Reading/Watching Post #67

This month’s theme was crime dramas, though (as usual) a few holdovers from previous months didn't get finished until now. I also managed to go to the theatre twice, and though it was in a more amateur capacity than usual, sometimes seeing actors step on each other’s lines or struggle with their costumes makes for a more endearing audience experience.

Movie-wise it was more haphazard than usual, though I did make a slight effort to catch up on the careers of the BBC’s Robin Hood actors, along with two more vintage Robin Hood movies. And because I’ve been as sick as a dog this week, a surprising amount of books – though never as many as I would like.

The Secret Garden (The Great Hall, Arts Centre)

As a child I was going to be taken to see The Secret Garden musical at the town hall, only for it to be cancelled due to low ticket sales. So this was me finally catching up with it, albeit a heavily abridged version. (Also, years ago I saw another rendition of The Secret Garden in the Art Centre’s Great Hall, only it wasn’t the musical).  

I’m pretty sure this was performed by an amateur theatrical company, though there were clearly some trained singers among the cast, and it was impressive what they managed to do on such a tiny stage. Their choreography was a well-oiled machine, with every cast member at one point or another being required to shift around various portions of the set.

With music and lyrics by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, the most interesting thing about the musical is how it expands the roles of the adult characters from the novel. Frances Hodgeson Burnett’s book keeps the focus squarely on Mary Lennox’s point of view, whereas the musical branches out to explore the lives of Archibald Craven and the original character of Doctor Neville Craven, his brother.

There’s a conflict of interest here, as Neville is both Colin’s doctor and the next heir to the estate should Archibald die without issue. That’s not to say that he’s deliberately sabotaging his nephew’s health, but all of the overprotectiveness concerning Colin in the book/film that belonged to Mrs Medlock is given over to Neville, who wants complete control over how Colin is cared for.

And as it turns out, he was also in love with Archibald’s late wife Lily. Ain’t that always the way? Lily is actually a fairly large presence in the musical, appearing to various characters as a ghost or a memory in a way that I’m fairly sure would have been confusing to many children in the audience, especially when she’s joined by Mary’s late parents, Captain Lennox and Rose.

(And yes, in case you were wondering, the musical keeps the ingenuous alteration made in the 1993 film, in which Mary’s mother is made twin sister to Archibald’s wife, as opposed to him being her maternal uncle – that is, direct brother to her mother. This means that Mary bears an uncanny resemblance to Archibald’s deceased wife, which leads to the song Lily’s Eyes – which I’m also fairly confident is the inspiration for J.K. Rowling writing Harry as having his mother’s eyes, especially since Lily’s name in Burnett’s book was Lilias).

The story is unsurprisingly better when it focuses on the younger cast, with Mary and Colin being the stand-outs. Dickon is aged up a bit, and Martha’s role is expanded upon, making her one of the participants in taking Colin to the secret garden for the first time (sorry Mrs Sowerby, you’re still extraneous). In light of this, the roles of Mrs Medlock and Ben Weatherstaff are downplayed – and bless him, the Yorkshire accent of the latter sounded remarkably Jamaican at times.

They had a little puppet on a stick that served as the robin which was a real crowd-pleaser, and sometimes it’s refreshing to see a production that isn’t hugely polished or professional, but clearly put together by people who were there for love of the work.

Moana Junior (Court Theatre)

It was a busy week for me going to the theatre, as I saw The Secret Garden on Wednesday and then took my niece to this on the Saturday. As with The Secret Garden, it was more of an amateur production despite being put on at the Court Theatre, but the energy and excitement in the auditorium was palpable. This was no doubt due to the fact that a big chunk of the audience was clearly the friends and family of the cast, who would burst into applause whenever they so much walked onto the stage, but that fed into the performances on the stage and made the whole thing a lot of fun to watch.

In general there were a lot of Pacific Islanders in the audience, so I think it’s fair to say that New Zealand has pretty much reverse-appropriated Moana. Okay, I know that’s not a thing, but I was in a conversation with a friend at work who claimed she avoided seeing the Disney movie because she was aware they had cherry-picked from too many different cultures and streamlined them into a very Western-style coming-of-age story, and – yeah, I can see her point.

But at the same time, I was getting genuinely emotional at the sight of so many talented young Maori and Polynesian performers singing lyrics like: “we tell the story of our elders in a never-ending chain,” so I think there is something to be said for taking something based on a specific culture and seeing it in the hands of those who actually belong to said culture.

Obviously there were some limitations as to how much of the movie could be directly translated to the stage: Hei Hei the chicken and Pua the piglet are reimagined as children, and they skip right over the sentient warrior coconuts. Tamatoa is a woman in a shiny black dress with plenty of bling, and Maui’s shapeshifting involve him hefting his hook into the air while shadow-puppets emerge on the wall behind him.

Te Fiti’s transformation was good though: she wore one of those amazing dresses that change into something completely different with just a few pulls and twirls.

The whole thing was pretty charming, and a lot of the musical numbers worked far better on the stage than on the screen. There was one little girl in particular who clearly had ballet training, and they incorporated that into her performance as a wave on the ocean to great effect.

It was one of those shows where the experience is as good as the production, as the audience was so into it, and feeding the cast with their enthusiasm. I wish more shows could be like that.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Volumes 1 – 7 by Hayao Miyazaki

It was in finally picking up this seven-part manga that I realized the full extent of the influence Miyazaki’s Nausicaä has had on the world, and how convoluted her journey into being actually was. I’ve had the movie on DVD for years, and it’s not only one of my favourite offerings from Studio Ghibli, but the film that put Miyazaki on the map.

