Another month flits by, are you tired of me continually pointing that out? The thing is, with my new job taking up so much more time than usual (largely through the commute) I have far less time to write this blog, which means there are much longer gaps between posts – which in turn makes it feel like time is moving at a much brisker pace than usual.
I’m definitely ready for it to be summer again, as the cold and dark always gets me down, but I’m chugging through my Slavic Fantasy reading list, and a never-ending supply of graphic novels (every time I think I’m done, another one nabs my attention). I’m definitely on the home stretch with Spooks, and nearing the thirties in The Babysitters Club. I carved out time to watch two oldies (Gaslight and The Seventh Seal) as well as the long awaited Nimona and – it was inevitable – Barbie. Plus, after my work’s movie night last month, I found myself on a bit of a The Sound of Music kick.
And if you're wondering why the formatting looks so wonky on this post, well it's because my computer has updated and essentially fucked everything up. It also took away my ability to open up sub-folders containing pictures in my sidebar, and completely eradicated bookmark manager, which let me search for specific webpages by typing them into a search engine instead of scrolling through the entire bloody list from the top. Updates! Making everything a THOUSAND TIMES MORE OF A HASSLE TO OPERATE. If you're going to change things, fine. Just change it into SOMETHING THAT'S NOT WORSE. AAARRRRGGGHHHHH.
Jessi and the Superbrat by Anne M. Martin
The third Jessi title, which again uses her to introduce a new family. First the Braddocks, then the Mancusos, and now the Masters. The premise for this one is a little contrived: for the first time ever we learn about a television show called “P.S. 162” that every child in Stoneybrook watches, including Jessi’s little sister Becca. While watching it together, Becca drops the fact that one of the actors, a boy called Derek Masters, used to live in Stoneybrook and was once in Nicky Pike’s class. Confirming with Mallory, Jessi becomes bewilderingly star-struck (I mean, she’s never even met this kid, and he moved to LA a while ago).
Still, she considers this news enough to share with the rest of the Babysitters Club, and what are the odds? The phone rings, a new client introduces herself, and it turns out that the Masters family is moving back to their Stoneybrook house during the show’s filming hiatus. They’re in need of a babysitter for Derek and his little brother Todd, and naturally Jessi gets the job. I say again: what are the odds?
You’ll be thinking at this point that Derek is obviously the spoiled “superbrat” of the title, especially with that cover art (as a kid, I scratched out the furious expressions on the triplets’ faces. It honestly looked like a homicide was about to take place). Instead, Jessi learns that Derek has been struggling at school since everyone is completely star-struck with him. A reporter turns up to ask him questions, the teacher made him give a talk in front of the whole class about his work, all the girls act like they’re in love with him, and the boys just make fun of him.
Worst of all is a boy called John, who’s doing all sorts of horrible things to Derek: throwing his homework out the widow, tying his shoelaces together, pulling malicious pranks. Jessi is furious on Derek’s behalf, but doesn’t see what she can do about it.
There’s a rather superfluous subplot involving Jessi auditioning for Swan Lake and growing increasingly despondent about her chances. Derek pitches the idea of modelling and acting instead, and she considers that it might be a break from the constant stress of ballet (which is an absurd line of thinking, but it turns out the whole thing is more of a coping mechanism to get her through the ballet auditions).
It also contains some funny one-off chapters in which everyone acts ridiculous over the presence of a TV actor in their midst (Mallory puts on a voice and manner that Jessi describes as “like the Queen of England” and Karen Brewer decides that Derek is her path to stardom and starts pestering Kristy for an introduction) but the boys at school eventually warm up to Derek. In all, a fairly uneventful book.
Turns out that Jessi makes it into Swan Lake and Derek confesses that there was never any John. HE was the one playing all those terrible pranks because he was angry at the other kids for rejecting him. So you assume he’s the superbrat, then he’s not the superbrat, then it turns out he IS the superbrat. Whew, it’s like Inception.
Finally, when it’s announced he’ll be returning to L.A. for the next season of filming, the babysitters throw him a goodbye party. This is actually pretty cute, as they can only schedule it for a Saturday morning, and so run with the theme of breakfast time: serving breakfast foods, organizing a relay race that involves the kids pretending to get out of bed, get dressed in oversized clothes, brush their teeth, and so on. The funniest part is that the babysitters wear bathrobes as a sort of “uniform” – naturally that’s Kristy’s idea, but the other girls firmly draw the line at wearing bath-caps and hair-curlers in public.
I remember being engrossed in this chapter as a child-reader: there was always something so appealing about these themed parties/events that the girls threw. Perhaps there’s a future for them as party planners.
(This also marks the end of me using pics of the reprint cover art. They're surprisingly cute, but it's best to get back to the original design).
Welcome Back, Stacey! by Anne M. Martin
An instalment that could just as easily be called “Anne Inevitably Folds to the Demands of her Fanbase” or “Claudia Finally Gets a Break.” Seriously, I hadn’t noticed until this re-read that something terrible happens to Claudia in every single one of her books: she’s stalked by a phantom phone caller, blames herself for her grandmother’s stroke, is viciously ostracized by her friends for the crime of having interests outside the club, breaks her leg, and went through the five stages of grief when Mimi died. This girl NEEDED a win, and having her best friend move back to Stoneybrook certainly qualifies.
This is also the end of Stacey’s tenure in New York, which was met with outrage by fans and reversed by Martin before the character had even sat out a single seven-book cycle (she left in #13, was visited by the girls in #18, returned temporarily in #24 and #26, and joined the girls at summer camp in the second Super Special). You can tell the pressure was on, because the book itself makes no secret of her return. Not only it is called Welcome Back, Stacey! with an exclamation mark and a moving van on the cover, but the tagline is: “she’s back for good!” You can almost hear Martin screaming: “now will you get off my case, already?!”
It's a pity in a way, as the story itself raises a certain degree of tension as to whether Stacey will return to Stoneybrook with her mother or stay in New York with her father after they announce their divorce, a decision that’s entirely spoiled by the book’s design. But even though this book is essentially just a vehicle to get Stacey back into the series proper, Martin manages to write a relatively poignant depiction of the frustration, heartbreak, and terrible sadness of a child going through the pain of divorcing parents.
Although she’s tired of her parents constantly squabbling, Stacey also doesn’t want them to separate, which leads to denial, guilt-slinging, and a chapter’s worth of parent-trapping (that fails miserably). Other girls in the club have gone through similar experiences, but in both cases the divorces of Kristy and Dawn’s parents happened prior to their “on-screen” introductions. Stacey gets to commiserate with both of them, and there’s a striking moment when she realizes she now has to count herself as one of them – along with all the other kids whose parents have divorced.
Also poignant is Stacey’s reaction to her parents breaking the news (“I felt as though someone had slapped me in the face” – it’s an old cliché now, but I recall reading this as a tween and feeling that slap) and the pros/cons list she makes of whether to stay in New York or go back to Stoneybrook. Obviously, she goes with the latter option.
We now have seven regular alternating main characters, a number that will remain for the greater duration of the series. With this book, I’m starting to edge into more uncharted territory: having owned most of the titles in the series thus far, I’m about to tackle #29 and the third Super Special for the first time ever!
The Rema Chronicles: Realm of the Blue Mist by Amy Kim Kibuishi
Have you ever read something that isn’t bad, but simply pales in comparison to everything else you’ve been reading? Well, I’ve consumed so many incredible graphic novels lately (Salt Magic, Lightfall, Wingbearer, The Legend of Brightblade) that this felt just kind of meh.
The artwork simply wasn’t as good, with its bold lines and cartoonish figures, and the story rather difficult to follow. It starts off well: Tabby Simon is haunted by the loss of her father, who died in mysterious circumstances when she was a child. He worked for Pike State Park Research Laboratories, which studied the strange tree in the nearby woods and the even stranger mist that leaked from it. His body was found by Tabby beneath its branches, his body aged two hundred years.
Since then the entire area has been cordoned off and labelled a biohazard, though Tabby still sneaks in regularly. She has a secret: that before his death she saw her father talk with the spectre of an old woman beneath the tree. Certain that this apparition holds the answers to his death, Tabby lingers by the tree whenever she’s able, waiting for her return.
Those first few pages reads like something from Stranger Things: creepy science melded with spooky ghosts. I dug it. But then things abruptly veer into the dimension-hopping fantasy realm with the appearance of a young man in old-fashioned samurai clothes and a sword. Tabby watches as he performs some sort of magic (which looks like water-bending) in front of the tree, and later follows him through a portal in the air.
Of course she follows him, only to find herself on another planet where people wear masks and fly through the air. Now it’s a quest to get back home without any of the more hostile denizens of this world realizing she’s there.
The problem is, nothing really happens in this story. Tabby spends most of her time either waiting for people who know what they’re doing to come and fetch her, or being shuttled from place to place by said people. She reads a book at one point which explains the mythology of the world she’s found herself in, which sets up the conflict that’s currently occurring on the planet, but which doesn’t have much to do with Tabby’s immediate problems.
Oh, and remember the creepy ghost of an old lady that kickstarted this whole adventure? Well, she turns up again in the final pages, but we don’t get anything in the way of answers about who or what she is. Clearly they’ll be forthcoming in a later book, but considering the lack of plot that actually happens in this instalment, things really needed to end on some sort of revelation to entice the reader back.
Like I said, there’s nothing overtly wrong with anything... there was just too much good material preceding it.
Daughters of Smoke and Cinders by Núria Tamarit, translated by Jenna Allen
It’s a shame that this graphic novel has a title that reads like that of a YA book, as there’s very little here that has anything to do with that specific genre. First of all, it’s a beautiful book: very large, hardcover, with rich and vivid colours throughout. The style of the illustrations took a while to get used to, as the human figures were so similar (same shaped heads, nothing but dark circles for eyes) that it was a bit difficult to tell them apart at first.
But once we were off, the story reminded me a lot of Prey. Okay, remember how before it came out, there were some dudes moaning about it would be so woke that Naru and the Predator would probably team up to take out the “real threat.” a.k.a., the white man? And then that didn’t happen, so they had to pretend they were angry over other stuff instead? Well, this is the story they were initially so frightening of.
