of the cast in their forties (at least) and Marian a widow rather than a maid.

The chronology is also changed: we’re used to Robin Hood stories ending with King Richard returning from the Crusades and presiding over the happy ending; here he dies within the opening act and most of the story takes place during the early reign of King John, with Robin and the gang not getting outlawed until the very end of the story. They were clearly hoping for some sequels, but that the franchise instead begins and ends with this film makes it feel almost like a prequel to the Robin Hood legends as a whole.

Naturally there’s plenty of anachronistic discussion about how a man’s worth can’t be judged on whether they’re a peasant or a knight, or how the Crusades were terrible and pointless and cruel, and why royals are a waste of time and space (and it’s not that I disagree with any of this, but absolutely no one at this time would have thought let alone verbalized any of this, so it rather undercuts the whole “historically accurate” angle).

Russell Crowe is fine: he’s basically playing Maximus again, but I didn’t dislike him in the role as much as others did at the time (even when he starts mumbling his way through every line) and naturally Cate Blanchett is fabulous as an older, wiser Marian. Still, it bugged me that they used the old “woman tries to do something to prove her mettle, immediately fails and then acts annoyed/secretly impressed when a man comes to her aid” trope – it actually happens twice, first when Marian tries to free a pig from a mud-pit and then when she tries to avenge her father-in-law’s death. Honestly, why not just LET these women be capable instead of undermining them constantly to make the love interest look heroic?

And of course, Oscar Isaac as Prince John, with a pair of distracting blue contacts and his famous: “I declare him an outLAAAAW!” meme. It’s actually a pretty good depiction of the infamous prince: not overtly evil, but certainly callow, selfish and insecure. Mark Strong is on bad-guy duty as an evil soldier/spy called Godfrey, though it’s a mystery why they didn’t just call him Guy of Gisbourne, since that’s clearly the role he’s taking.

It’s not bad, just imminently forgettable. There are some cute lines, as when John asks to tag along and Robin says: “the more the merrier,” and I actually kinda liked the inclusion of the Lost Boys: a group of feral children that are living wild in Sherwood Forest and occasionally help out the main cast.

It’s also fun to glimpse familiar faces, who are already ten years older by now – the deserter who got beheaded first in Game of Thrones, the guy who turned into a goat in Stardust, and Verity from Poldark, not to mention Mark Addy as Tuck, Matthew Macfadyen as the Sheriff, Eileen Atkins as Queen Eleanor and good old Max von Sydow as Sir Walter. And wait, was that Luke Evans?? Yes it was!

In Secret (2013)

I actually have no idea what spurred me to watch this, though it makes for the second movie to star Oscar Isaac this month. Elizabeth Olsen is in this too, so perhaps I was compensating for having no interest whatsoever in Wandavision.

I initially thought this would be a standard period bodice-ripper, with Olsen as the repressed wife and Isaac as the sexy artist who comes to provide her sexual awakening, but it ends up being a lot darker than that, ultimately becoming a straightforward tragedy. A while back I watched Florence Pugh’s Lady Macbeth, and it vibes incredibly well with that.

Thérèse Raquin is left as a child by her father to her domineering aunt, and once she’s come of age she is duly married to her sickly cousin. The family move to a small shop in Paris, and Thérèse tries to come to terms with the fact her life revolves around taking care of Camille and minding the shop while her mother-in-law entertains a Greek chorus of neighbours (seriously, it includes Mackenzie Crook, Shirley Henderson and Matt Lucas, in roles that are gratingly comedic in an otherwise grim story).

Then, her husband brings home an old friend and painter called Laurent LeClaire, played by Oscar Isaac, and come on guys – what on earth did you think was going to happen? I'm sorry, but any man who introduces his unhappy wife to one of the most gorgeous men on the planet deserves to be cheated on. Laurent and Thérèse kickstart an affair, and soon it’s not long before they’re plotting between themselves as to how it can continue without any fear of discovery or reprisal.