According to TV Tropes, Miyazaki’s only directorial credits up until that point were television shows, which in turn were all adaptations of proven popular works. As such, he wasn’t given financial backing for his proposed anime projects, as they weren’t based on any existing manga. So Miyazaki got to work creating his own magna series, which became so popular that a film adaptation was soon greenlit: this, of course, was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

The film came out in 1984, but Miyazaki also continued to work on the manga, which was eventually wrapped up exactly ten years later in 1994. Unsurprisingly, this magna is much longer and more expansive than the animated film, as at least three-quarters of it was written after the film’s release. That leads to a fascinating contrast between the two, as we essentially have the same story told by the same man in two very different mediums, one of which is significantly longer and more detailed than the other.

Again, as TV Tropes tells me, the combined whole of film and manga ended up becoming one of the most influential fantasy works in modern Japanese pop-culture. It’s credited with inspiring everything from post-apocalyptic settings to spirited female protagonists, not to mention material as wide-ranging as Final Fantasy to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even Rey from Star Wars owes a debt: the scene of her in googles, daydreaming outside her AT-AT home, is a visual taken straight from Nausicaä.

In his afterword, Miyazaki reveals his own inspiration: the Phaecian princess in The Odyssey, described as a young girl who played the harp and was more interested in singing than finding a husband. After rescuing Odysseus, she never married but travelled from place to place as the first female minstrel. He was also inspired by an unnamed Japanese princess in The Tales of the Past and Present who loved insects and also eschewed marriage in favour of the natural world.

According to him, he worried about her for rejecting so many of the conventions of her time, and that “unconsciously, Nausicaä and this princess became one person in my mind... now I just want this girl to attain freedom and happiness.” The progression of inspiration is fascinating: from Greek and Japanese myth came Miyazaki’s Nausicaä, and from her sprung up untold others.

That’s enough introduction, what’s the actual story about? In a post-apocalyptic future, a terrible manmade disaster known as the Seven Days of Fire has completely upended the Earth’s ecology. Now the planet is slowly succumbing to the Sea of Corruption, a toxic forest that releases a miasma of poisonous spores into the air and is home to massive insects known as the Ohmu.

Nausicaä is a princess (or more accurately, a chieftain’s daughter) in the Valley of the Wind, one of the few places left in the world that is safe from the dangerous spores due to the constant wind that blows across their settlement. Nausicaä is wiser than her years and immensely empathetic, even to the Ohmu that constantly threaten what little remains of civilization. When her home is invaded and her father incapacitated, the burden of leadership is placed upon her...

She’s a fascinating character, being something of a Messiah and a Mary Sue, and yet never falling into the pitfalls of either archetype. I did a retrospective of her way back in 2015 (though that was for the anime) and the manga only deepens her characterization, making her more grounded and spiritual at the same time.

The magna deals with many of Miyazaki’s favourite subjects, largely pro-environmental and anti-war sentiments, though dealt with in a deft hand that prioritizes world-building and moral ambiguity over any author tracts. It was eye-opening to see the continuation of the story that was laid out in the 1984 film, which contains so much more political intrigue and cultural factions, as well as more complicated philosophical themes concerning the nature of life and death.

Cleopatra in Space: Queen of the Nile by Mike Maihack

Another spritely young heroine in a graphic novel series; a hero like Nausicaä but with considerably less reverence for her responsibilities. I read the first five of these books in one go last year, and continued with the animated series, which made several changes to the material but largely followed the original premise and plotlines.

That show covered all five of the books that had been released at the time, but because it doesn’t look like it’s going to get a second season, Queen of the Nile serves as a conclusion to both it and the graphic novels. And it’s a good finish! All mysteries are solved, all threads wrapped up, all evil defeated and time put back on its correct course (though not without a few little wrinkles).

It was a bit of a shock to see these characters with their original designs (in the cartoon, Brian and Akila are a cyborg and a fish-person respectively; here they’re just regular humans) and to remind myself of where exactly things were left off in the previous book, but Maihack has a handle on his story and knows where it’s going.

For those who need a reminder, Cleopatra in Space involves the teenaged pre-Queen Cleopatra getting hurtled through time, thousands of years into the future, where she’s greeted as a prophesied saviour (yes, another one) destined to liberate the Nile Galaxy from the evil Emperor Octavian. She has to acclimatize to the future, accept the role of hero, and learn something pertinent about the real identity of her greatest foe.

There are friends and allies alongside spies and traitors, and the best part is always the little nods and winks that Maihack throws in towards Egyptian history and mythology – the old gods have a part to play, and I was genuinely delighted when Cleopatra sneaks into a fortified city by rolling herself up in a carpet merchant’s wares.

For the big finale, Maihack makes sure every character – major or minor – gets a chance to shine, and takes Cleopatra on the final leg of her journey. It’s satisfying without being mind-blowing, and it’s just a shame that we probably won’t get to see it play out on the animated show.  

The Mystery of the Hidden Gold by Helen Moss

I broke my New Year’s Resolution again, this time to read one of the Adventure Island books that I missed back in 2018. Back then the library had all of them but this one, though clearly they’ve restocked since then, and I found this one while shelving. You can never accuse me of not being a completist.

Brothers Scott and Jack are enjoying a holiday on an island off the coast of Cornwall, especially once they meet Emily, an amateur detective. Very much in the vein of Enid Blyton, the trio (plus requisite dog) solve all kinds of mysteries on and around the island, largely to do with smuggling, thievery, fraud and kidnappings. There is no murder for obvious reasons, and everything is kept very light and comedic.

I always have a few of these books stocked in the children’s section at work, as it makes for a good recommendation for reluctant readers. For anyone over the age of ten, the mysteries themselves might be way too easy to solve, as the culprit will always be as obvious as the red herrings, but in this case at least, there’s the promise of buried treasure at the end of it.