Joana is a young woman that has bordered a shipping vessel to hunt in the frozen north and search for gold in order to rebuild her destroyed home. She’s self-sufficient and mentally/emotionally hardened, and promptly gets left behind when a hunting party takes her money and sets off into the wilderness without her. Led by a trapper called Matwei, the group also has a number of First Nation people among them: Tala, their guide, Opa, their healer, and Semioy, a warrior who owes Matwei a life-debt.
None of them are treated with anything resembling respect, and as Joana tails the group, always careful to remain out of sight, it becomes apparent they could be allies to her – and are busy with their own plans to undermine the white hunters. But beyond all that, something else lurks in the forest, one ready to take its revenge.
Is the feminist/environmental/anti-colonialism theme a little heavy-handed? Sure, but sometimes things are meant to hit you like a hammer, and the bluntness of the message works well with the stark simplicity of the illustrations. Núria Tamarit, through Joana, has something to say and is going to say it without mincing any words. I read it in one sitting.
Pearl of the Sea by Anthony Silverson and Willem Samuel
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This falls into the exact same category as the last two books: it’s good but just not comparable to the other stuff I’ve been reading recently.
Teenaged Pearl is a bit of a social misfit living in a coastal town, still grappling with the abandonment of her mother when she was a child. Her father is struggling to keep up the rent, she doesn’t have many friends at school, and most of her free time is spent deep-sea diving for edible seafood.
One day, in need of some extra money, she cuts through the barrier that cordons off a shipwreck and ends up befriending a giant octopus that’s been lurking there. Like most “child becomes friends with a monster” stories, it follows the familiar beats – Pearl starts to process her mother’s departure, realizes she has to protect her new friend from the greed of others, gains the confidence she needs to face her everyday life, and eventually fights to defend her new friend/pet’s freedom from those who wish it harm. Remember Free Willy? It’s like that.
The story is apparently set in South Africa, though there aren’t many visual signifiers for this (maybe I just missed something obvious, but it could just as easily have been set in a North American coastal town) which is a shame since that’s a unique locale for a story like this one. I appreciated that socio-economic factors in Pearl’s life were a big reason for her strife, and attention is giving to things like going hungry, being denied luxuries, and that underlying, ever-present desperation which comes with poverty.
Neither is this reality given an easy fix: she and her father might not be in as dire straits as they were at the start of the story, but neither are they living in total financial security either. Poverty is a difficult trap to escape.
Visually it’s pretty gorgeous, with full-page spreads of the ocean depths and much of the story conveyed without any text at all. Otto the octopus is especially well-designed, and I liked the way he changed colour depending on his moods. The book itself (like Daughters of Smoke and Cinders) is also physically much bigger than your average graphic novel: not as big as an A3 piece of paper, but certainly bigger than the usual A4, which helps capture the space and depth of the aquatic setting.
In all, a completely inoffensive tale of a girl and her octopus.
Hotel Dare by Terry Blas and Claudia Aguirre
This one took me by surprise. I picked it up because I liked the colours and the design on the cover, but what unfolds on the pages is a very twisty-turny story about an adoptive family that ends up in a hotel with portals leading to other dimensions (yes, rather like the hotel in the latest season of The Umbrella Club).
Olive and her adoptive siblings Darwin and Charlotte all end up in different worlds: one of magic wielded by bearded magicians, one populated by cute floating cotton-candy-like creatures, and one containing a spacecraft that’s floating through deep space.
What began as a chance to meet their estranged abuela is now an adventure throughout different dimensions, with each kid realizing the world they’ve visited has some connection to the others: there’s talk of a three-eyed goddess, an Aztec suit of armour, a mysterious captain... it’s something of a puzzle-box plot, with details as small as a missing cleaning lady or a girl in a family photo being seeded early and having massive payoff later on.
The artwork is gorgeous: bright and crisp and clean, with lots of fun facial expressions and a clear understanding of what’s going on from panel to panel. There’s also a strong Latin American context, with several characters talking in Spanish, a backdrop of Mexican history and culture, and a queer Latinx lead. Mamá Lupe is a quintessential Badass Granny, and the whole thing reminded me a bit of Coco.
But the most remarkable thing about Hotel Dare is that it’s entirely standalone. I’ve no idea if there are any forthcoming sequels, but if there aren’t, then the story is told with a satisfying beginning, middle and end. What a joy!
The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
As a children’s librarian, it was well-past time for me to familiarize myself with some of the more steadfastly popular books for that demographic. Captain Underpants has been a huge success ever since the first book was released way back in 1997 (that’s insane! I was thirteen!) and there have since been eleven sequels published in the series.
I have to admit, this sort of absurdist potty humour never really appealed to me, even when I was a kid. I didn’t like Roald Dahl or Lewis Carroll either, and if David Walliams had been around, I would have avoided him too. I preferred stories that were grounded and had internal logic, even (or especially) when there were fantastical elements involved. The premise of two schoolboys hypnotizing their tyrannical principal into being an underpants-wearing superhero via a ring they ordered through the mail would not have been the sort of story I picked up of my own volition – though I can certainly see why kids love it.
But it was fascinating to read the actual book after having the concept of Captain Underpants floating around on the periphery of my awareness for so long. For whatever reason, I always assumed the titular character was a child that had been granted superpowers (like Shazam) and that the other kids were helping him maintain his cover.
Instead, the story goes that two schoolboys called George and Harold end up playing one too many practical jokes and are subsequently blackmailed by Principal Krupp after he captures their escapades on security cameras. Having been put to work washing his car, cleaning his gutters and clipping his fingernails, the boys eventually decide something has to be done. They send away for a Hypno-Ring as advertised in the newspaper, hoping to hypnotize Krupp into every forgetting he caught them on tape. As one comments: “it better work, or we’ve just wasted four whole bucks!”
Of course, it does work, and the boys get creative with Krupp’s suggestive state. On realizing he looks a lot like Captain Underpants, the superhero they’ve created for their homemade comic books, they command him to transform into the character – at which point he throws off his clothes and toupee and rushes out to fight crime. After foiling the inevitable bank robbers, Captain Underpants is then kidnapped by robots (George: “up until now this story was almost believable!”) working on the behest of Doctor Diaper, who has plans for world domination...
Okay look, this is clearly a book for children, so I’m not going to comment on any of that. I’ll just say I ended up being more interested in the bonus material at the end of the book that discusses Pilkey’s inspirations. Turns out that he bore a close resemblance to George and Harold when he was a boy: drawing comics, playing pranks and generally being the class clown. Later he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and wrote/illustrated a number of stories for his classmates before Captain Underpants took off. That would have been the story I was more interested in as a kid.
Ah well. If nothing else, at least I’m caught up.
The Bad Guys: Episode 1 by Aaron Blabey
Another first instalment in a wildly popular children’s series (which has also been adapted into a Dreamworks animated film) it bears more than a few passing resemblances to Captain Underpants: its author also provides the illustrations, a lot of the story is conveyed through its pictures (to the point where it could almost be described as a graphic novel) and there is plenty of absurdist comedy.
But there are differences too. The whole thing is narrated by the Big Bad Wolf, who breaks the fourth wall in order to announce his decision to become a good guy directly to the reader. He introduces his friends: Snake, Piranha and Shark, who are considerably less eager to go straight, but somehow get caught up in Wolf’s zany schemes to make the world a better place. This involves rescuing a cat stuck in a tree (who is naturally more terrified of his would-be rescuers than of being stuck in a tree) and breaking inmates out of prison (who are also more afraid of their rescuers than of being stuck in prison – even if they can’t figure out what Piranha is).
A part of me was a little bummed that this didn’t have any fairy tale trappings beyond the fact that the protagonist is the Big Bad Wolf. Though the Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood get referenced, this story takes place in a modern city, and none of the other characters have any connotations to any familiar fairy tales (I mean, our rogues gallery could have easily been comprised of Goblin, Troll and Fox instead of Snake, Piranha and Shark, but it isn’t).
I enjoyed it more than Captain Underpants – it was still zany and silly, but the story had more structure and there were plenty of funny gags along the way (though it can’t resist some fart jokes either). I thought it was interesting that we never actually find out at any point why Wolf has decided he wants to turn good, though I suppose that’s what the myriad of sequels are for...
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
Either I have a very good memory, or this book made a huge impression on me as a kid. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what the title or who the author was, but the minute I unexpectedly picked up a copy while processing books at the library, I could have rattled off all the major beats of the story in excessive detail, despite not having read it for decades.
Maddie and Peggy are schoolfriends who constantly tease one of their classmates, a quiet Polish girl called Wanda. It began some time before the start of the story, when the girls at school were admiring an older student’s dress, and Wanda attempted to integrate herself into the conversation by disclosing that she had one hundred dresses in her wardrobe at home.
Because she’s clearly living in poverty and wearing the same dress to school every day, the girls play the old “we’ll pretend to believe you and goad you into saying all sorts of other outlandish things” tactic, but although Wanda withdraws from them, she remains adamant that she has one hundred dresses at home, going so far as to describe them whenever the subject is broached.
Then one day Wanda doesn’t return to school, and Maddie – who has always felt bad about the teasing but been too afraid to speak out against it – begins to feel guilty, especially when it transpires Wanda has won a local drawing competition. Her entry was pictures of one hundred dresses, all designed and coloured-in beautifully.
Maddie and Peggy (who has also been feeling pangs of guilt) go to Wanda’s house to apologize, only to find it empty. Later, a letter from Wanda’s father arrives at the school, explaining that the family has left permanently for the city where there are more immigrants and therefore less chance of sticking out. Maddie’s guilty conscience only worsens.
But then, a letter arrives from Wanda, who asks the school teacher to give Maddie and Peggy two of her drawings. On close inspection, faint depictions of each girl are sketched on the drawings, so that both appear to be wearing one of the dresses. With that gesture, Maddie realizes she’s been forgiven, though she still retains a bittersweet regret that she never got the chance to make amends in-person.