Yup, the two jump straight to the murder scheme, and things unravel pretty expectedly from there. It reminded me of that gag in The Great, in which the men are discussing whether or not women find it appealing when a man commits murder for them, and they eventually come to the conclusion that: “they’re a bit funny about it.” Thinking about a guy desiring you so much that he’s willing to off your husband might sound nice in theory, but the guilt-ridden reality isn’t so much fun...

It’s hard to know what else to say about it, though Jessica Lange as Thérèse’s aunt is actually a much better character than my synopsis gives her credit for. You think she’s going to be the Beloved Smother who rules over Thérèse with an iron fist – and in many ways she is, but Lange fills her with humanity and pathos, elevating the dreary archetype to something grander and more tragic. Tom Felton also puts in a decent performance as the pitiable Camille, a change from his usual Upper Class Asshole routine.

I can’t really bring myself to recommend it: the whole thing is pretty depressing, from the miserable marriage to the miserable love affair to the miserable consequences of the murder, but hey; consider my debt paid to Elizabeth Olsen and Oscar Isaac for deliberately avoiding their latest Disney projects.

Robin Hood (2018)

If 2010’s Robin Hood went dark and serious, then 2018’s take on the material veers heavily in the opposite direction, making itself silly to the point of stupid. For real, this is not a good movie.

As ever, Robin of Locksley is called away to the Crusades, leaving behind his lands, his people and his love Marian, before learning the hard way that there’s no glory to be found in war. After trying and failing to save the life of a young Arab boy, he’s deliberately wounded by his own commanding officer (Guy of Gisborne) and sent back home in disgrace.

As in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he’s followed by a Muslim character who feels he has a life-debt to pay. In something that vaguely gestures towards an interesting idea, Jamie Foxx is a Composite Character that combines the still-newish inclusion of a Moorish/Saracen character with Little John – at least that’s what the character calls himself in English after a cringy joke in which no one can pronounce his Arabic name.

They deliberately go anachronistic, with rapid-fire ballistae, medieval flak jackets, bows that are wielded like machine guns, Nazi-esque long-coats and aristocratic evening wear that wouldn’t look out of place in The Hunger Games. It’s not subtle about the allusions it’s trying to make, from the Iraqi War to Nazi Germany, and Nottingham is depicted as a weird steampunkish town, in which fireballs randomly erupt into the air at any given moment and everyone is covered in an artful layer of grime.

Under Little John’s tutelage, Robin integrates himself with the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn, but not even he can save this) to get some intel as to where the tax money is going, and... oh, who even cares? There are some heists, some chase-scenes, some explosions, a pointless love triangle between Robin, Will Scarlett and the most boring Marian of all time, and they all finally end up in Sherwood Forest, prepping for a sequel that (like the 2010 effort) never came.

Taron Egerton gives it his all, but there’s really no characterization for him to work with. Tuck is around, but is depicted as a skinny schlub who reminded me of Bill Bailey, and James Dornan’s Will Scarlett eventually breaks bad, even though he’s initially characterized as the only guy trying to introduce a sense of reason to the proceedings (“let’s maybe not rush into the heat of battle against armed forces without a plan”). But then he sees Marian kissing Robin, so you know... evil.

And like I said, this portrayal of Marian is bitterly disappointing. As in Prince of Thieves, she’s allowed exactly one (1) cool moment – in this case being introduced as “the thief” of the opening narration, sneaking into Robin’s stable to steal a horse for her impoverished neighbours – before she’s immediately caught, reduced to girlfriend status, and relegated to the love triangle. She looks uncannily like Lucy Griffiths though, so that was disconcerting.

I didn’t enjoy it much, and I suppose I’m in the minority for saying I preferred Ridley Scott’s grittier take. But hey, it’s Robin Hood. If there’s one thing we can count on, there’s always going to be another Robin Hood movie in the works, so we’ll see you next time!

Justice League: The Snyder Cut (2021)

I was always going to watch The Snyder Cut of 2017’s rather dire Justice League (honestly, I didn’t hate it the first time around, mostly because I’m not hugely invested in this property and its characters anyway) but in the lead-up to going to my friend’s house and watching it on his massive television, I realized I was actually kinda excited.