The Triggerstone by Ged Maybury

I started this children’s book well over two decades ago and never finished it... until now. I’ve no idea why I gave up on this as a kid, as I vividly remembered how it began: with a young schoolgirl experiencing earthquakes that no one else can feel. Soon enough, more weird things are happening in her community: shady scientists digging around an old historical site, an elderly Maori woman giving out dire portents, and the disappearance of a man whose car is found mysteriously abandoned – and impossibly flipped on its side.

Set in New Zealand, the whole thing about the earthquakes has become a lot more pertinent in recent years, and for a book written in the nineties I was pleasantly surprised by how Maori culture and language was incorporated into the text (granted, the protagonist is white with a Maori mentor/sidekick BUT the situation is framed as a mess that only the descendants of the European settlers can set right). There’s a nice sense of community in the surprisingly large supporting cast of friends, family and neighbours, and though the ultimate solution to the mystery is a bit underwhelming, it was an interesting walk down memory lane and probably my new record for the time between starting a book and finally finishing it.

Requiem by Robyn Young

I can tick another completed series off my list, as this was the third and final book in the Fall of the Templars trilogy (preceded by Brethren and Crusade), which details the final years of the Templars, as told through the eyes of one of their number. Going from a youth to an elderly man across the three books, Will Campbell serves as the trilogy’s protagonist, moving through a series of historical and fictionalized events during the course of his lifetime.

This, the final book in the trilogy, is largely set during the English/Scottish conflict between 1297 – 1305 (detailing the successes and defeats of William Wallace, who Will fights beside) before moving into the conspiracy wrought by King Philippe of France to discredit the Templars and seize their wealth in 1307. The author winds in a few intrigues of her own, from Will’s estranged relationship with his daughter Rose, to a secret sect within the Templar order itself, devoted to peace between the three Abrahamic faiths.

I can see looking back over my reading logs that I read the first book back in 2016, and it’s satisfying to put a tick on something nearly five years later. It wasn’t a great read, but not a bad one either, especially for those interested in this particular time period, or in seeing Will’s story to its conclusion.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Is this perhaps the most famous of all the Robin Hood films? 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is more infamous than anything, and that’s the only other one that comes close to the cultural significance of 1938’s offering (at least on the big-screen; Robin of Sherwood certainly contributed a lot to the mythos).

Many of its creative decisions have since become the basis not only for any modern Robin Hood retelling, but for action/adventure movies in general (TV Tropes derives the term Flynning from this movie, in which sword-fighting manoeuvres are done with more flair and gusto than practicality would allow, in order to make such sequences as cinematic as possible).

Among other things, it was this take on the material that cemented Guy of Gisborne as a significant character, making him rather than Prince John or the Sheriff of Nottingham (the latter of which is in quite a minor role) as Robin’s foil and a potential rival for Maid Marian’s affections.

I’m on more shaky ground with these next assertions, as I’m far from an expert on the history and context behind them – but if this movie did not invent, it at least codified some of the other familiar elements of Robin Hood retellings: that his story takes place during the reign of King Richard III (with the key political conflict being Prince John’s attempt to seize the throne for himself; earlier ballads place Robin during the reign of an unidentified King Edward), tension between Normans and Saxons (presumably drawn from Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, even though the two groups were well assimilated by the time of Richard), Robin portrayed as an exiled nobleman rather than a poor yeoman (a change made in Anthony Mundy’s Elizabethan plays) and even giving Marian the last name of Fitzwater (presumably after Robert Fitzwater, a feudal baron who fought against Prince John).

Such things have appeared in successive Robin Hood productions to one extent or another, and if there’s going to be a spoof of the story, you can guarantee its roots will be found here, from Cary Elwes’s Robin cheerfully carrying a wild boar over his shoulders into Prince John’s court (though Errol Flynn carries a stag) to Robin and his Merry Men laughing uproariously every chance they get in Doctor Who’s Robots of Sherwood.

It ticks nearly all the boxes of Robin Hood lore: Robin saving a poacher from Prince John’s men (here it’s Much), the archery tournament in which he disguises himself in order to win the golden arrow, the quarterstaff fight with Little John on the bridge and the squabble with Friar Tuck in which each forces the other to carry them over the stream, rescuing someone from the gallows (in this case, it’s Robin himself) and of course the triumphant return of King Richard in disguise. As with most retellings, it ends on a happy note, completely skipping the Prioress of Kirklees and Robin’s final arrow.

And yes, the men wear tights.

There’s never much to say about a classic film like this: most people have seen it, and those that haven’t probably know more than they realize given its influence on pop-culture. Erroll Flynn is charmingly smarmy, Olivia de Havilland is winsome, the bad guys are surly, and the Merry Men are extremely jolly. Like I said, there is a lot of uproarious laughter at the slightest provocation.

Their take on Marian is... fine. She’s never quite a damsel in distress (she’s imprisoned toward the end, but not used as leverage or motivation) though she doesn’t get to actually do much either. The closest she gets to proactivity is seeking out the Merry Men after Robin has been captured and telling them how they can best rescue him. Unfortunately, the Unspoken Plan Guarantee applies, and what follows doesn’t seem to be anything that the outlaws couldn’t have come up with by themselves.

Still, she’s at least got a personality, and this is also one of the few adaptations to give Marian a handmaiden/chaperone to talk to (much like Sarah in Prince of Thieves or Broomhilde in Men in Tights) though they unsurprisingly don’t come even close to passing the Bechdel Test. And she starts up a romance with Much of all people!