Since this was published back in 1944, it’s dated in a few ways. The most egregious example is the rules of the drawing competition stipulate the boys have to draw motorboats and the girls have to design dresses, but there are also little details like the teacher saying: “everyone back to his seat” even though she’s addressing a classroom of boys and girls.
But I really love the portrayal of how Maddie manages her guilt, especially in how it’s compared to Peggy’s. Maddie’s inability to stand up for Wanda is partly because she’s afraid Peggy’s ridicule might fall on her, though she’s also constantly trying to rationalize her friend’s behaviour: “Peggy was not really cruel. She protected small children from bullies. And she cried for hours if she saw an animal mistreated. If anybody had said to her: ‘Don’t you think that is a cruel way to treat Wanda?’ she would have been very surprised.”
Furthermore, Peggy isn’t a one-dimensional bully. She feels a degree of guilt on her own, for after Wanda stops coming to school, she suggests they visit her house “with pretended casualness.” But Maddie is the one that really grapples with what they’ve done: “True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing. She had stood by silently, and that was just as bad as what Peggy had done. Worse. She was a coward. At least Peggy hadn’t considered they were being mean, but she, Maddie, had thought they were doing wrong.”
Finally, after the girls have received their drawings from Wanda, but before Maddie notices their likenesses on the drawings (so she’s still feeling a little bereft) we learn that: “Peggy felt happy and relieved. It was Christmas and everything was fine.” She carries less guilt even though she’s the instigator of the bullying (though is not without remorse) while Maddie is less culpable and yet more guilt-stricken.
It's such a psychologically real look at how different people think, feel, and respond to things, and Maddie’s emotional journey across the course of the book is wonderfully complex, culminating with her making a promise to herself: that she’ll never stand aside and allow anyone to be bullied again.
I’ve written so many paragraphs on what is a very short book, so obviously it packs a punch. This might be because it’s a story of about bullying told from the point-of-view of the bully, however reluctantly she partook in the bullying. On reflection, that perspective might just be more useful in getting kids to try and emphasize with victims of bullying, since it cuts through a. any self-delusion that they could never be a bully, and b. their preoccupation with not being the kid getting picked on.
Out of the Dark by Betty Ren Wright
Much like One Hundred Dresses, I read this book decades ago and yet remembered almost every detail. Again, I had forgotten the title and author of the book, and had assumed it was written by Helen Downing Hahn, another prolific children’s ghost story writer of the nineties. But on perusing a list of her published work, nothing rang a bell (and probably wouldn’t have even if I had known the correct author, as that’s one heck of a generic title).
Then one day, I was browsing through a Goodreads list of Apple Paperbacks when I recognized that cover. I mean, you don’t forget that cover art! Man, I miss the days when characters were realistically rendered in a scene that captured a specific moment of the book you were reading, so you spent the entire book waiting for that scene to happen. They don’t make them like that anymore (remind me to rant about this in another post).
And what do you know, in my many excursions to second-hand bookstores and library stock sales, I’ve bought no less than three Betty Ren Wright titles, never realizing she was also the writer of this old favourite. It’s a small world.
Pre-teen Jess moves into her grandmother’s house in the country after both her parents lose their jobs. Her grandmother has taken up a temporary position in another town, and the house is theirs for the foreseeable future. Jess’s mother has a job she dislikes at the hardware store, and her father is attempting to write a book about his experiences in Vietnam (yeah, that definitely dates this).
But soon Jess grows aware of a haunting presence: a young blonde woman with a blue ribbon in her hair whose expression is always filled with loathing. Jess attempts to focus on enjoying her summer by befriending the girl next door, only to discover that Toni has a chip on her shoulder about a bodily disfigurement (it’s never spelled out, but implied to be a club foot).
At the same time, Jess finds some old diaries of her grandmother’s and learns about a teacher called Miss Caldwell who falls in love with her uncle, making her grandmother something of a teacher’s pet as a result – much to the anger and resentment of her friends.
There is a nice twist concerning the identity of the ghost (who Jess naturally assumes is Miss Caldwell after spotting her wearing a heart-shaped necklace described in the diary) as well as some commentary on hardships in life and how a person chooses to respond to them. It’s perhaps a little confrontational by today’s standards, as Toni is what I’d call a “high maintenance friend”, leading to Jess wondering if it’s even worth trying to be friends with her. The impetus is not on Jess to keep putting up with Toni’s sullen attitude, but whether Toni wants to stop wallowing in suspicion and self-pity and just live her life. I don’t think it would be written quite like that today.
Like most good ghost stories, the real-life drama parallels the nature of the haunting, and after reading Wicked Saints (see below) it was refreshing to enjoy something that was concise and well-structured in comparison. I suppose the haunting isn’t actually resolved, it just sort of peters to a close, but the book provided a fun trip down memory lane and thankfully was not tainted by the Suck Fairy.
Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan
In the words of Roger Murtaugh: “I’m too old for this shit.” After reading The Midnight Girls, I was profoundly thankful to start Uprooted, as the difference in prose and style was pronounced. And then to return to what was obviously a YA targeted read was... yeah.
That’s not to say all YA is bad (Francis Hardinge, for example) but let’s be honest, the genre is becoming increasingly formulaic and everyone wants to be the first to do something second. We saw it in the wake of Twilight, then the deluge of dystopian novels after The Hunger Games, and now we’re neck-deep in Game of Thrones-esque fantasies with the cultural/historical/locational trappings of Shadow and Bone.
I suppose that’s partly my fault considering I’ve chosen Slavic fantasy as a theme for these last few months, but – oof. No one follows the leader or ticks boxes quite like YA fiction, which is ironic considering you’d think that of all demographics it would focus on bucking trends and staking out new territory. (And don’t get me started on the authors of YA fiction on Twitter. Never have there been so many grown women demanding to be taken seriously while simultaneously throwing hissy fits at the slightest whiff of criticism).
Okay, let’s get this over with. Wicked Saints was clearly written by someone who wanted Alina and the Darkling to hook up, and so wrote this book in response to her disappointment. In a world based on medieval Russia, a young girl called Nadya (Alina) lives with her best friend Kostya (Mal) in a monastery where she is secretly being trained to use her miraculous gift of communicating with the gods to overthrow their empiric neighbour. When the monastery is attacked, she escapes into the surrounding countryside where she promptly meets Malachiasz (the Darkling) a defector from the army that’s just destroyed her home, and a couple of devil-may-care itinerants who throw their lot in with our heroine (I forget their names, but they’re Tolya and Tamar).
Elsewhere, the ne'er-do-well Prince Serefin (Nikolai), whose every utterance is a quip, and his devoted bodyguard Ostyia (Zoya), who is the book’s token queer, stand on the frontlines of the war against Nadya’s people, only to get called back to the country’s capital and become embroiled in all sorts of palace intrigue, including that brought about by the machinations and prophecies of the court witch Pelageya (Baghra). Eventually these two groups of characters will converge, obvious twists regarding everyone’s identities are revealed, and the inevitable cliffhanger happens.
For a few chapters I was interested in the concept of Nadya being a conduit for the voices of her gods, and how this related to the wider world-building of her country’s religion and history, not to mention her own development as a character regarding her potential loss of faith. Unfortunately, this was fairly quickly thrown to the wayside in favour of a turgid melodrama between herself and Malachiasz, and by the end of the story, I was reading more out of bile fascination at how this book so effortlessly exemplifies the YA formula.
The words “monster” and “blood” are used on nearly every page. Every second sentence is a declaration as self-important as it is nonsensical (“a boy made king of monsters for a kingdom of the damned”). Paragraphs are spent describing Malachiasz’s looks and the effect they have on Nadya. There’s pithy banter – so much pithy banter. The fate of a kingdom hinges on whether or not a bunch of teenagers can get over their traumas and hook up. Oh, and what’s the name of the actual trilogy? Something Dark and Holy, because YA just CANNOT get past this “[something] and [something]” obsession with titling things.
Malachiasz is Kylo Ren, not as he existed in the first two-thirds of the sequel trilogy (a petulant fascist man-child who slaughtered innocent people) but as he did in his fangirls’ imagination, in which he was a poor broken dark prince who never did anything wrong and only needed the love and compassion of a self-insert character who truly understood him. And I’m not exaggerating, in the author’s acknowledgements she literally credits someone for: “using Kylo Ren to get me to figure out Malachiasz”. This doesn’t feel like something a person should be admitting, but since Kylo is an incoherent mess of a character, it tracks that Malachiasz is too.
(Even if you don’t share my distaste for these specific romance tropes, you have to admit that “sad lonely angry boy” as the heroine’s only viable love interest is getting a little silly at this point).
And glancing over some of the Goodreads reviews is pretty telling. Most of the positive ones are just shrieking about “aesthetics!” and “girlbosses!” and “I would die for him!” and posting a dozen reaction GIFs. The author describes her own work as full of: “very sad very pretty boys and very tired very done with everything girls.” You can’t accuse her of not knowing her audience, but it’s all so empty and manufactured; a vacuous assortment of tropes and fandom catchphrases and vibes.
Why is it that – generally speaking – children’s books are so much more mature and insightful than those aimed at older readers? One Hundred Dresses and Out of the Dark had more to say about human nature than this. I know the response to all this is the usual “it’s fiction!” and “just let people enjoy things!” to which I say – I’m not stopping anyone from doing that. I’m just saying are much better things to enjoy, which is why I’m going to grant myself mercy and not read the next two books in this trilogy.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
After Wicked Saints, returning to Naomi Novik brought forth a sigh of relief. There’s no way of not sounding like one of those pretentious elites that Tumblr is always so staunchly against for saying this, but the differences between a book written for teenagers and a book written for adults is very clear, even if the stories are superficially similar. The plot of Spinning Silver is better structured, the prose more sophisticated, and the female characters have better things on their minds than how super-hot their frenemies are.
And yet, even though I enjoyed these elements in Uprooted, I was letdown by the completely shoehorned-in “romance” that was completely superfluous to the plot, came the heck outta nowhere, and was comprised of a much older man treating his young apprentice like shit for the greater duration of the story. Ironically, it was the one part of Uprooted that made it feel more like YA than a dark fairy tale book for grownups.
