Links and Updates

I’m writing about ten posts concurrently, which is the reason why this blog has been quiet for so long, so here’s a Links and Updates page to tide us over until I can post something more substantial.

I was excited about the news that Henry Selick was adapting Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Land in stop-motion animation for about five minutes before the allegations against the author dropped. Now I don’t know how to feel, and with the fate of all his other projects up in the air, it’s probably a mistake to look forward to it.

Thankfully Laika is still here to grant us bountiful gifts. Not only do we get a teaser trailer for Wildwood, a book I’ve read and which is perfect for their particular brand of artistry, but also news that they’ll next be adapting Susanna Clarke’s new book The Wood at Midwinter.

Did I mention Susanna Clarke was releasing a new book? Because she is! And it looks gorgeous:

Granted, it’s just a novella, but it’s certainly better than nothing. These two projects will certainly sustain me for some time to come.

On a much darker note, a teaser has been released for Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, which looks and sounds exactly as it should. It’s a little questionable that they’re releasing it on Christmas Day, but given that it’s based so heavily on Dracula, I’m playing with the idea of watching the first bit, stopping when the sea voyage begins, watching the entirety of The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and then going back to the rest of Nosferatu. Or maybe I should just do that with Gary Oldman’s Dracula, which is probably due for a rewatch.

Speaking of which, I made last October a werewolf-themed event, so naturally this year will have to be vampires. And doing some cursory research, there’s so much I haven’t seen, from the camp (Fright Night, The Vampire’s Kiss) to the classics (Salem’s Lot, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula) to the experimental (The Only Lovers Left Alive, Let the Right One In, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night). There’s no way I’ll be able to squeeze all of this in, but hey – I can try!

The spin-offs keep rolling in for the Game of Thrones and Star Wars franchises, though the cancellation of The Acolyte has once again dampened my non-existent enthusiasm all over again, being the latest indication that streaming services have no idea what the hell they’re doing. Next up for each IP is Dunk and Egg, another Targaryen prequel, and the child-friendly Skeleton Crew (which sounds suspiciously like Star Trek Prodigy, with a Goonies/E.T./Stranger Things vibe).

On the MCU front, the next project to hit streaming is Agatha All Along... you know, the antagonist from WandaVision? Yeah... I’m not entirely sure who was asking for this.

As ever, the fact that it all these overarching stories end so badly just crushes my interest every time. Now they’re cancelling them before the stories are even finished, which makes it even more of a waste of time.

Still, some publicity is starting around the second season of Andor, with Diego Luna stating:

I can tell you, Rogue One is coming, so there will be characters there that you will recognize. There will be cool stuff. For those who love Rogue One, this season is going to be very special. And it’s going to be fascinating to go straight to Rogue One after watching this second season, because you will see Rogue One from a different perspective. I promise you that.

It’s fantastic. The only thing I can tell you is what happens at the end. It’s the world upside down. That’s the only thing you don’t talk about in an interview, but here we all know what the end is. I can tell you one thing, Tony Gilroy is a fantastic writer, and he created amazing characters that we got to meet in Andor season one. It’s going to be a very rich second season, because all those stories matter today. It is a true ensemble piece. It got very complicated in season one, and everything has to get resolved. Every story matters.

I have to admit, I am looking forward to being able to watch the two seasons of Andor, then Rogue One, then the original Star Wars trilogy in quick succession. But with Andor in mind, please read Jadelotusflower’s insightful thoughts on the show (with my response!) and this very clever edit of the show’s opening credits, made to look like a seventies’ sci-fi thriller – they even remixed the theme!

Though there’s been no official confirmation, several news outlets have been talking about Enola Holmes 3 like it’s a given. I certainly hope so, though three instalments of something seems like a dizzying prospect for Netflix at this point. I have my fingers crossed though; these movies are quintessential comfort viewing for me.

A trailer for The War of the Rohirrim, and I have to say I’m intrigued by the fusion of Tolkien and anime. Not what I’d called a logical match, but you never know how these things are going to pan out, and I’ll never say no to spending more time in Middle-Earth.

Funny story: a couple of days ago I was at work, and noticed a reprint of Scott Westerfield’s excellent YA trilogy: Leviathan. I thought to myself: why hasn’t anyone adapted this yet? It would make for such a great film/show. And then the very next day a trailer dropped for an anime adaptation. Wow. I’m just amazed it got to that late point of development without me even hearing about it.

The animation looks a little too "clean" for a story that's quite gritty and visceral (it's essentially an alt-world variation of World War I, fought between mechas and genetically fabricated animals) but we'll see.