Many of the “special effects” of the time hold up surprisingly well, not just the aforementioned Flynning, but things like horsemen galloping full-tilt down streams so that the water sprays up all around them, or the crazy parkouring that goes on all over the place – it’s stagey, but that somehow makes it all seem more real. Not just a Robin Hood, but perhaps the definitive Robin Hood.

Robin Hood (1991)

This is the other Robin Hood movie that came out that year, which was completely obliterated by Kevin Costner and the strains of Bryan Adams warbling “everything I doooooo....” It’s generally considered to be the better of the two movies, but... eh. They’re profoundly different in tone and content, despite being based on the same set of stories, making it difficult to really compare them.

This one leans heavily into the Saxon versus Norman tension to the point where Prince John is practically an afterthought (he only shows up for one scene) and the happy ending comes not from King Richard’s return but from Saxons and Normans declaring a truce between their people. There’s actually a theme at work here, with plenty of pagan symbolism and Marian in particular being depicted as the May Queen of spring and fertility.

That said, it’s a rather bewildering portrayal of Marian, as played by Uma Thurman. In the first act she’s a surprisingly forthright maiden, whose every line of dialogue is a sexual innuendo. The BBC’s Marian would be gobsmacked at her ability to tell her unwanted fiancé (essentially Guy of Gisborne, though he’s not called as such) that she flat-out doesn’t want to marry him, not ever, and sticks to this all the way up to the altar of her forced wedding ceremony (I’m not sure what the dudes around her expected her to do – she’s pretty damn consistent on this point).

Halfway through she cuts her hair, dresses as a boy and goes to live in the forest with Robin, which is pretty awesome, then goes on to have sex with him in a barn and (on being captured and returned to her uncle and fiancé) openly mocks them with the fact she gave away her V-card to another man. The minds of every other Marian would boggle.

The final act – like Prince of Thieves – involves Robin and the outlaws trying to thwart her wedding, but because she’s Uma Thurman she actually gets the chance to do some sword-fighting. Also, in the wake of Robin of Sherwood there was clearly a phase in which everyone thought Marian had to have fuzzy red hair – Uma joins Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Amy Yasbeck in this regard.

But enough about Marian. I just finished watching Danny Webb in Liar (see below) and got a surprise to see him here, at least two decades younger, as Much the Miller’s Son. David Morrisey was completely unrecognizable as Little John, though Owen Teale features as Will Scarlet, Robin’s... friend? Manservant? It’s really not clear. As for the man himself, Patrick Bergin is a quintessential Robin without being a hugely memorable one: a righteous trickster who is proud, mercurial, fair-minded and charismatic.

It’s a shame this was so overshadowed by Prince of Thieves, as there’s some good stuff here. They get in the poaching incident as the event which kickstarts Robin’s trouble with the law, and the bridge fight with Little John, but not the archery tournament or the “save a compatriot from hanging” mission (unless you count a short sequence when they rescue a couple of children). The outlaws inhabit not so much a greenwood as a cave network, and everything is miserable and cold and covered in mud – but like I mentioned, the Norman/Saxon tension becomes a stand-in for Christianity/Paganism, with Friar Tuck leading the outlaws into the castle dressed as carnival fools, and the sun coming out once Robin and Marian (Saxon and Norman respectively) are married.

The Age of Adaline (2015)

I’ll admit, I mostly watched this (and Power Rangers) because I was still having something of a BBC’s Robin Hood Renaissance, and I knew Anjali Jay (who played Djaq the Saracen) featured in it. Unsurprisingly, she’s only in it for a couple of seconds as a co-worker of the protagonist, but whatever... I loved seeing her and I wish she was in more stuff.

The film itself is a fairly engaging story of a woman who – due to a freak accident involving ice-cold water and a lightning storm – no longer goes through the aging process. Spanning several generations and exploring the cost of eternal youth, Adaline must escape the authorities, watch her daughter grow old, keep her distance from anyone who might notice her condition, and sporadically change all her official papers so that her birthdate is consistent with her appearance.

Of course, it’s not a story unless someone does in fact get too close to her, leading to the angst of romantic entanglement. In this case it’s Ellis Jones who essentially falls in love with her at first sight and invests his considerable wealth and charm into trying to win her over. Unfortunately, this leads to one of those creepy “romances” in which the guy integrates himself into her life, never takes no for an answer, manipulates events so that she feels obliged to pay him attention, and comes on way too strong despite the fact that she’s clearly not interested.

And yeah, I can see the difficulties in writing something like this. You want a love story between an immortal and an ordinary guy, and yet your protagonist’s defining attribute is the massive wall she puts up in order to protect herself and her daughter. So your love interest HAS to be a man who will continue to push long after the boundaries of decorum are telling him to just quit it already.

Casting Michiel Huisman, a guy who radiates genuine “unthreatening sensitive guy” energy, goes a little way towards alleviating the problem, though it doesn’t change the fact that Adelaide has a more interesting rapport with nearly every single other character in the movie – the blind friend who doesn’t realize her companion never ages, the daughter who has to watch her mother remain young and beautiful as she grows old, and Harrison Ford, who pops up toward the end in a role that I won’t give away.

(As a point of interest, this is the movie that features Anthony Ingruber, the guy who everyone on the internet wanted to play a young Han Solo in 2018 due to his uncanny resemblance to Harrison Ford, right down to the voice and speech patterns).

It’s a deeply unassuming movie, making it difficult to truly criticize given it has no pretentions or ambitions beyond being lightly diverting entertainment. I’ve actually never seen Blake Lively in anything else beyond A Simple Favour, but it’s a good vehicle for her and she stretches her acting wings throughout.

Power Rangers (2017)

Anjali Jay fared better in The Age of Adaline than she did here, because I kept a watchful eye out for her throughout this and she didn’t appear at all. Turns out her only scene was cut, and I had to watch it on YouTube.