For that reason, I was tentative going into Spinning Silver, and though there’s still a lot to unpack, I generally feel extremely positive about it. Very loosely based on the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin, it takes the idea of an individual being able to spin straw into gold (or transform silver into gold) and someone’s self-aggrandizing being overheard by the wrong person, and crafts a completely fresh story that contains those echoes of an ancient, familiar tale. I kind of wish I hadn’t known it was based on Rumpelstiltskin going in, as I’m left wondering if I would have picked up on it if I hadn’t.
In the original tale, the bragger is the miller and the spinner is Rumpelstiltskin, with the poor nameless miller’s daughter caught between the former’s lies and the latter’s machinations. Here the daughter is reimagined as Miryem Mandelstam, the daughter of a Jewish moneylender who isn’t very good at his job. Tired of watching her father being taken advantage of, and her mother suffering whenever he refuses to call in his debts, Miryem takes on the responsibilities of the job and goes out into the community to settle the family’s accounts.
She’s insulted and abused – but she comes back with what the family is owed, and soon she’s bringing in a substantial profit when she starts trading at the local marketplace. This has the dual consequence of stirring up resentment in her neighbours and catching the attention of the Staryk.
The Staryk are the fey of this particular story: icy-cold elfish beings who are led by a king who approaches Miryem with a deal she can’t refuse (literally): to turn his silver coins into gold or else her family will suffer the consequences. And her reward if she’s successful? Marriage to him, something neither of them want.
Meanwhile, a young noblewoman called Irina and a peasant girl called Wanda are facing their own challenges. Irina is a decidedly not-beautiful girl whose father nonetheless has grand ambitions for her regarding the tsar, while Wanda struggles to feed her two brothers (one older, one younger) despite her drunken, often-abusive father. Irina ends up in possession of the ring, necklace and crown that Miryem has had made from the Staryk coins and sold to Irina’s father, which have an astounding magical effect on how others perceive her, while Wanda becomes a servant in Miryam’s household, carefully saving up her wages and hiding them from her father.
The story is told in first-person narrative, but is constantly switching between Miryam, Irina and Wanda’s point-of-view (and later, that of Irina’s nurse, Wanda’s little brother, and the tsar). This can be a little confusing at first, but it’s a testament to the writing that it’s extremely easy to pick up on who’s talking through tone and context within the first few sentences. And the way the stories of these three young women unfold and intertwine is *chef’s kiss*. Truly, it is SO rewarding and clever as they edge into each other’s orbits, disclose certain secrets, offer assistance to each other and ultimately see their plans put into effect.
It's a glorious example of the puzzle-box plot, where things are seeded early and paid off beautifully later, where everything moves like carefully-calibrated clockwork, and – best of all – everything is character driven. Miryem, Irina and Wanda respond to what’s happening to them in very different ways, but which are true to the circumstances they’re in and the way in which they’ve been raised. There are no anachronistic “girl-bossing” moments here: they’re all living in a medieval Slavic patriarchy, and they understand the implications of that and the consequences of what will happen if their plans go wrong. As a Jew, a peasant, and the unlovely daughter of a lesser noble, they each know how vulnerable they are.
You see, just as Miryem has entered into a deal with her Staryk husband, so too has Irina discovered something about her new husband: he’s in league with a fire demon, the creature behind the tsar’s hasty marriage to her. Because of Irina’s maternal bloodline, there is plenty of magic inside her that the demon wants to drink, unless she can find something even more precious to bargain with.
When the women cross paths, the solution to both their problems is obvious: get their husbands in the same room and watch as they kill each other. It was at this point I put down the book and fist-pumped. It’s SUCH a good scene.
But at this point you can probably also sense my misgivings. These women are pitted against two powerful, dangerous, fickle, self-centred men with supernatural powers... was there a chance this would turn into a story in which they’re tasked with the responsibility of changing them for the better? Was a narrative twist coming, in which we learn that the petulant, murderous tsar and the cruel, merciless Staryk king have very good reasons for being giant assholes, and only the pure, tender love of their womenfolk can redeem them? Oh please, no. Not when the murder plot was going SO well!
And yet as the story unfolds, it was with a sinking feeling that I watched Miryem and Irina’s righteous fury gives way to pity and guilt... though it’s ultimately not as bad as I’d dreaded. First of all, Novik is a good writer, and so their changes of heart don’t just happen because the plot requires it. Secondly, the story never stops being about the women, who never compromise their beliefs or sense of morality, and always have priorities that outrank the men at every turn.
Finally, the “love stories,” such as they are, end up comprised of a Maybe Ever After for one couple, and a wedding that comes so late in the book for the other that it hardly even matters to the plot (which you’d think would annoy me even more, but at least it’s not as gratuitous as the pointless sex scene with the centenarian in Uprooted). Romance is never the focus, and it never impinges on the arcs of the women – or the complex moral choices they have to make throughout the story.
So it just goes to show that when it comes to romance tropes that I profoundly dislike, my tolerance levels depend a lot on the quality of the story and the skill of the writer. I mean, here is Irina’s reply to her husband when he mockingly asks her what exactly she’s trying to protect – the squirrels?
“Yes, squirrels,” I said, and meant it. “And peasants and children and old women, and all the people you don’t even see because they’re useless to you, all those who’ll die before you and your soldiers do.” I didn’t know what I was feeling, that made those words come. Angry, I think. I didn’t remember ever being angry before. Anger had always seemed pointless to me, a dog circling after its own tail. What good was it to be angry at my father, or my stepmother, or angry at the servants who were rude to me? People were angry at the weather sometimes too, or when they stubbed their toe on a stone or cut their hand on a knife, as if it had done it to them on purpose. It had all seemed equally useless to me. Anger was a fire in a grate, and I’d never had any wood to burn. Until now, it seemed.
And just as she did in Uprooted with Agnieszka and Kasia, Novik understands the vital importance of centralizing female relationships. This passage from Irina’s old nursemaid Magreta got me a bit choked up:
Of course, I came to love her very soon anyway. I had no one else to love, and even if she was not mine, I had been let to borrow her. But I had never been quite sure what she felt for me. Other little children would go running to their nurses and their mamas with open arms and kisses. She never did. I told myself all these years that it was only her way, cool and quiet as new-fallen snow, but still in my secret heart I had not been truly sure, not until the tsar sent me to bring me to hurt her with, and I saw that it would have worked. Oh, it was a strange way to be happy.
While reading Uprooted, I mentioned that Novik was probably a fan of Game of Thrones, and after reading this I’m left in no doubt. The Staryk are essentially George R.R. Martin’s Others (not the show’s White Walkers), as they’re described in exactly the same way, with icy skin and unknowable motivations. This was very much like the forest in Uprooted, but here the comparison is even more pronounced, as they’re one side of a fire versus ice conflict, with both as dangerous to humankind as the other. The word Staryk even looks like Stark.
This is often described as a companion piece to Uprooted, though you definitely don’t have to read one to understand the other. I’m not even entirely sure if they’re meant to take place in the same world – Uprooted felt far more fantastical than this (with no mention of Jews or any other real-life religious traditions) and as far as I could tell the only possible connection could have been a house belonging to a witch that might have belonged to an oft-mentioned but never-seen character in Uprooted.
In many ways it was an odd reading experience; for the most part I loved it, but I spent the entire page-count dreading a repeat of the worst part of Uprooted. Yet when the moment came, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In hindsight, the sprawling complexity of the plot, the ongoing themes of debts, bargains and repayments, and the focus on Miryem, Irina and Wanda as the story’s indisputable protagonists far outweighed the inevitable need Novik had to allow the women to tame their dangerous husbands. In Uprooted, the story was good enough to me to ignore the shitty romance; here the story was so excellent that there was simply no need for any romance – they’re a cherry on top, nothing more. The sum of its parts are far greater than the tropes I despise.
The Sound of Music Story by Tom Santopietro
It’s funny how reading or watching certain things causes a ripple effect. Because I’m listening to a Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast on my way to work, I’m now desperate to rewatch the show. Due to the fact I’m watching the final season of His Dark Materials and reading along with The Amber Spyglass, the encyclopaedia of Pullman’s invented world that’s sitting on the library shelves is beckoning to me.
And having watched The Sound of Music for the first time in ages last month, I’m compelled to read more about it – thus, The Sound of Music Story, which covers the real-life Maria Rainer, the making of the musical by Rogers and Hammerstein, the German television specials, and (most of all) the 1965 film.
“Making of” dramas are always compelling to me, so even though this was a fairly simplistic recap of the experience, it yielded plenty of interesting details, from the well-known (Christopher Plummer profoundly disliked the film, though he warmed up to it in later years) to the obscure (did you know that the father of the real Captain von Trapp’s first wife invented the torpedo? Or that Charmaine Carr went on to become the interior designer that worked on Michael Jackson’s house in Neverland?) to the trivial (the book feels the need to point out that Maria never called Georg by his first name throughout the entire film – it’s either “captain” or “darling”).
It’s also rather astounding to realize that despite the drastic changes made to the real-life story (the von Trapps did have seven children, comprised of five girls and two boys, but the eldest was already a grown man by the time Maria turned up as a governess to the younger ones, and none of the names are carried over) a lot of it is based on fact. Maria Rainer was made to kiss the floor in the Abbey (and as the joke in the film goes, she did it before committing a transgression) and the von Trapp children really did wear sailor suits and answer to their father’s naval whistle (though they actually loved it).
Maria did flee back to the Abbey in a panic, but it was because she didn’t want to marry the Captain (who proposed to her through the children) and the family butler was indeed a member of the Third Reich (the film has him betray the family, but in real life he was the one who warned the family of the borders closing). Strangest of all, the Captain was a kind and devoted father, and it was Maria who was more standoffish when it came to displays of affection – plus, the family were already very musically inclined before she came along, she simply found a way of monetizing their talent.
