måndag 31 december 2018

Things to look forward to in 2019

It’s time either for a retrospect of or speculations and thoughts about the years to come. Last year at around this time, I promised myself to get more into book reading again. The resolution was, overall, a success, although my Jane Austen Rereading Project stalled when only Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey (my least favourite Austen novel) remained. It’s not that long ago I read Mansfield Park… Anyway, I will get around to them next year. I did try out some fantasy as well and enjoyed Caraval and Legendary hugely, so I will keep experimenting cautiously.

Maybe 2019 will be the year I rediscover my love of costume dramas? What with Once Upon A Time ending and no more Rumple (sob) to gladden my heart, I will need something to console me. Luckily, the year ahead looks like it’s going to be the year when Julian Fellowes delivers on two counts. Here, then, are some of the possible cultural-consumption highlights (from my perspective) of 2019:

Downton Abbey the film/movie: They’re finally doing it! Better late than never, I suppose, though having moved on on the villain-loving front, I’m not as mad with anticipation as I would once have been. The lateness of the project does worry me, as I’m afraid the Downton audience has had too much time to get over their obsession/healthy interest in the Crawley family saga. On the other hand, internet reactions seem enthusiastic enough, and perhaps many other Downton fans are, like me, using the time before September to rewatch the entire series, the better to be able to speculate on what plot lines may be picked up again and finally reach a conclusion. I mean, though they kept us waiting for the film, it’s not as if we’re going to refrain from watching it, are we? Watch this space for the usual hit-and-miss predictions…

The Gilded Age: For supposedly being a project close to Fellowes’s heart, he has taken his own sweet time about this TV series, which will air on American telly this year and is set in the USA in the late 19th century. The heroine of the drama is described  as a “wide-eyed scion of a conservative family” who will infiltrate a family of noveaux riches (or more correctly, even more nouveaux riches) which includes a “ruthless railway tycoon” and his “rakish and available son”. The son will probably be a zero, but I have some hopes of the tycoon. I wonder who will play him?

Les Misérables: In his usual undiplomatic way, Andrew Davies has been scathing about the musical based on Victor Hugo’s classic, which happens to be my favourite musical and what got me interested in the novel in the first place. Nevertheless, Davies will be Davies, and I will not let his bad boy antics cloud my judgement of his own Les Mis project based squarely on the book. Davies is just the guy to trim off all Hugo’s endless diversions and get to the story, and the first trailer seems promising. I’m glad we get to see Fantine’s back story this time around. Also, I’m certain Olivia Colman will be a great Madame Thénardier. Which leads me almost seamlessly to:

The Crown season three: I’ve not been as devoted a fan of this show as many other period drama lovers, but I will admit that it’s an ambitious, high-quality series with superb acting. It certainly knocks spots off, say, Poldark or Victoria. The bad news is that Claire Foy, who was such a spectacular Queen in the first two seasons, won’t be around in this one. The good news is that her replacement is the above-mentioned Olivia Colman, who’s been reliably excellent in every part I’ve seen her in (even as the crusading agent in The Night Manager, who should have been unbearable but somehow wasn’t). Also appearing is Tobias Menzies – whom I rather like, maybe because he’s a little shifty-looking – as Prince Philip and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret. This could be fun, in a high-brow kind of way.

Finally getting to see Doctor Who series 11: Right… Not sure I’ll be wild about this. Doctor Who doesn’t air in Sweden, so I have to wait for the DVDs. I did see one episode of the newest series of Doctor Who in Australia – “Arachnids in the UK” – and hated it. Judging from reviews, though, this was the absolute low point of  the series, and one thing I did not hate was Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor; she put in a likeable performance in the Matt Smith era-Doctor vein. I am looking forward to being able to form my own opinion of what’s happening in Wholand. If I don’t like it, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of being right to have doubts about Chris Chibnall.