It’s always fascinating to see a different cut of the same movie – what changes, what disappears, what’s added – and in this case, Snyder was given leave to put pretty much anything he wanted into his movie. This means that it’s ludicrously long, clocking in at over four hours, with an epilogue that sets up a sequel that’s almost certainly never going to be made, and scenes that add absolutely nothing to the overall viewing experience – like Lois Lane getting a latte in slow-motion, or Scandinavian women keening after Aquaman for no apparent reason. Seriously, what was with the woman that sniffed his jersey? 

But then I figure – hey, Snyder has shot all this material, he’s been given leave to fulfil his own vision, we’re in need of something long to pass the time, and it’s not like we have to drive all the way to a movie theatre. I was actually surprised to find that it moved pretty quickly.

The plot is exactly the same: Darkseid is intent on conquering every world with the help of three motherboxes hidden on Earth, and sends one of his lieutenants to track them down and activate them to... open a portal from one world to the other? Or something? It doesn’t really matter.

What fascinated me were the differences between Whedon and Snyder’s cuts, and I have to say that there’s good and bad in both of them. Snyder knows how to frame an image, but Whedon brought a human touch that wasn’t wholly unwelcome: Bruce preparing for Lois to be at the memorial to shake Superman out of his fugue state, Batman later telling Barry to save “just one person”, or even Aquaman simply asking if Mera is okay after her battle with Steppenwolf. When a fan inevitably makes the “ultimate cut” of this movie, I wouldn’t mind these scenes being reinserted. (I kinda missed Sigrid’s Everybody Knows montage too).

But it’s obvious why Ray Fisher was so upset – he gets so much more material here, including scenes with his mother, scenes in which he comes to terms with his powers, and the climactic victory stroke against Darkseid. He definitely benefits the most from this cut, though it’s rather eye-opening to witness just how expendable the non-white cast were in Whedon’s hands: not only is Cyborg’s role severely cut back, some characters didn’t even feature at all: Harry Lennix’s Martian Manhunter, Kiersey Clemmons’s Iris West, and Zheng Kai’s Ryan Choi to name but three.

I did kind of miss what I remember of Diana and Bruce’s conversations about leadership, but Diana herself gets more to do (and thankfully no one falls onto her boobs this time) – as do the Amazons. I have to confess to chills when they answer Hippolyta’s call and unanimously cry: “we have no fear!” Mera gets a bit more to do as well, though Amber Heard is now sporting an inexplicable British accent and tells Arthur that both her parents are dead (this is clearly not the case in Aquaman, in which her father is very much alive).

One thing that bugged me in both versions is that so much narrative space could have been saved had the bad guys been the ones to resurrect Superman, perhaps sending him ahead as a distraction or a vanguard, thereby requiring the heroes to fight against what is not only an unstoppable force, but also their former friend. We would have been spared the moral implications of bringing back someone to life, not to mention the sight of Cyborg and the Flash digging up a grave. As it is, his whole death and return has no weight or resonance whatsoever. He died, now he’s back. Mmkay.

I stayed totally clear of the toxic side of the Snyder fandom that demanded the release of this film, but those who campaigned in good faith (and without on-line harassment) seem to be happy with what they received here, so I’m glad for them. I’ve no idea whether the seeds that Snyder laid will be picked up in later films (Manhunter, the Knightmare, Flash’s situation with his father) and the good stuff is enough to wish that DC had taken things slower before greenlighting the big team-up, but for what this was... I had fun.

Medici: Masters of Florence: Seasons 1 – 3 (2016 – 2019)

It’s a shame I didn’t have the time to turn this particular entry into a full-blown review, as I love this period and was able to discuss The Borgias and Da Vinci’s Demons in more detail. As with those shows, Medici ran for three seasons, was set during the Italian Renaissance, and features several familiar figures from that time, from Leonardo da Vinci to Alfonso of Naples, Pope Sixtus IV to Caterina Sforza, Girolamo Savonarola to Sandro Botticelli. And of course, Machiavelli, who might just be the only character to appear in all three of these shows. It’s always fun to see the same historical figures pop up in different contexts, usually with vastly different characterizations.