Also, has anyone heard of this:

Or this:

It took me some deep internet trawling to find these shows, and absolutely no one is talking about them despite how good they look. There is just too much stuff these days.

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The Horse Girl canon on Polygon, a fun look at all the stuff horse girls read and watched while they were growing up. I was never a fully-blown horse girl, but I came pretty close, and I was chuffed to see one of the Diadem books featured.

The Crimson Diamond has finally been released! This is a fan-made game that’s been under development for years, and clearly inspired by Sierra’s Laura Bow mystery games (I mean, the sprite for Nancy Maple is Laura Bow – there’s no mistaking it!) Look at that gorgeous pixel art. There’s nothing else like it on earth.

A retrospective of The Village, a movie I genuinely enjoy for a number of reasons, despite its very obvious shortcomings.

I have recently discovered there was once a show called Sherlock Homes and the Baker Street Irregulars (starring Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock!) AND a film called Young Sherlock (released 1985), which I somehow missed in my childhood. And let’s not forget there's another Sherlock series on its way, also about his early years, directed by Guy Ritchie. Perhaps there’s a Sherlock binge on the horizon... I might even finally finish the Moffat/Gatkiss series, just see if it’s as awful as everyone insisted.

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And now, my regular rant about a fandom issue that’s been getting on my nerves. While browsing my usual websites, I happened upon this article about the sequel to Twister, a film imaginatively called Twisters, which involves the standard adversarial male/female team-up to hunt down tornadoes. Apparently, it’s quite good! I’ll get to it eventually.

The point I’m trying to make is that the article bemoans the fact that a kiss between the two leads was ultimately cut from the final film, the justification being that this story was not about the heroine’s love-life, but rather the two characters simply getting back on the same page and working together effectively. If you want to assume they hooked up later, you’re free to do so.

That didn’t stop the usual faux-hysteria reactions from fandom (choice quotes include: “always remember what they robbed from us!” and “movies used to have kissing!”) which is part and parcel of the ongoing handwringing surrounding the recent (or perceived) lack of romance and sex in films these days. Here’s another: In Defence of Shipping, TV Doesn’t Have Enough Romance.

It’s a generalization that was possibly brought on the famous Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny article written by R.S. Benedict that is still doing the rounds, but seems to be an opinion that everyone has taken on board as an indisputable fact. The ripples of it are everywhere – see, for example, the title of this Challengers review: “the sensual, satisfying cure for sexless cinema.”

But here’s another interesting post that points out that absolutely everything in fiction is a response to something else. We’ve seen this play out across plenty of franchises: like how the MCU movies pointedly had their characters prioritize crowd control and rescuing civilians after the destruction porn of Batman vs Superman. In its turn, the MCU’s portrayal of all its female heroes meeting spontaneously on the battlefield in Avengers: Endgame was implicitly critiqued in The Mandalorian and The Boys, which came up with more logical ways to have women come together to form team-ups.

Everything is a response to something else.

And that’s why I’m so exasperated by how short everyone’s memories are. I mean seriously you guys, you can’t think of a large and important movement in recent years, the ramifications of which we’re still feeling, that MAYBE had an impact on the way love scenes are shot on film and television? You know, the one that brought forth all those horror stories about how women were treated in the industry? That led to the role of “intimacy coordinator”? That pointed out the staggering discrepancy between male and female nudity on-screen?

Hey, remember the solid decade worth of complaining about the gratuitous brothel scenes in Game of Thrones? Or all those interviews with actors (male and female) that disclosed how much they disliked shooting sex scenes, even at the best of times?

Do you think there’s a CHANCE that the sudden dearth of sex and nudity in the movies has been brought on by the spotlight being shone on all these instances of abuse and double standards, which has caused the industry to step back a little and reassess how they’ve been doing business?

Give it some time and the pendulum will swing back again. I promise. There is no doubt about this whatsoever. (And it’s a weird thing to complain about when Bridgerton exists. Are you seriously going to insist with a straight face that you’re completely bereft of content that will scratch that specific itch? If you want sex and nudity in your entertainment, it’s out there if you spend more than two seconds looking for it).

On a more personal note, I’m always a little weary of the sheer amount of drama that fandom cycles through – the endless screeching about ships, the obsession with love and romance, those awful second-person fics that are so prevalent on Tumblr – I know it’s fandom’s bread-and-butter, but I find it a profound relief when a story, especially one that focuses on a female character, is about her instead of a relationship.

We have a LONG way to go before we can even begin to think about equity in that regard, so perhaps we could try to enjoy more than five minutes of women’s stories that don’t hinge upon getting married before going full childless cat-lady Republican hysteria. 

Or, you know, just read a romance novel. There are literally BILLIONS of them out there.