Frozen 2, I guess? It’s another sequel instead of an original idea, but at least it’s animated and not a pointless live-action remake, and it is Disney. I will be hoping that there’ll be one or two references to the Frozen arc in Once Upon A Time for us fans to detect. (I didn’t much like the Frozen arc – not surprisingly considering how it ended – but Once is Once.) There won’t be, mind.

torsdag 13 december 2018

More films I'm glad I saw in-flight

It's December, and Christmas will be here soon: surely a good enough excuse to follow the road of least resistance blogging-wise? Anyway, here are my thoughts on two further films I saw in-flight on my trip Down Under (and back), which were both suited for this kind of watching for different reasons: one because it was complicated, one because it was simple.

Inception All right, not one to watch at the end of a long-haul flight when your brain is fried. At the beginning of a trip lasting hours on end it's a good choice though, because it's pretty long. If you were watching it at home sitting on the sofa, you'd probably be tempted to fidget, wander off to make a cup of tea etc. On a plane, there are few distractions, and as the hours go by you can concentrate on getting your head around the plot.

Briefly, its troubled anti-hero Cobb, played by a glum Leonardo di Caprio, and his small team of helpers make their living by gate-crashing people's dreams and extracting secret information from them. One hard-headed businessman is on to them, though, and makes them an interesting offer: if they manage to plant an idea in the head of a business rival, a young sprig who has just taken over his father's huge empire, they will be amply rewarded. They accept the challenge, but planting an idea (the inception of the title) is a tricky business, and Cobb and co. end up struggling to get free from the young sprig's dream world.

Clearly, you have to be geek to enjoy this film. Happily, I am. I have a great fondness for "dream or reality?" plots; I'm fascinated by things like how you can tell if what you're experiencing is real, all the details that are off in dreams compared to real life and which mechanisms are at play when we're still convinced that what we're experiencing in dreams is really happening. I vaguely remember a reviewer commenting that Inception isn't half as clever as it thinks it is, but for my part I thought it had some nifty concepts. One trick to check if you're dreaming, Cobb claims, is to try to remember how you came to be in a certain situation, because dreams always start in the middle of an event (though the exception appears to be the dream-within-a-dream which does have a clear beginning: when you think you wake up). Dream time moves differently than real time, which would explain those epic dreams you have where you seem to live a whole parallel life before waking up after only a few hours. I also liked the idea of the people in the dream, the dreamer's "projections", attacking intruders like antibodies once they realise there's something amiss. If, like me, you were truly interested in the "Am I mad, in a coma or back in time?" set-up of the TV series Life on Mars and didn't view it as simply a faux-profound excuse to team a policeman with modern-day sensibilities with a tough Seventies-style copper, then this could be the film for you. The ending really isn't very clever, though.

Sing Your opinion of Illumination Studios, and the likely quality of their animated films, tends to depend on what you think of the minions, the comic sidekicks first introduced in Despicable Me. I am not a fan. It bugs me that the word "minions", such a lovely appellation for a villain's devoted followers, is now connected with small, yellow, annoyingly babbling creatures that look like the useless rubber tips of pencils. However, a lot of people find them funny, and they even got their own film, which must have done pretty well considering that Illuminations had the funds to buy up Disney's angriest rival DreamWorks. As a Disney fan I have mixed feelings about DreamWorks, but they have produced some high-quality stuff. Whereas Illumination, if Sing is any indication, isn't really in the same league, and certainly not in the same league as Disney.

To be fair, I've only watched two of Illumination's animated films, and Sing is a lot more slick and effective than the uneven Despicable Me. The plot is fairly straightforward. Buster Moon, the koala owner of a failing theatre, tries to save it by arranging a singing competition. Because of a printing error, though, the prize announced for the winner is huge and way beyond his budget. Meanwhile, hopeful contenders queue up to take part, and Buster has to find a way to come up with the prize money and make sure his nervy contestants - who all face different problems which could come between them and stardom - perform on the day.

Cue a number of contestants who are sweet and likeable, one who is a bastard (but a first-class crooner) and the hustler Buster himself who is scheduled to be taken down a peg or two while his love of the theatre is validated. It's a predictable film when it comes to the main thrust of the story, though the plot takes one or two surprising detours along the way. The contestants are stereotypes, if enjoyable ones, and there are too many of them to give them much personality beyond about one characteristic each. The animation is pretty good, as is the singing, but this feels much more like a kids' film than, say, Disney's Moana/Vaiana (which isn't even one of my favourite Disney flicks). In other words, it works well for the fried-brain part of a long flight.