But I didn’t regret watching, as despite not having any interest in the Power Rangers franchise whatsoever (my parents actually wouldn’t let myself or my sister watch it when we were kids, as it was part of the closest thing to a “Satanic panic” that New Zealand ever went through back in the nineties, though it was more to do with the show’s violence and inherent silliness) this turned out to be... relatively good?

Which is to say that by the standards of Power Rangers, there is an unexpected amount of character work done. Taking their cue from The Breakfast Club, all of our would-be heroes meet in Saturday morning detention, and later at a quarry on the edge of town where they come to swim, explore, meditate or chill out respectively (it’s a bit of a stretch). They find some weird coins, wake up the following morning with super-strength, and eventually discover an underground spaceship with a supercomputer that tells them of their destiny... honestly, it doesn't matter.

I said that the film was better than expected, not that it was actually good. There are five Power Rangers, they protect the galaxy, there’s a villainess with the improbable name of Rita Repulsa, who is collecting gold in order to create a giant monster called Goldar... I’m going to assume this is all from the television show which – as said – I was never allowed to watch.

The good stuff is that the cast is surprisingly diverse (though they can’t resist keeping their leader a white guy, everyone else is Black, Asian, Latino or of Ugandan/Indian descent) and a significant amount of screen-time is spent not only on their individual characterizations, but on forming a team dynamic. Everyone has a reasonably complex home-life, and there are no overt romantic entanglements between the main cast. It’s refreshing!

Apparently it didn’t make enough at the box office to justify a sequel, and... I find myself a little disappointed, if not for the actual fans who had a pretty good thing going with this. The cast was strong, the chemistry between them was good, the budget made everything look infinitely better than my vague memories of the rubber monster suits back in the nineties... Ah well, chalk it up as another stalled franchise.

Justice League Dark (2017)

Still working my way through these, and this one at least was something completely different. Veering more into horror and magic than the usual super-heroics, it has the Justice League (or rather, just Batman) face a threat that’s clearly supernatural in origin, forcing him to seek out a specialized team of magic wielders. This includes Zatanna and Constantine, who I knew about, but also a ghost called Boston and a guy who turns into a demon, who I was only vaguely aware of.

They weren’t kidding when they threw the word “dark” on the end of the Justice League title, as within the first few minutes of this film a woman has mowed down several pedestrians, a man held his wife and children at gunpoint, and a young mother attempted to throw her infant off a building, followed by herself. All of them were struck by nightmare hallucinations that cause them to see all manner of demons and ghouls...

It’s a pretty rewarding movie all things considered; the animation is good and voice cast strong, particularly Matt Ryan as Constantine, who is to that character what Patrick Stewart is to Professor X or Ian McKellen to Gandalf the Grey: true actor/role synchronicity. I believe this was released before Greg Berlanti scooped him up to replay the character in Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, so this was a nice little bridge between the cancellation of his own show and the continuation of the part in the Arrowverse, and you can hear how much he loves being Constantine.

Between DC Superhero Girls, Young Justice and the recent YA graphic novel that focused on her*, I’m also becoming an increasingly big fan of Zatanna. Despite the dubious outfit they put her in, which sees her fighting evil in a strapless corset, she’s pretty cool throughout this – conjuring magic, kicking ass, providing intel and generally being the MVP of the film. When’s her movie coming out?

* Zatanna and the House of Secrets – it’s great!

Fear Street trilogy (2021)

So it was fascinating to binge-watch these movies just before seeing Pixar’s Luca, as they collectively provided a masterclass example of how expectations can form your viewing experience. I had NO expectations for Fear Street beyond assuming that the trilogy would be trashy and gory, whereas I always anticipate the best from Pixar (to add to that, I thought Onward was incredibly underhyped, and having seen similar reactions to Luca, also hoped that it would surpass what I was led to expect).

Turns out that a movie trilogy you think is going to be terrible surpassing your expectations and an animated movie that doesn’t end up being the Studio Ghibli tribute you thought it would end up on the same threshold of quality, even though one is objectively “better” than the other. But when it comes to sheer enjoyment and the delight of being taken by surprise, the Fear Street movies were a runaway success.

There are three in total, each one successively set at an earlier point than the one before: 1994, 1978 and 1666, with an overarching mystery that is gradually solved with each new instalment providing more clues as to what exactly is going on. That’s a great way to construct a trilogy, especially one released over the course of several weeks – in fact, it’s a structure that’s tailormade for streaming services, giving it the chance to be a three-part story without the hassle of audiences having to go back to the theatre multiple times.

Each one is something of a tribute to various subgenres of horror, with 1994 being a slasher along the lines of Scream, 1978 being more of a nod to the Friday the 13th (and other assorted “mayhem at summer camp” movies), and 1666 reminded me of The Crucible more than anything, though I’m sure it cribbed a lot from various folk-horror films.

In 1994, a massacre at the local mall is just the latest in a number of mass-murders to plague the township of Shadyside, which has been home to a number of grisly serial killers since the 17th century. Desensitized to tragedy, Deena Johnson is more upset about her recent breakup with Sam Fraser, a girl who has recently made the move to the more affluent Sunnyvale.

But after a prank involving a car, a school bus, and a chilly-bin of ice sees the grave of local legend Sarah Fier disturbed (which is the premise of one of the most famous Fear Street books) Deena and her immediate group of friends become the target of not just one serial killer, but several from decades past. During their desperate scramble to survive, they end up contacting one of the survivors from 1978’s Camp Nightwing massacre, who lived through similar circumstances as the contemporary teens and provides the framing device for 1978 as she recounts her experiences.