But most fascinating for me were the changes made from the stage to screen in order to make the libretto more cinematic. We owe screenwriter Ernest Lehman quite a debt, from obvious decisions (deleting songs sung by the Baroness and Uncle Max, moving “My Favourite Things” from the Abbey to the Von Trapp house during the thunderstorm) to the more ingenious (scenes like Maria sitting on the pinecone at the dinner table, turning “Doh Re Me” into a music video that showed off the sights of Saltzberg, and bookending the movie with epic shots of the mountains were all his idea).
Here are some other titbits: it turns out that even Julie Andrews, that ray of forceful sunshine, was leery about the sentimentality of the story (her first words to director Robert Wise being: “how do we cut down the schmaltz?”) and it was a very conscious decision to try and tone it all down in whatever way they could. This mostly manifested in filling the screen with the beauty of the location shots, and attempting to ease the viewer into the songs – I never noticed before, but Maria speaks the first lines of “My Favourite Things” before she starts singing, the Mother Abbess is facing fully away from the camera when she begins “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and even Julie Andrews’s opening belt-out of “the HILLS are ALIIIIIVE!” drops the opening stanza of the stage version.
There are also some amusing considerations when it comes to the filming schedule: it turns out that family hiding from the Nazis in the Abbey was shot very early, while “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” was the last number filmed – this means that the actor playing Rolfe played his character arc entirely in reverse, from the treacherous Nazi to the lovestruck teenager.
The book points out plenty of things I hadn’t noticed before, like how Wise preferred to film the most intense emotional moments in intimate locations. In hindsight, it is rather strange that the Mother Abbess sings “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” in her tiny office as opposed to a soaring cathedral, or that Maria and the Captain reveal their love within the confines of a tiny gazebo instead of the massive, manicured gardens – but they were both deliberate choices.
Though Christopher Plummer apparently behaved rather badly at times (getting drunk in the hotel bar, complaining that the actress playing Gretl was gaining too much weight) Santopietro has nothing but positive things to say about Julie Andrews. She was twenty-eight at the time of filming and well-aware of the irony that she was performing the role of a loving governess-then-mother to seven children while her own very-young child was stuck with nannies all day. But as the book points out, she was an utter professional: making no mistakes in any of the takes, knowing that she had to be perfect every time because the children were obviously going to mess things up more often than not. Her greatest skill was making it all look easy.
It really does sound like Wise put together an incredible team of professionals at the top of their game, all of whom were selfless team players who trusted each other and worked in absolute symbiosis (there’s a cute anecdote about how the screenwriter ended up making faces at the exhausted kids from off-camera during “My Favourite Things” to keep them entertained and happy).
Unfortunately, there are also some annoying gaffes throughout the book. Santopietro states that the child actors were only recorded as themselves while they were singing “The Sound of Music” to cheer themselves up after Maria’s departure. But in that scene they’re singing “My Favourite Things”; if he means their rendition of “The Sound of Music”, then that happens much earlier on, before Marian departs. Later, he describes Maria dancing with Frederick in the garden before the Captain cuts in – but it’s Kurt she’s initially dances with.
At another point he says: “with Lehman having moved “My Favourite Things” to this earlier position in the film,” even though the song is pushed BACK from its placement in the musical, and describes: “Parker’s murmured reply to Maria’s expression of concern that she’s not sure she’ll make a good nun.” Er, would anyone say that Eleanor Parker murmurs the line “if you need anything, I’d be happy to help you”? She doesn’t murmur, she breezily throws it over her shoulder in a tone of sincere insincerity.
Then there’s this passage: “Observing the exuberant singing and yodelling of Marian and the children as they deftly manoeuvre the marionettes, the baroness mutters to Max: ‘you should have told me to bring my harmonica.’” First of all, that’s not the line, it’s “why didn’t you tell me?... to bring along my harmonica?” and second of all, it occurs as Georg settles down to sing “Edelweiss”, not during the marionette scene.
I mean, come on! If he’s getting these obvious and easily fact-checked details wrong, then what else do we have to take with a pinch of salt? Are any of his anecdotes accurate? It’s a disappointing fly in the ointment of what was otherwise a very interesting book.
Gaslight (1944)
Fun fact: the term “gaslighting,” in which a person abuses another by making them doubt their reality by deliberately sabotaging their surroundings, originates from the title of this film. Ironic fact: within the context of the film, the literal gaslights have nothing whatsoever to do with the villain’s actual gaslighting and are in fact an important clue that leads to his downfall.
Paula Alquist leaves England for Italy after the murder of her aunt Alice in their London home, attempting to flee the terrible memories of finding her aunt’s strangled body. But sometime later, after a whirlwind courtship with Gregory Anton, she agrees to move back into the vacant townhouse to resume marital life.
But soon odd things start happening: she loses precious objects even though she puts them away safely. She hears footsteps in the empty attic room. Pictures go missing from the walls and turn up again in strange places. Gregory blames her for the goings-on, and soon Paula begins to buckle under the pressure of her surroundings not matching her sense of reality.
I’ve often commented that old movies are often surprisingly progressive when it comes to female characters, and though there’s not a lot of joy you can derive from the depiction of a woman who is relentlessly and publicly humiliated by her husband for the duration of the film, it’s still rather astonishing to watch the indisputable gaslighting of Paula, who eventually manages to turn the tables on her abuser.
Sure, she gets precious little support from the other women in the house, and ultimately it’s Inspector Cameron who gets to play the hero – but still. As someone as someone who has been on the receiving end of (mild) gaslighting, it’s deeply cathartic when the narrative proclaims clearly and without room for argument that Paula was right and Brian was a piece of shit. Sometimes you just need to hear that assertion out loud. Her confrontation with him after the truth comes out is surely what won Ingrid Bergman the well-deserved Oscar for Best Actress in 1944 (though I definitely could have done without the insinuation that she forms a romantic attachment to Cameron – girl, have a mental health break first!)
The film is also notable for co-starring Angela Lansbury in her very first big-screen role, and she ended up getting nominated for an Oscar for it! She was only seventeen years old at the time (and turned eighteen during filming) which is a bit dizzying.
The Seventh Seal (1957)
I have been trying to watch this film for many years now, though I could never find it on DVD and any attempt to acquire it through other means never worked out since no download ever came with subtitles. But in browsing the archives of my city library’s streaming service, I was delighted to find that it was available there. Finally, a multitude of parodies and homages makes sense to me (including the scene in Merlin where Merlin and Arthur are tested with the poisoned chalice on the shore).
It's quite a trip, and not at all what I thought it would be. That is, I thought the focus would remain exclusively on Max von Sydow’s character, a disillusioned knight returning from the Crusades, but it ends up being more of an ensemble piece. On arriving back in Sweden, Antonius Block and his sardonic squire Jöns rest on the shore. When Antonius awakes, it’s to find the personification of Death approaching, who he challenges to a chess match in order to delay the inevitable.
The pair soon discover that the countryside has been ravaged by the Black Death, and decide to make for Antonius’s home where his wife of many years is presumably still waiting for him. Along the way they encounter a motley group of people: a travelling troupe of actors, a young woman scheduled to be burned at the stake, a mute servant girl that Jöns saves from rape, a blacksmith and his lusty wife, a procession of flagellants, and a theologian whose preaching inspired so many to leave home and go on Crusade.
Along the way, Antonius and Death sporadically resume their game of chess, with the knight growing increasingly desperate to perform “one meaningful act” before the end. But in a world filled with violence and cruelty and deception, what could that possibly be? The film is a meditation on life, death, faith, despair, hope, family, nihilism and God, and is certainly a lot darker than I thought it would be. The material with the accused witch and her execution is especially harrowing – hello, existential crisis! Please don’t come back!
But you can tell why it’s because such a cult classic since its release: it has just the right mix of earnest regard for its subject matter and easily parodied sequences that captivate audiences. It’s also one of those films that demand either a twenty-page meta on its meaning or nuances, or a brief “just go and watch it for yourself” recommendation – and this is going to be the latter.
Much like Gaslight, I’m glad I can finally check it off the list of “must watch films” and I’m tentatively looking forward to watching it again, after I’ve had time to ruminate for a while (as in, a few years) on what it offers its audience.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
I have yet to see Dial of Destiny (or Crystal Skull for that matter) but I can still say with some certainty that Temple of Doom remains the odd one out in the franchise. It’s the only one not to be framed by scenes at a university (giving that location a “home base” feeling) and without any of the recurring sidekicks. The likes of Marion, Sallah and Marcus all feature in one or more of the other films, establishing a sense of continuity and a regular supporting cast, but Willie Scott and Short Round are unique to this film only. They’re never seen or even mentioned outside of it.
This is especially galling in the latter’s case, as he encompasses Indy’s most important relationship within the story: essentially his adopted son who at the film’s emotional climax cries: “I love you!” before deliberately thrusting a flaming torch into his abdomen to save him. That he’s never seen or heard of again after this film is just bizarre. Surely they could have squeezed a cameo into Dial of Destiny; it being their last chance to let us know just what the hell happened to this kid. Ke Huy Quan just won an Oscar for goodness sake!
But I digress. I give Temple of Doom full credit for not repeating its predecessor, though its reception is an early example of letting audiences decide in what direction a franchise should go. If it balks at anything different, studios will scurry back to the safety of a formula, and sure enough, when The Last Crusade rolled around it saw a return to Nazis, the hunt for a Western religious artefact, several familiar faces and lighter hijinks. I shouldn’t complain that much, as The Last Crusade is my favourite Indy movie – but I’ve gotten off-track again.
Temple of Doom is also interesting in that it takes place over an incredibly short time-span. Day One involves the main trio fleeing the night club in Shanghai, reaching India and seeing the state of the village. Day Two is setting off on the elephants to Pankok Palace. Day Three is reaching the palace, finding the underground catacombs, and fleeing the cult through the tunnels. And finally, Day Four sees the defeat of Mola Ram and returning with the children. Sure, there could have been a couple of off-screen days added to the journey to Pankok, but it feels like what we see is what happened in real-time.
Also notable: it’s a prequel. Set in 1935, one year before Raiders of the Lost Ark, this choice was apparently made because Spielberg didn’t want to deal with Nazis again. This is an odd reason to do a prequel (why not set it after the war? Or just... not have Nazis?) and throws up a lot of questions, not least of which is what happened to Short Round. Like why has Indy gone back to being a supernatural skeptic just one year after seeing the power of the Shankara Stone and invoking the wrath of Shiva?