Medici covers five generations of the di Medici family, from Giovanni di Medici (Dustin Hoffman) to his great-grandson Piero di Medici (Louis Partridge, who you’ll remember as Lord Twinkleface, or whatever, from Enola Holmes). Of course, that’s just the beginning and end of the line: the most important patriarchs of both the show and history itself are Cosimo di Medici (Richard Madden) and Lorenzo di Medici (Daniel Sharman).

The first season focuses on Cosimo in the wake of his father’s death, taking control of the family bank and its assets, a firm which boasts the Papacy itself as one of its patrons – much to the envy and resentment of other noble Florentine families. His father died in rather suspicious circumstances, which casts a shadow over the rest of his family: his brother Lorenzo, wife Contessina, grown son Piero, and daughter-in-law Lucrezia.

The second season jumps ahead twenty years to focus on Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo, who eventually was given the moniker of “the Magnificent”, which tells you everything about his reputation and standing in Renaissance Italy. It covers his marriage to Clarice Orsini, his brother Giuliano’s love affair with a married woman, and (inevitably) his dealings with the Pazzi family, ultimately culminating the attempted assassination of himself and Giuliano.  

Which all things considered... hit a lot harder than it necessarily would have done so two years ago. It’s astonishing to watch the event unfold in the knowledge that it actually happened – that a group of men honestly thought they would be on the right side of history for having assassinated two unarmed citizens in a place of worship during Sunday Mass.

The third season covers Lorenzo’s waning years, in which he continually compromises himself in the dual goals of protecting his family and securing peace across Italy, much to the disappointment of his wife and son. Like all period dramas of this nature, its major theme is the tension between wielding power and retaining one’s moral compass, and in this regard, it doesn’t really cover ground we haven’t seen before in dozens of things like The Borgias or even (forgive me) Reign.

It was Tumblr gif-sets that really tipped me off as to the show’s quality, with especial attention given to the relationship between Lorenzo and Francesco Pazzi (Matteo Martari). That’s not surprising considering the two are basically a quintessential Gryffindor and Slytherin, caught in a homoerotic dynamic in which one is desperately trying to convince the other to “turn away from the Dark Side”, and a palpable sense of tragedy when Lorenzo’s concentrated efforts to offer an olive branch ultimately fails.

But the relationship wasn’t as central to the proceedings as Tumblr had led me to believe, and Francesco himself not as fleshed out as I would have liked. (After telling his wife that his evil Uncle Sean Bean is not to be trusted under any circumstances, he... immediately falls for his manipulations and single-handedly ruins his own life). And the moment in which Lorenzo looks his attempted assassin/former friend in the eyes and spells out just what this betrayal has cost them is given less time and space than his similar confrontation with Uncle Sean Bean.

Of the two leads I think I preferred Madden, despite Lorenzo being the more interesting and likeable character. Madden captures Cosimo’s understated cunning and occasional ruthlessness without losing his sense of humanity (even if he is pretty terrible to his awesome wife), while Sharman never quite conveys the raw charisma and intelligence that the real Lorenzo undoubtedly possessed (neither was the historical Lorenzi particularly handsome, whereas Sharman is just generically handsome).

That’s not to say he’s bad by any means. His performance during the Pazzi attack and its aftermath is very good. But come season three, there’s really no difference in the character’s demeanour or bearing, despite the horrific betrayal and trauma he endured. We’re meant to be watching a man give in to his darker impulses, sacrificing pieces of his own morality to reach the ever-moving goalposts of his ambition, but throughout the whole thing, he just comes across as... nice enough. It makes me wonder what Matteo Martari could have done in the role.

As ever, the main drawcard of any period drama is present and accounted for: beautiful outfits, gorgeous scenery and unlikely hairstyles. The supporting cast is strong all round, especially Annabel Scholey as Contessina (long-suffering but fierce), Francesco Montanari as Girolamo Savonarola (with compelling religious conviction; you can see why so many would be drawn to him) and both Valentina Bellè and Sarah Parish as the younger/older versions of Lucrezia Tornabuoni (the matriarch of the family – though it’s a pity they left out the fact she was a playwright and poetess in her own right).