Finally, 1666 is presented as a mystical flashback that reveals the nature of the curse that has held Shadyside in its grip for so many years. This is the film that recontextualizes everything we’ve seen before, providing several predictable but genuinely clever twists, as well as some fascinating parallels with 1994 given that many of the actors double-up on roles and play their own ancestors.

Book readers may be a little perturbed at the fact that some of the most important bits of the books’ mythos has been reconfigured or omitted entirely: there is no Simon or Angelica Fear, no explanation behind why “Fear” is sometimes spelt as “Fier” and (most bewilderingly) no actual Fear Street. I think at one point a scene takes place on Fier Street, but it’s not remotely relevant to the story and it’s the town of Shadyside and its relationship to Sunnyvale that’s of true importance.

And yet they do keep one bit of the lore that they probably shouldn’t have, for as soon as a certain character drops their last name, I knew they were the Overarching Villain of the piece. And yet knowing this didn’t spoil anything for me, as there’s still plenty of intrigue to be mined from the whys and hows of the story.

If you’re not into horror, then this is clearly not for you, but I was amazed at how good the project in its entirety turned out to be. There is a backstory behind the history of events in Shadyside that directly influences how our protagonists make their decisions – and because there’s a mystery involved, they sometimes come to the wrong conclusions. That’s the fun part: seeing people try to work with the information they’ve got, and change their plans once they gain more clarity of the situation.

Perhaps it’s worth its own post at some point...

Luca (2021)

On the other end of the scale, I was hoping this would be Pixar’s foray into Studio Ghibli territory, with a meandering, almost plotless story of shapeshifting sea monsters exploring the Italian coastline. That’s how Miyazaki would have done it, but Pixar is still beholden to Western storytelling conventions.

Which means that we get a ludicrous bully character that the protagonists have to defeat and humiliate, a “be tolerant” message that is heavy-handed and easily resolved, and overbearing parents who have to learn that their children should be set free. We’ve seen it all a million times before, and there are no new or interesting variations brought to the table in Luca.

Much like Ariel of The Little Mermaid, young Luca is fascinated with the surface world, collecting a variety of bric-a-brac that gets swept out to sea. Despite being forbidden from leaving the ocean, a newfound friendship with an older boy called Alberto leads Luca to abandon his chores and enjoy the world above for the first time, each one intrigued by elements of the human world – especially the vesper.

As you may have garnered from the trailers, a sea monster’s scales disappear as soon as they leave the water, so they’re able to wander around the seaside town of Portorosso without calling too much attention to themselves, as long as they remain dry at all times. Striking up a friendship with a girl their age called Giulia, the three of them end up entering the local triathlon, which promises enough prize money to buy them a coveted vesper should they be victorious.

It’s this thoroughfare that shapes the course of the story, especially when cracks start appearing in the friendship, endangering their chance for success. There are some interesting dynamics in the threefold relationship, what with Alberto being a know-it-all (who simply makes stuff up when he doesn’t know the answers) set at odds with Guilia, who shares book-learning knowledge with Luca, who in turn is excited at the thought of expanding his horizons at school.

If this had been the only source of conflict in the film, set within an otherwise idyllic summer of exploration and innovation, then the film could have been a genuine, unique classic. But there’s the matter of the race, and the intolerance tract, and the worried parents...

On some level, it is what it is. I’ve already seen the metas about the gay subtext and the comparisons to Call Me By Your Name, but honestly – if you’re looking for something along those lines, you’ll find Wolfwalkers to be the more satisfying viewing experience. Luca is colourful and beautiful and sporadically funny and about as deep as a paddling pool. It mostly made me wonder what it could have been in the hands of Studio Ghibli.

The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog (1998 – 1999)

Think of the two most random things you can possibly imagine. How about Power Rangers and Irish mythology? Weird, right? But that’s the basis for this incredibly bizarre one-season afterschool television show of the nineties. How did I come to watch it? I’ve no idea. Maybe I just wanted to prove to myself that it was real.

I remembered it vaguely from childhood, and started it last month as part of June’s Middle Ages theme (though that’s being incredibly generous considering this has about as much to do with history as you’d expect from something that merges Power Rangers with Irish mythology). And yes, I watched all fifty episodes. I just can’t NOT finish something once I start it.

And it’s pretty terrible, but in that So Bad It’s Good kinda way. In a mythologized version of Ireland, the country is divided into two kingdoms: Kells, ruled by the good King Conchobar, and Temra, ruled by the evil Queen Maeve. Yup, we got ourselves a ruling conflict based on gender division, with a perpetual battle going on between these two monarchs for no apparent reason. Seriously, they never actually explain why Maeve keeps trying to conquer Kells. Occasionally she talks about her “birth right” and her “destiny”, so I’m going to safely assume it was her land to start with.

The long-running stalemate between enemy forces is brought to a close when Maeve calls upon the help of a dark fairy called Midar, who can conjure all manner of terrible monsters. In response, the Druid Cathbad sends his young apprentice Rohan out to find the legendary warrior Draganta, who is meant to bring about peace in the land for a hundred years.

He’s accompanied by his best friend, a thief called Angus, and the Princess of Kells, Dierdre. Along the way, they’re joined by Prince Ivar from across the sea, who has come to Kells in search of a magical chalice that’s been stolen from his homeland. The four of them enter the fairy kingdom of Tir Na Nog, where the king has them undergo Secret Tests of Character to determine whether or not they deserve to wear/wield mystical armour and weapons.

Unsurprisingly, they all pass. At this point we reach the one cool thing that this show had going for it, and that’s the transformation sequences. In order to access their armour, each one had to call upon a certain element, requiring the trigger words: “air above me/earth beneath me/water around me/fire within me.” And yeah... it’s a little stirring.