There’s even a scene which is a deliberate throwback (or call-forward) to the famous Raiders moment in which Indy faces a master swordfighter, only to anticlimactically shoot him with his gun. Here, it doesn’t make sense. Indy is confronted by two sabre-wielding goons, and reaches for his gun with a smirky “I know how to handle this – just like last time,” only for the holster to be empty. It’s the deliberate subversion of something that hasn’t even happened yet.
And of course – other problems. I can’t imagine there’s a single person alive who wouldn’t agree – even begrudgingly – that this film is horrifically, relentlessly, embarrassingly racist. From Short Round’s broken English, to the portrayal of Kali as a Satanic death goddess, to the depiction of all Indian people as either cruel brainwashed members of a cult or helpless peasants waiting for a white saviour to fall from the sky, to the fact that the British Raj of all things gets the heroic Cavalry Arrives moment.
And then there’s Willie Scott. Hoo boy. I like to think I’m the person who defends unpopular female characters, but there’s not much I can work with here. She screams, she shrieks, she flails, she complains. Across the course of the film she does three useful things: pulls the level to free Indy and Shorty from the death trap (and then promptly triggers it again), punches a guy in the face during the mine cart sequence, and warns Indy that men are approaching him from the opposite side of the bridge (which he was perfectly capable of noticing himself). The rest of the time she’s The Load.
Ironically, achieving exactly three useful things is about what Marion gets to do in Raiders, proving that when it comes to female characters, giving her agency is only half the battle. Personality and three-dimensionality must exist as well, and we like Marion in a way we obviously don’t like the spoiled, venal Willie. The nicest thing I can say about the character is that she’s clearly what the writers/director wanted her to be. She’s meant to be annoying, and you can’t fault Kate Capshaw in that regard. She definitely commits to the bit. (Plus, the absolute worst female characters are the ones that are as annoying and whiny as Willie, but who the writers inexplicably believe are truly faultless. Y’all know who I’m talking about).
I only wish there had been some big payoff to her role. Remember in The Goonies, when Andy is essentially carry-on luggage until it turns out she’s the only one who can play the bone piano? Her histrionics up until that point only make her heroism that much greater in contrast. Why couldn’t Willie have gotten a moment like that? I could have endured her attitude if it had culminated in one Big Damn Heroes moment that justified her presence in the whole adventure, but she’s afforded no such dignity. It’s hard to understand what Spielberg/Lucas were even going for, especially on the heels of Marion.
I’ve little doubt this will end up being my least-favourite film of the franchise, though there are plenty of great scenes: the brawl in Shanghai, the setpiece of the bug-infested death trap, the incredible runaway mine-cart chase (possibly the best action sequence of the entire film-series) and the reunion between the kidnapped children and their parents at the end – that gets me every time.
But it’s a dark, creepy, almost angry movie, filled with beaten children and racist stereotypes and rank unpleasantness. There’s only so far the “it was based on pulp fiction” excuse can take you, and I remember vividly watching this as a child, only to bail when the heart-ripping-out scene began (I made it through the gross banquet scene and the descending ceiling, but that was the final straw).
Temple of Doom is still the black sheep of the family, though at the same time it nicely captures the idea that each Indiana Jones film will be a new standalone adventure, largely unrelated to anything that comes before or after it. As demonstrated in Shanghai, a dear friend of Indy dies in his arms, recalling how they had “so many adventures together”... and we never get to see or learn about any of them.
Nimona (2023)
It’s been a long, winding road to the release of this film, and it almost didn’t make it after Blue Sky Studios shut down in 2021 and Disney balked at the idea of an on-screen gay kiss. Turns out we have to begrudgingly credit Netflix for saving it, who not only stepped in to rescue it, but made sure all queer content remained intact.
Based on the webcomic/graphic novel by ND Stevenson (which I read a few years ago, and saved from being withdrawn from Christchurch City Libraries – you’re welcome all those people who have since put it on hold in the wake of the film’s release) he has since admitted that it mirrors his own experiences in transitioning, even though he had no idea at the time that it was such an obvious trans allegory. He’s discussed it here, and it’s well worth reading – especially since I don’t feel at all qualified to weigh in on this particular subject.
The movie plot is very different to that found in the graphic novel, both of which take place in a unique setting that’s a very cool mashup of a medieval kingdom and a high-tech utopia. Ballister Boldheart (changed from Blackheart for obvious reasons) is about to become the first commoner knight of the realm, alongside his friend/long term crush Ambrosius Goldenloin (possibly the most drastically changed character from book to film) when something goes horribly, tragically wrong.
Within the space of a few seconds, Ballister goes from hero to public enemy number one. Hiding out on the edges of the great walled city, he’s found by Nimona, a one-of-a-kind shapeshifter with an anarchic spirit who thinks she’s found a kindred spirit. To her, Ballister is a villain – and she wants to be his sidekick. Ballister is more concerned with clearing his name than anything else, though he’s intrigued at the astounding abilities of his new ward.
I think more eloquent – and informed – speakers than I will probably be able to discuss how this film works as a trans allegory, though suffice to say that Nimona rejects any labels placed upon her (insisting she’s “just Nimona”), changes into a boy on several occasions, and is treated as an outcast by her society. It gets pretty dark, as at one point she’s clearly contemplating suicide by throwing herself onto the sword of a giant statue.
In saying all this, I’m not sure anyone without prior knowledge of Stevenson would even pick up on the trans content, though that could just be me. I had to have The Matrix subtext carefully spelled out to me, after all. It’s focused on telling the story first, and though stuff like Ballister and Goldenloin romantic attraction is explicit, Nimona’s nature is only obvious if you know. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just my take on what transpires. No pun intended.
It’s a fun, amusing, colourful film, with a couple of emotional scenes that really pack a punch. Those looking for a direct adaptation of the webcomic/graphic novel will probably be disappointed, as a lot of stuff has been reordered, tweaked, or downright changed entirely. But it works well as a companion piece, and although I wasn’t too keen on the look of the animation in the trailers, it ended up working really well. The sharp angles, the stylistic faces, the colour palette – I was surprised at how appealing I found it.
Definitely a must-watch.
Barbie (2023)
Well, of course I went to see it. In all honesty, my ex-colleague had planned to see it from the moment it was announced (however long ago that was at this stage) and so by the time it rolled around, it wasn’t just the movie but the chance to catch up with her that got me to the theatre (since I don’t really like going to the movies these days).
But it was loads of fun, more for the communal experience than for the movie itself. There were a ton of little girls there, which meant I adjusted my tolerance level for noise and disruption, and so many people wearing pink (including myself). There was laughter, squealing, groans, applause, and at the end a bunch of kids got up and started dancing/cartwheeling to the credit music in the space between the front row and the screen. It was adorable. There was even a life-sized Barbie “box” in the foyer where people could pose for photos.
Basically, a really fun movie-going experience. But what about the movie itself? It’s fine.
You’re going to see a lot of hyperbole in the coming weeks, both negative and positive, about a film that’s a relatively disposable popcorn flick with nothing particularly profound to say. Remember the gender politics of She Hulk? That’s the level we’re talking here.
The humour is quite absurdist, as no one bothers questioning (or even acting surprised) that there’s a Barbie World that exists alongside our Real World, or that you can just wander into either place via a musical travelling montage, or that Rhea Pearlman’s character is actually Barbie inventor Ruth Handler, whose presence is casually explained by Will Farrell explaining that her ghost just hangs out in the Mattel building. I mean, there is no world-building logic here. Stuff just happens. You go with it or you don’t.
For me, the major problem was that the story kept changing. At first it’s about Barbie having an existential crisis when she starts getting cellulite and flat feet, falling out of her dream house, and having thoughts of death. She’s told this is because the little girl playing with her in the real world is going through a similar crisis. Okay, so that’s the plot, however weird it sounds. Find this little girl and help her figure things out.
Only once Barbie reaches the real world it becomes about how Barbie (contrary to her beliefs) is actually a terrible role model for girls because of the unrealistic body expectations she promotes, not to mentioned her perfect “have it all” lifestyle that no real woman could ever possibly live up to. Okay, so now we’re dealing with that.
But then Ken (who has tagged along with Barbie) looks around and realizes the benefits of the patriarchy, taking his worldview back to Barbie World where it soon devolves into a sexist dystopia filled with brainwashed Barbies who only want to serve and support their Ken-folk. So now defeating him becomes the story.
Then there’s the all-male corporate honchoes trying to hunt down Barbie, and Barbie attempting to bring together the mother/daughter duo of Gloria and Sasha, and Barbie wanting to permanently enter the real world, and CAN YOU PLEASE JUST PICK A NARRATIVE? It’s honestly all over the place.
In its favour, most of the jokes land and the production design is gorgeous. Barbie World is a pink plastic wonderland of dreamhouses and pink convertibles, and it’s only a matter of time before a real-life theme park conglomerate actually builds it. It’s filled with details that are (or so I assume) based on real toys, from the pooping dog to the perpetually pregnant Midge. It all looks amazing, and the box office numbers clearly demonstrate that it’s struck a chord with moviegoers.
And Ncuti Gatwa is in it! Somehow I went in not knowing that. He’s one of the other Kens, and I kept my eye on him throughout. It’s not a huge role, but DAMN, I’m REALLY looking forward to the next season of Doctor Who now!
Spooks: Season 8 (2009)
We’re in the endgame now, as proved by a huge cast culling: stalwarts Malcolm, Jo and Rosaline (who have clocked in the most episodes apart from Adam, Ruth and Harry himself) leave this season. Malcolm opts for retirement, Jo is accidentally-on-purpose shot by Ros in the attempt to prevent a terrorist from setting off a bomb, and Ros herself is killed in an explosion in the season finale.