With Illumination in charge of DreamWorks, it's unlikely to produce a new Prince of Egypt any time soon. On the other hand, it's a long time since DreamWorks itself produced something in the Prince of Egypt vein. Maybe Illumination is the logical owner of the company who released The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants, films whose very titles repel grown-up animation lovers. And now the creators of the minions are getting their mitts on the Shrek franchise. Not to gloat or anything, but... that's what you get for blowing up people's pet geese, ogre scum.     

torsdag 29 november 2018

Game of Thrones seasons four and five: The Great Games

Things are looking well on the belated watching of Game of Thrones front. I got through seasons four and five at quite a pace, compared to season three which was really hard to get through. Though season four was more satisfying than season five, they both proved ideal TV entertainment for ordinary workdays when you don't crave anything too emotionally engaging. At this rate, I have a fair chance of catching up on the whole series before season eight starts airing (and it will probably be some time before it's accessible to Swedes, anyway).

Not emotionally engaging, I hear you say? But what about those dramatic set pieces from both seasons, where characters we have reason to root for are betrayed, raped, killed or put through the wringer in other ways? I know, but though the characterisation has improved a lot since season one - where I was almost gleeful about how clumsy it was - and there are now several characters I would describe as likeable, interesting and/or funny, I'm still wary of getting too attached. I wonder if this is just me, keeping my distance because of the character-murdering nature of the show, or if there actually is an estrangement effect built into it. Either way, watching Game of Thrones makes me feel like a spectator at the gladiator games so abhorred by Daenerys Targaryen: I'm absorbed by the drama  played out in front of me and mostly pick a side, but if the combattant I favour loses I shrug and move on to the next fight.

And like a gladiator game spectator, I sometimes feel a little dirty for watching the thing. The show's creators could, I suppose, explain the reason behind most of the individual gasp-inducing scenes we see by way of the dramatic payoffs they lead to. The accumulative impression you get, however, is that the show has a tendency to go for shock value just because it can, because it's the gritty Game of Thrones, isn't it? This impression is strengthened by the number of times a meal is made of some particular character's plight. I felt queasy twice while watching season five and was close to pushing the forward button (which hitherto I've only done once - during the castration scene and the prelude to it in season three). One time was when we see a nasty bit character hitting under-age girls in particularly questionable circumstances (he then gets his eyes gouged out and his throat cut, and no, that wasn't nice to watch either), the other when Cersei, admittedly a bitch of the first order, goes through a humiliation scene which goes on forever, and just so happens to be in the buff the whole time. We didn't have to witness either of these happenings in quite such excruciating detail. The tragic death in the penultimate episode was pretty drawn-out as well, but I sat through it, in my desensitised Game of Thrones state, mainly wondering whether the show's writers were referencing Greek mythology or were just complete bastards.

And yes, I know that the TV series is based on a series of novels by George RR Martin, and that the reason bad things happen in the series may well be because they happen in the books. Nevertheless, I suspect the TV series has a flavour of its own which isn't always pleasant. And it's not as if the payoffs we get really need all that build-up. It's a powerful image to see Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy prepared to leap off a steep wall because they realise that yes, there is such a thing as a fate worse than death. But did we really have to follow them every painful step of the way there?         

I should stop whingeing now, because I really enjoyed these seasons of Game of Thrones, and there was nothing in them that disgusted me as much as the Theon plot in season three. The wallowing-in-violence factor probably wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't feel that the show has been hyped for its flaws rather than its strengths. It's a good show despite all the slicing and dicing, not because of it, and it's largely due to the superlative acting throughout. In season five, we got such delights as Jonathan Pryce as the most charming and avuncular implacable fanatic you are ever likely to meet. I'm also pleased to see Anton Lesser as a disgraced scientist and friend of Cersei's, who as soon as he has the opportunity covers her up after her ordeal. It's moments like that which make me think that somewhere buried beneath all its self-imposed edginess this series has a heart after all.     

torsdag 15 november 2018

The Little Stranger and the poor, daft doctor

I'll probably re-visit the in-flight film subject later, but I feel I should try to write about something book-related as it's been a while. I didn't read as much as I expected during my trip, but I did get through The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (among some decidedly lighter fare). And it was... fine. However, like (if I remember correctly) some reviewers when it first came out, my reaction to it is a little muted. I enjoyed it more than Affinity, certainly, but Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Paying Guests all rank above it in my personal opinion.