Everything else is terrible, from the plots to the acting to the costumes to the special effects. A standard episode has Maeve come up with some ludicrous plan to sabotage Kells, the Mystic Knights running around frantically before they realize “hey, we have all-powerful weapons that can stop this!” and then transform into their super-suits to save the day. The weapons in question are a crossbow, sword, mace and trident, yet each one is mostly used to shoot laser-beams, making you wonder why they weren’t just given magical semiautomatic rifles or something.

I give them credit for casting Irish actors in the key roles (or so I’m assuming, based on cast names such as Lochlann Ó Mearáin) but... look I don’t want to be mean, but Rohan is played by such a charisma-free non-entity that it’s a miracle Kells didn’t fall due to low morale with this guy in charge. The dudes playing Ivar and Angus are perhaps the only two cast members that infuse their characters with actual personalities, and the best character is Aideen, a fairy who is essentially Tinkerbell.

Speaking of which, there’s some really weird (and extremely nineties) treatment of the female characters in this. Dierdre is your standard heroine of the time: out-spoken and bossy and continually rolling her eyes at the menfolk, but also the requisite hostage whenever the plot requires. It’s not actually as bad as it sounds: I went in believing she’d be a full-on Faux Action Girl, but she wins plenty of fights and is usually kidnapped as a result of her status rather than her gender (there’s no excuse for the mini-skirt armour though).

But Aideen (who has a crush on Rohan) naturally seethes with jealousy over her, and on at least three occasions tries to sabotage her – because that’s just how women are, I guess? When a visiting princess arrives at Kells, Aideen flies up to Dierdre and asks: “jealous, princess?” even though she’s doing nothing but giving the woman an appraising look. In another episode Dierdre is suspicious of a noblewoman that the boys rescue from harm, which is also framed as feminine jealousy, even though the woman in question turns out to be Maeve in disguise.

Basically the nineties were a weird time for female characters: on some level writers knew that they had to be spunky and self-sufficient, but there was only ever room for ONE such heroine, and any other female character had to be greeted as a potential threat to the Smurfette status quo (this was also the case with Eleanor in Covington Cross). If you look at it from the right angle, I suppose it’s kind of funny that so many male writers back then honestly didn’t seem to believe that female friendships were a thing that existed.

Happy Valley: Season 1 – 2 (2014 – 2016)

My attention was brought to this series after the acclaim of Mare of Easttown, with at least one commentator pointing out that the show – and particularly its protagonist – was clearly inspired by Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley, which similarly depicts a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails police officer investigating a serious crime while trying to raise her troublesome young grandson.

The crime itself isn’t a mystery to be solved, as the audience is privy to the exact whys and wherefores of the whole operation: embittered accountant Kevin Weatherill asks his boss Nevison for a raise so he can send his daughter to a private school, and on being rejected, comes up with a plan to kidnap Nevison’s teenage daughter Ann with the help of a shady holiday park owner who smuggles drugs as a side-business.

Along with his park employees, the kidnapping goes ahead – after Kevin desperately tries to call it off on learning that Nevison intends to fund his daughter’s education after all...

It’s a deeply compelling premise, all the more so when one of the kidnappers turns out to be far more dangerous and unhinged than any of his co-conspirators have realized.

The interesting thing is that for a long time the police have no idea that a crime is taking place at all; instead our protagonist Catherine Cawood is struggling to stop the day-to-day drug running that takes place in Happy Valley, raise her grandson despite the disapproval of her family (given that he’s a Child By Rape, which lead to her daughter’s suicide), monitor her recovering-alcoholic sister, and deal with the fact that her daughter’s rapist – and the father of her grandson – has just been released from prison.

It’ll come as no surprise (and thankfully the show doesn’t try to draw it out) that one of Ann’s kidnappers is the same man that raped Catherine’s daughter, rendering the whole thing pretty damn personal.

The second season treads more familiar Police Procedural territory, with a serial killer on the loose that’s murdering and mutilating local prostitutes. Catherine must wade through a number of false suspects and red herrings, though again the audience is privy to one particular aspect of the case: an adjacent crime that the perpetrator desperately tries to incorporate into the original spate of killings. Such is the nature of the show that a part of you kind-of-almost hopes that he gets away with it, at least for a while.

It’s a pretty grim story all things told, with a range of subplots involving the various families embroiled in each case, and a fascinating commentary on the subject of personal responsibility. I went into this in more detail on my last Woman of the Month post, but a recurring theme of the show is an individual’s acceptance – or more likely, refusal – to take responsibility for their circumstances.

In the grand scheme of things, Catherine and Ann are the only two characters that “man up” (bad choice of words considering, but you know what I mean) and deal with their problems like adults. This not only means refusing to wallow in self-pity or recrimination, but also to accept that some things are beyond their control. For instance, Catherine feels some guilt at the murder of one of her young colleagues, but ultimately tells the grieving boyfriend that she’s not going to take it on board her conscience just because they had harsh words the day before her death.

It was quite revelatory actually, especially since so many stories have heroes blame themselves for bad things that aren’t remotely their fault, or inversely, end up with a not-too-small percentage of fandom who will absolve villains of any and all crimes (there’s a character in season two who enters a long-distance relationship with the killer/rapist of season one, and rattles off all the bullet points of Tumblr’s “it’s never the handsome white male’s fault” litany of excuses).

The cast is a veritable who’s-who of British television thespians, though hilariously, Hannah John-Kamen appears as a secretary, looking insanely beautiful and glamourous. I kept waiting for her to be important, since there was no way she’d be slumming it in such an irrelevant role... though it turns out this was made before her big break in Killjoys, and she really is just a bit-part secretary.