I’ve mixed feelings. It’s the nature of the show that our main characters will be regularly killed off, and for all I know the actors requested it. But of these three long-runners, the male character gets to retire and the two women are killed? Really? Jo in particular deserved a “soft epilogue” after everything she’d been through, and the mental/emotional fallout of her death is barely touched on. You’d think having to shoot dead a colleague in order to save the lives of a bunch of they-kinda-deserve-to-die billionaires would garner some sort of trauma, even in the emotionally shutdown Ros, but all it elicits is a couple of forehead-rubs and a request not to talk about it.
As for Ros herself, it’s a little weird to see her dying in the line of duty after having faked her own death a couple of seasons ago – clearly she should have chosen to stay dead. (With few exceptions, I hate stories in which the protagonist cheats death only to die anticlimactically later on. It makes the first survival-against-the-odds victory feel pointless in hindsight).
Perhaps to compensate, Nicola Walker’s Ruth Evershed returns after a long hiatus and reintegrates herself into the team – not to mention jumping straight back into her mutual romantic yearning for Harry Pearce. Though oddly, she never stops to ask what happened to Zaf or Adam, who were both alive and kicking when she left. It’s nice to see her again, but I know where this is headed...
Lucas and Ros are essentially the co-leads this time around, and it’s nice to have a male/female team with absolutely no romantic/sexual tension going on. There’s actually a rather sweet line from Ros in which she states one’s family disappoints her, one’s friends are too much work, but colleagues – that she can work with. She’s easily my favourite character on the show, and had I known that back in March, I definitely would have made her rather than Zoe my Woman of the Month (sorry Zoe).
The first episode quickly resolves the cliffhanger of the prior season, in which Harry was taken hostage by terrorists in order to save his team, and then launches into the next overarching story: an underground intelligence network (yeah, another one) called Nightingale is slowly but surely manoeuvring their own agents into positions of power, and it’s connected to the American CIA officer that Lucas is sleeping with (I’m pretty sure they’ve done this before as well).
It was easy to loose the train of this particular storyline, which involved Americans, Indians, Russians, the Taliban, Hindus, Muslims, and the Chinese, but that’s also par for the course. It’s Spooks, just go with it (though I can’t help but notice we’ve come a very long way from the show’s decidedly less-glamourous beginnings, which showcased the daily grind and moral complexities of life as an MI-5 agent – now it’s running around after bombs and terrorists and triple-agents).
But at least there’s another round of “hey, it’s that guy!” to play. Joining the team in the place of both Malcolm (the IT guy) and the short-lived Ben (as the token non-white guy) is a very young Shazad Latif, along with guest-stars Brian Protheroe (Margaret’s godfather in North and South), Tobias Menzies (Black Jack Randall in Outlander) and Genevieve O’Reilly... who looked SO familiar to me, though I just couldn’t place her. One trip to IMDB later, and I kicked myself for not recognizing Mon Mothma herself. I’m going to blame the American accent.
Whew, only two more seasons (fourteen episodes in all) to go.
The Sound of Music Live! (2013)
Continuing on with my newfound The Sound of Music fixation, I finally got around to watching The Sound of Music Live! starring Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer. First airing ten years ago (ten years!!) on NBC, it was the first of the Live! musicals that have since become so strangely popular among audiences – at least popular enough for a range of other musicals to be filmed, all with the novelty that it’s being broadcasted live. You watch them (at least the first time) while the performers are actually in front of the cameras, a novelty which poses a bit of a risk – especially since it can only be watched live once.
Furthermore, if everything goes smoothly, it doesn’t really make a difference whether it’s live or not, so ironically it’s only the on-screen mistakes that differentiate these performances from a prerecording. There have been dozens broadcast since this one (Grease Live! and The Wiz Live! were the standouts) but it all started with this one, which garnered impressive viewership numbers despite not being all that impressive.
I don’t know much about Carrie Underwood beyond the fact she won one of the American Idol seasons (I think), but she takes on the daunting role of Maria Rainer. On the one hand, it takes balls of steel for any young performer to step into the long shadow cast by Julie Andrews, so I have to give her credit for that. On the other, she’s not great. Her acting never reaches her eyes and there’s a lot of heart-clasping in place of natural mannerisms. As a performer, she very audibly runs out of breath during several songs, and she’s at her best when she’s watching Audra McDonald sing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” as I suspect her awestruck expression isn’t actually acting.
Basically, her presence appears to be stunt casting, which is a big mistake for a role like Maria. Likewise, Stephen Moyer looks mostly uncomfortable at Captain von Trapp, which highlights just how much Christopher Plummer brought to the role – or I should say, how much Ernest Lehman’s screenplay did for the character.
The kids are as wide-eyed and “gee willikers!” as they should be, though it was nice to see Liesl played by an actual teenager instead of a woman in her early twenties (there’s such a huge difference in appearance between those ages, despite only a handful of years separating them). But the real drawcard is Audra McDonald as the Mother Abbess, Laura Benanti as Baroness Schräder and Christian Borle as Max Detweiler. Their stage experience and professionalism is almost comedically obvious next to Underwood and Moyer.
Benanti in particular is so charming and beautiful that you almost wish she was the shipping endgame instead of Maria this time around. There’s a moment in which an extra accidentally steps on the hem of her skirt and she effortlessly laughs it off as part of the performance. That’s the key difference in the performances: an experienced stage actress makes things look easy, which was also the secret to Julie Andrews’s wild success in the role – she made something that was extremely difficult look effortless.
Rolfe is fine, though they put him in the most appalling pair of lederhosen which are as short as they are tight. However, because this is based on the original musical and not the film, we get to see him lead the Nazis away from the concealed von Trapps instead of giving them away. Likewise, “My Favourite Things” is sung in the Abbey between Maria and the Mother Abbess, while “The Lonely Goatherd” is moved to the thunderstorm. “I Have Confidence” and the first rendition of “Edelweiss” is dropped, though Maria and Georg do sing “Something Good” instead of “An Ordinary Couple.”
And thankfully, “How Can Love Survive” and “No Way To Stop It” have been reinstated (of course they have, it gives a chance for Benanti and Borle to sing). Having only seen the musical once, in my remote childhood, I was most interested to discover that Georg and Elsa break their engagement over political differences regarding the Anschluss, as opposed to the love triangle drama that’s more prevalent in the film. Here, it’s clear their relationship would have ended with or without Maria.
The sets are gorgeous, and the camerawork is impressive in how it manages to manoeuvre around and through them. And of course, the final walk over the mountains to freedom always gets me – and here they went one step further and added some falling snow. Even the mistakes (the aforementioned stepping on Benanti’s dress; Moyer and Zeller having an awkward pause then stepping on each other’s lines) ended up being more endearing than distracting.
Look, there’s nothing inoffensive here. How could there be in The Sound of Music?
Sorry for Your Loss: Seasons 1 – 2 (2018 – 2019)
Another of those “I have no memory of how I ended up with this on my hard drive” shows. Given the lead actress and the subject matter, I suspect I obtained it back when Wandavision was airing and I decided to be contrary and watch something else that fell into the highly specific “Elizabeth Olsen plays a problematic widow who grieves the death of her husband in unhealthy ways” genre.
Airing on Facebook of all things, I watched the first season some time ago and have only this month completed the second – which as it turned out, ended up being the last. Yeah, it’s another of those “good enough for one renewal but not another” shows that always drive me nuts. There’s just something that feels so incomplete about only two seasons.
In any case, Elizabeth Olsen plays Leigh: abrasive, judgmental, opinionated – you quickly realize that even at the best of times she’d be a difficult person to get along with, but now that she’s grieving her dead husband, she’s largely unbearable. (It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that her only friend is also her gay male boss, as she’s definitely not the sort of woman who would have female friends).
Her immediate circle is her mother, her adopted sister Jules, her aforementioned gay boss, the people at the grief counselling session she attends, and – most importantly – Danny, her brother-in-law, who she’s never gotten along with, but who is the only one whose depth of grief matches her own. The two of them have nothing in common but the loss of Matt, and so even though they’re constantly sniping at each other, they can’t stay out of each other’s orbit.
As the episodes progress, we learn via flashbacks what sort of person Matt was – though in a neat conceit, that person was someone very different depending on whose eyes we’re seeing him through. Naturally, Leigh has put him on a pedestal, though Danny has less rose-tinted glasses due to certain confidences that his brother shared with him about Leigh. Matt also suffered from depression, throwing a huge question mark over whether or not his death was an accidental fall while on a hiking trip, or a deliberate suicide.
On the side, there are little subplots about Leigh’s mother (played by Janet McTeer – LOVE HER – whose ex-husband cheated on her when their daughters were young, and who she’s now having an extra-martial affair with behind his second wife’s back) and her sister Jules (Kelly Marie Tran, about five minutes before she starred in The Last Jedi) who’s a recovering alcoholic struggling to articulate her own emotional needs in the shadow of her sister’s all-consuming grief.
It's obviously not the type of show I’d usually watch, and like I said, I’m fuzzy on the details of how I arrived at it. The strangest thing about it is that it’s oddly soothing despite its subject matter, with everything moving along at a soft, meandering pace, just content to linger on conversations between characters and capture snapshots of their day-to-day lives. The way it unfolds almost feels like the fugue state a person would be in while they grapple with a life-changing event, and because the episodes are only twenty-five minutes long, it makes for an easy binge-watch.
Ultimately, the most important dynamic is the one between Leigh and Danny, and unfortunately the show can’t help but turn their relationship romantic, even though it’s a trainwreck just waiting to happen. They’re completely different people, have absolutely nothing in common, and every conversation they have tends to end with an argument. Their rapport was interesting enough without adding sex to the mix, especially taking into account the fact Danny was hearing details about Matt and Leigh’s marriage from his brother that Leigh remains completely unaware of. That made for a fascinating wrinkle in their relationship that the audience is only gradually made aware of, but obviously puts her at a huge disadvantage once things get romantic between them.
But of course, it gets cancelled so we’ll never find out how it would have panned out anyway. *deep weary sigh* Perhaps we should start getting used to this new form of storytelling: narratives that just don’t have an ending.