And hey, it’s Bradley James! I haven’t seen him in a while, and is it just me or does he look really different? I can’t put my finger on why, but he just does. That he’s playing Sarah Parrish’s beloved son, after she played his potential stepmother (who was secretly a troll) on Merlin is pretty funny. Also, Sebastian de Souza seems to be popping up in all my shows recently.

Hilda: Season 1 (2018)

I read Luke Pearson’s gorgeous graphic novels at the end of 2019, and always meant to follow them up with the Netflix animated series. With Pearson deeply involved as a writer and creator, the show is very faithful to the original stories, keeping the general premise and the distinctive character designs even as they broaden the scope a little.

Hilda is a little blue-haired girl living on the outskirts of Trollberg, happy to explore the countryside with her little pet deer-fox, sketching and roaming to her heart’s content. But her mother has begun to get nervous living by herself in such isolation, and soon events occur that see the two of them (and Twig) relocate to Trollberg. Hilda isn’t too happy, but soon discovers that there is just as much adventure and mystery to be found in the narrow streets and alleyways of the township.

Heavily based on Scandinavian mythology, I was most pleased to see that the cartoon carries over the graphic novels’ distinct colour palette: everything looks quite muted and faded, but in a deliberately calming way. The whole thing also feels very much like a Hayao Miyazaki project, in which there’s occasionally some danger and high stakes, but for the most part, it's content to rely on just the thrill of exploration and having new experiences.

It was interesting to note that this thirteen-episode season adapts four of the six books, and fills the rest with original content. That’s probably the smart way to go, though I’m interested to see where The Stone Forest and The Mountain King will fit into season two, especially since the show is clearly laying down plot-threads of its own.

Bella Ramsay (you’ll know her as Lyanna Mormont from Game of Thrones) voices Hilda to perfection, capturing her insatiable curiosity and zest for life, and the other mythological creatures of the countryside are depicted with just the right balance of cutesy comedy and numinous wonder. You wouldn’t think they could pull that off, but they do.

A Discovery of Witches: Season 2 (2021)

I’m mostly just here for the aesthetic, as whatever else is going on, you can be assured this show is beautiful. More so this season than last, considering our two protagonists head back in time to the Elizabethan era in search of a book, and get the chance to do a lot of slow-motion horse-riding through the countryside at dawn. That’s the dream, right?

Honestly, I didn’t much enjoy the first season, largely because the two leads are so incredibly dull. They’re essentially Bella and Edward from Twilight, if Bella was a witch with her own power-base (which granted, is a vast improvement on the character) in the plot of Outlander, in which the main drawcard of time-travel is getting to wear fancy period-appropriate clothes.

Okay, I’m being a dick. The second season is actually a vast improvement on the first, even if every single other character including all the extras are more interesting than the two leads, who have the usual vampire/mortal woman relationship, in which the former says things like “I can’t control myself around you, I must possess you!” and the latter is all: “you would never hurt me, *tears*”. Yeah, I’m being a dick again.

Look – there’s some good stuff here. I liked that the show made the most of the time-travel element in order to introduce familiar figures from the past (including ones I’d never heard of before) such as Queen Elizabeth, Kit Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh and Mary Sidney. And it is pretty cute that Diana is given the time and space to geek out about all this.

Even though she’s got super-special-snowflake powers compared to every other witch in the show (most can only summon one of the four elements, she – you guessed it – can control all of them) she’s required to work to control them throughout tutelage with other women, and there are some nice little moments of things happening in the past that create echoes in the season’s B-plot, involving the rest of the cast still living out their lives in the present day.

But I wonder perhaps if Covid-19 upset the filming of the last few episodes, as it ends on more of a whimper than a bang, with the characters just sort of... milling about in an extended montage (plus a truly unwelcome example of yet another Bury Your Gays). I’ve totally lost track of what the Book of Life is for, or why the witch/demon baby is so important, or what the Council of Stern Faces is trying to achieve, but despite my snark it’s undoubtedly an improvement on season one, and having come this far, I’m going to see it through.

But more Satu please. She was cool, and is more interesting in her two scenes than Diana is in a gazillion.