Liar: Season 1 – 2 (2017 – 2020)

There really is a sizable gap between seasons of British television isn’t there? One year between seasons of Happy Valley (with the promised third nowhere in sight) and two between those of Liar. In this case, at least we get a complete story, as this was apparently always meant to be a two-and-done.

SPOILERS

This is a difficult show to review, not just because of the subject matter, but because it’s not what its premise and promotion would have you believe it is.

Laura (Joanne Froggatt) is a high school teacher and Andrew (Ioan Gruffud) a widowed surgeon. They go on a date and all goes swimmingly, only for Laura to awake the next morning with the certainty that she’s been raped. Andrew, for his part, is completely baffled by this claim and genuinely distressed that she thinks something untoward happened. With nothing but each participant’s word on the matter, the police find it difficult to proceed with the investigation, leaving Laura to take matters into her own hands...

Perhaps one day there will be room for a drama series that explores the conundrum that this miniseries initially purported to be about: a woman who truly believes she’s been raped, and a man who truly believes the encounter was consensual; a story that explores the murky waters of first date sex, he said/she said situations, and miscommunications regarding consent – especially when alcohol is involved.

But in the wake of the Time’s Up/Me Too movement, it becomes very clear that this show isn’t prepared to be that show... and fair enough. After a little bit of ambiguity in the first couple of episodes as to what really happened, the show comes down firmly on Laura’s side, not only revealing that she was raped, but that Andrew is a complete and utter monster: a man who has serially raped at least nineteen women and recorded it for his own gratification.

I mean, it’s almost overkill – but who the hell wants to tell a story about a woman who can’t be trusted to tell the truth about rape in this current climate? Who thinks that that sort of story would be helpful to the present cultural discussion about rape and consent and bodily autonomy? Short of having Laura be raped, but by someone other than Andrew, it’s obvious in hindsight that the titular liar of the show was never going to be her.

The problem is that from a story perspective, the reveal takes the wind out of the show’s sails pretty early on, leaving us with a show that is less about the question of what really happened, and more about whether or not Andrew will face justice. Heck, the second season drops the rape angle entirely, and instead becomes a whodunnit.

It’s also at this point things get fairly ludicrous, from the fact that Laura’s friends and family are doing most of the police work for them, to the character of DI Karen Renton, who between her unprofessional attitude, perpetual smirk, and chain gum-chewing habit, is more of a cartoon character than anything resembling a real human being.

From my point of view, there are three types of rape stories: those that throw it in to demonstrate how evil the villain is (think Rollo in Vikings, the Sheriff in Prince of Thieves, Alfonso in Da Vinci’s Demons), those that include it for heightened drama (Ken Follet is especially bad at this, and Anna’s season four arc in Downton Abbey, ironically also played by Joanne Froggatt), and those that genuinely want to explore the psychological toll it takes on its victims (Netflix’s Unbelievable). In my opinion, if you want to write about rape, then your entire story should be about said rape.

Liar starts off as this third option, but by the end (and certainly by the start of the second season) the rape simply becomes the inciting incident to a far more convoluted whodunnit, complete with lengthy flashback sequences that explore the weeks preceding Andrew’s murder. Whatever the show initially had to say on its sensitive and difficult subject matter is obliterated by the demands of the story it actually wants to tell, which in turn hinges on the idea that if you get raped, the police are completely useless and you’re going to have to bring in the perp yourself.

In other words, nothing that has anything particularly helpful to say on the subject.

Perry Mason: Season 1 (2020)

Going in I knew very little about Perry Mason, and what I did know I literally picked up a couple of months ago while watching Feud (Bette Davis was in an episode). He was a hardboiled lawyer in the 1930s, he was good at making people confess on the stand, the show was in black-and-white... and that’s it really.

If we assume that those three elements are what most newbies are aware of, it becomes unsurprising that this series would go hard on the Film Noir aesthetic. It’s technically in colour, but it feels like it’s in black and white, and (as you would expect from HBO) there are no punches pulled on the violence or nudity. Within the first few minutes a frantic married couple are seen trying to pay the ransom for their infant son Charlie, only to discover him dead on a tramcar with his eyes sewn open. Yeesh.

Matthew Rhys plays Perry Mason, who is initially employed in the capacity of a private investigator to look into the case by E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) a lawyer that’s been assigned to the case and finding it impossible to get any evidence that doesn’t point back to the parents. A team of characters (that I have to assume come from the original show) form around Perry: Della Street the Girl Friday, Pete Strickland, a fellow P.I. with dubious morals, and Paul Drake, the only non-crooked cop in the city.

Some interesting updates are made (or so I’m assuming again): Della is a closeted lesbian and Drake is Black, both of whom struggle with their identities in 1930s California. The show doesn’t stint on the sheer amount of courage they need to put themselves on the line for their sense of justice, and I was in a cold sweat at times when it came to the safety of Drake as he negotiated the racist police department and the implicit threats that were made to him and his pregnant wife by his colleagues.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. I was not expecting particularly interesting female characters in this, but my God, the women are incredible! Lupe Gibbs, Perry’s (age-appropriate) lover who flies planes and owns a speakeasy, Della Street who knows her own worth and does detective work of her own, Sister Alice, the Pentecostal preacher who is a true believer and not easily phased by Perry’s attempts to rile her – even Emily, mother of the dead Charlie, is written with sensitivity and strength.

Such wonderful depictions of complex and fascinating women (seriously, where is Lupe’s spin-off? I’d watch that in a heartbeat) and all the more rewarding since I wasn’t expecting it at all.

Given its overall tone, I’m not surprised that it went for something of an ambiguous ending, but it works perfectly and is a truly satisfying season of television. Of the three crime series I watched this month, this was definitely my favourite (and since I really enjoyed Happy Valley, that’s saying a lot!)