Wizards: Tales of Arcadia: Season 1 (2020)
I’ve written “season one”, but in truth, there’s only one season – and I can’t bring myself to believe that was the original plan. It just seems too suspicious that each of the series in this franchise has one less season in it than the one before (Trollhunters has three, 3Below two, and Wizards just one) and the truly frenetic pacing of this show cannot be understated. Seriously, it does not breathe, and it’s dizzying how quickly the story churns by, to the point where almost every second of screentime includes dialogue that’s nearly overlapping with someone else’s.
In the final scenes of 3Below, Toby and Steve were brushing themselves off after a fight with intergalactic forces, only to come face-to-face with a talking, winged, glasses-wearing cat. Wizards doesn’t quite pick up directly after that scene, but we do get back to it pretty quickly once Douxie (Merlin’s forgotten apprentice and a barista in Arcadia) is summoned by his master after centuries of waiting.
Douxie has been a background character in the previous two shows, though given just enough attention for genre-savvy viewers to realize he’ll be important later. Now he’s tasked with gathering the heroes of Arcadia for a brewing conflict, and once he, Toby, Steve, Claire, Blinky, Jim (still in troll-form) and AAARRRGGHH!!! are reunited on a castle-shaped airship under Merlin’s command, they’re attacked by the Arcane Order.
A lot of this stuff was set up in the previous two series, and it transpires that Jim has been mortally wounded by the blade of the Green Knight, and subsequently encased in a crystal by Merlin to slow the poison coursing through his system. In the battle that follows, a rift in time is opened and Douxie, Steve, Claire and the unconscious Jim fall through to medieval Camelot.
What follows is what can be fairly described as an origin story for many of the characters, artefacts and historical events of the franchise in its entirety – but because of the aforementioned pacing issues, a lot of these big moments aren’t given the weight or time they deserve to really sink in. Merlin’s crafting of the Trollhunter amulet, or Blinky befriending AAARRRGGHH!!! or Morgana’s tragic backstory – it all whizzes by too quickly. More egregious is the fact that Draal appears (a troll who died saving Jim’s life in Trollhunters) who nobody has any reaction to whatsoever. He’s just there, and there’s no sign at all of his father Kanjigar, who had been established in the first series as fighting alongside his son at the Battle of Killahead Bridge.
The arc that takes place in Camelot also leaves a lot to be desired: it’s ostensibly about the conflict between King Arthur and Morgana, and how the latter became the villain of later series, but it turns out that she was trying to protect people with magic in the kingdom, while Arthur was hellbent on eradicating them. Yeah, like in Merlin. Except Arthur is spearheading this crusade against magic instead of just inheriting it from his father, and look – I’m always down for stories that deconstruct the assumptions we’ve made about myths and legends... but Arthur has always been a bit of a sacred cow for me. He stands for equality and understanding – making him a Fantastic Racist is to completely miss the point of his character.
Perhaps it could have all been ironed out with more time. But it’s not without merit – far from it. The whole thing looks gorgeous, brimming with colour and light. There are some neat character beats, and it’s especially nice to catch up with Jim and Claire after so long. Stuff like the floating castle and the wizard battles look incredible. There are some neat cameos, like Krel turning up in the last couple of episodes to help out. And the voice cast is stacked: Lena Headey, Stephanie Beatriz, James Faulker, Alfred Molina, Clancy Brown, Mark Hamill, Ron Perlman, Rupert Penry-Jones, John Rhys-Davies... damn!
Ultimately, it all feels like a lead-in to the climactic movie, that (as I understand it) will bring together all the heroes from Trollhunters, 3Below and Wizards to battle what remains of the Arcane Order. Looking forward to it...
Worzel Gummidge: Season 2 (2021)
The second season of what feels like the strangest show of all time, but really isn’t when you take into account all the bizarre stuff that’s been targeted towards kids over the years, Mackenzie Crook returns as Worzel Gummidge the scarecrow, who sporadically comes to life to hang out with a couple of foster kids, who have already grown exponentially since last season.
Given how achingly long it takes for a single season of television to be released these days, even one comprised of only three episodes, is it safe to assumed that Susan and John will be in their late twenties by the time season three rolls around?
Based on the books by Barbara Euphan Todd, and following on from the eighties show starring John Pertwee as the titular character, the whole thing has a very calming, lowkey vibe to it – though there is a strain of... not darkness exactly, but there’s something in the soundtrack, lore and tone that captures a feeling of ancient, pagan magic. Nothing explicit, but it’s always hovering at the edges of the screen.
In any case, it would appear that young Susan and John are now permanent residents of Scatterbrook Farm. There’s no discussion of any official adoption having taken place, but the siblings are referring to those that live under the cottage roof as “the whole family” and no one ever mentions them returning back to... wherever it is that they came from. An orphanage?
There are three episodes in all, which is one more than last season (not counting the Christmas Special). “Guy Forks” is probably the best, in which the Guy Fawkes effigy is introduced as Worzel’s cousin (no idea how that works) and a squabble between them leads to the latter almost being destroyed on the bonfire, while another gunpowder plot to destroy the local pub is thwarted just in the nick of time. “Twitchers” is easily the worst, in which a flock of cloughs make their way to Scatterbrook Farm, reigniting a rivalry between Mr Braithwaite and Lee Dangerman, a very competitive birdwatcher. It’s okay to have low-stakes in a story, but perhaps “what old man is going to look at a bird first?” is just a little too low.
Thankfully, “Calliope Jane” takes us out on a high note, with the return of Aunt Sally and the still-terrifying looking Soggy Bogart, who (along with Worzel) are desperate to attend F.R. Peregrine’s Travelling Carnival. Calliope Jane is a wooden sculpture kept in the local museum, who knows of a special organ that sends humans to sleep so scarecrows can enjoy the rides without being seen. Bill Bailey guest stars as Peregrine, and it captures that eerie, transient magic of travelling carnivals.
As noted in the first season, this is obviously a passion project for Mackenzie Crook, and a lot of care is taken in crafting the show’s distinctive aesthetic: the folksy soundtrack from the Unthanks, the wide vistas of the English countryside, and (despite modern technology and fashion) an obvious attempt to capture an old retro air. As strange as it all is, I hope there’s more. Maybe we could get – gasp! – four episodes next time.
Tom Jones (2023)
I knew practically nothing about Tom Jones going into this miniseries, and what I thought I did ended up being from Tom Brown’s School Days, but I desperately needed a quick hiatus from all the Spooks I’ve been devouring for the past few months. Wikipedia tells me it was first published in 1749, is one of the earliest works of English literature, and a quintessential example of a Bildungsroman. Which makes me think I really should have known more about it.
Tom Jones is left as an infant in the bedchamber of Squire Allworthy, who – after ascertaining that his mother is the unmarried Jenny Jones of the nearby village – adopts the boy as his own. Tom is raised alongside his Allworthy’s nephew Blifil, the son of his sister Bridget. He grows to early manhood, only to be thrown out of his home when his love for the neighbour’s ward Sophie Western is discovered, a young girl promised to Bilfil.
Feeling hopeless and not wanting to rob Sophie of her class status, Tom heads for London – though headstrong Sophie is in hot pursuit. What follows is a surprisingly raunchy comedy of errors, in which Tom manages to fall into bed with all sorts of unsuitable women, while poor Sophie and her long-suffering maid try to track him down, taking refuge in the homes of her various aunts along the way.
It’s frankly a miracle that we’re still rooting for them as a couple by the end of it, and we can credit Solly McLeod for that. He’s the epitome of the phrase “strapping young lad”, who makes sure Tom is as golden-hearted as he is completely hapless. Thanks to him, we can be certain he’ll be true to Sophia despite all his failings, who is played by Sophie Wilde, a girl in possession of the biggest, brownest Bambie eyes I’ve ever seen on a human being. Someone needs to cast her as a Disney Princess, stat.
The four-part miniseries is filled with old stalwarts: James Fleet, Alun Armstrong, Shirley Henderson, Tamzin Merchant, Pearl Mackie, Julian Rhind-Tutt... and of course, Hannah Waddington, who since her breakthrough role in Ted Lasso has been quite happily flitting from one colourful cameo to the next (Hocus Pocus, Willow, Midsomer Murders). She gets a more substantial role here as the sexually voracious Lady Bellaston, whom she plays like a giant preying mantis. There’s a comedy bit with her hiding behind a partition with only the feathers in her headgear poking over the top, and – I swear, she makes those feathers act.
Also, this show has a banging soundtrack.
> Perhaps to compensate, Nicola Walker’s Ruth Evershed returns after a long hiatus and reintegrates herself into the team
ReplyDeleteIIRC Nicola basically went on maternity leave and it was always the plan to reintroduce her down the line, but don't quote me on that.
I think between Mackenzie writing, directing, starring and enduring a major prosthetic job (and he strikes me as someone who takes his art very seriously and wants to take time to get things right), and the most recent series was done in the last days of on-set COVID protocols which accounts for the low episode count - we didn't get any in 2022 because he was working on Detectorists (which I know has been recommended to you before but I think you will get more out of both shows if you see both - there's even a very subtle little crossover in the most recent episodes which implies they're both set in the same universe!)
That theory makes sense, but I'm rather bemused at the lower episode counts for most shows in general. It's not just Covid related as it's been going on for a while. I've definitely been meaning to get to the Detectorists for some time now.
DeleteI recently did an Indiana Jones rewatch before seeing Dial of Destiny, but this time Temple of Doom first for the in-universe chronology and it did kind of work, at least for Indy's character arc (and on Indy not making a difference to the wider plots, I have read some commentary that it's not how the Indy affects the artifact but how the artifact affects Indy, which I thought was on point).
ReplyDeleteSurely they could have squeezed a cameo into Dial of Destiny; it being their last chance to let us know just what the hell happened to this kid. Ke Huy Quan just won an Oscar for goodness sake!
If EEAAO had been earlier I have no doubt Dial's script would have been rewritten (again) to include Short Round, but I'm kind of glad they didn't try to shoe horn in a cheap cameo after the fact. I would be behind a spin off lead by Ke Huy Quan though.
I have read some commentary that it's not how the Indy affects the artifact but how the artifact affects Indy, which I thought was on point
DeleteThat's an interesting take; I'll have to keep that in mind when he tackles the Holy Grail.