So what could be my problem with it, and possibly the problem of the reviewers I mentioned? It's characteristically well-written, and the setting - a run-down, once majestic country house in post-war Britain - is atmospheric. But maybe we Waters readers have become a little spoilt, and expect a different kind of story than the one we're getting. In the novel, the already struggling family - consisting of a mother and her two grown-up children, a son and a daughter - who holds on to the country house Hundreds Hall starts to unravel as what seems to be a malignant spirit haunts them, one after the other. The narrator is Dr Faraday, who has loved Hundreds Hall since he was a child and who is by turns star-struck by and vaguely resentful of the family. Although he isn't originally their GP, a series of events leads him to take over that role and come closer to the family, which gives him a ring seat to witness events when weird things start to happen.

Remembering some mind-boggling twists in other Waters novels, I for one rather expected some brilliant explanation to the hauntings, which would put everything in a new and startling light. But this isn't quite what we get. I suppose we are given an explanation of sorts, but it's tentative and not as surprising as I would have liked. So, it's not really a mystery story with a clever, Agatha Christie-like revelation. Is it a straightforward ghost story, then? Sometimes it reads that way, but the right  kind of tales-before-the-fire atmosphere only materialises fitfully. This is largely due to what is perhaps the book's biggest problem for me: the narrator, Dr Faraday.

Don't get me wrong - I like him, and feel for him. Of the novel's protagonists, he is the only one I truly warmed to; the Ayres, the owners of Hundreds Hall, didn't quite manage to charm me the way they charm the good Doctor. At the same time, Faraday is irritatingly obtuse, and you cringe for him as he blunders his way through the narrative and repeatedly misinterprets people and events. Whatever is behind the strange things that befall the Ayres family, it is perfectly plain that Faraday's explanation - that they're all going loopy - does not cover the facts, yet he insists on it. The son, Rod, feels himself persecuted by a poltergeist, so he must be mad. Mrs Ayres is plagued by what she believes is the ghost of her dead child, so she must be mad. Even if the Doctor himself witnesses a bruise appearing on Mrs Ayres seemingly from nowhere, he still won't admit that there might be more things between heaven and earth than is dreamed of in his philosophy. He may be a man of science, yet an actual ghost would make for a more rational explanation than what he comes up with for everything that's going on. The only things that don't fit the ghost narrative are the malevolence of the "little stranger" - why would Mrs Ayres's beloved dead daughter Susan treat her so cruelly? - and the fact that the hauntings don't start until years after Susan's death. Yet Faraday is so stuck in his "there's no such thing as ghosts" thinking he never sees fit to argue the thing through.

It isn't just the mystery that leaves the Doctor looking a bit of a chump. It's clear to the reader that he misjudges how intimate his friendship with the Ayres really is. The women do give him reason to think that he is more than just their GP, but Rod makes it perfectly plain he doesn't see the Doc as a friend, yet Faraday insists on viewing himself as such. Quite simply, he presumes too much on his acquaintance with the Ayres, and when he's told to back off, he doesn't get it. I was reminded in a way of Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, which also featured an outsider pushing her (in this case) way into a family circle with which she'd become obsessed. Perhaps I've become a little tired of the "outsider who wants to belong" plot, unless it actually leads to the outsider belonging. There's something inherently depressing about it.

I also thought the beginning of the book - before the ghostly stuff gets going - was slow, but there again, there's the question of what you expect. If you view the book not as a mystery, nor as a ghost story, but as a melancholy country house drama, then you're probably in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.         

måndag 5 november 2018

Films I'm glad I saw in-flight

Yes, I know - it's been ages since I blogged. In my defence, I just spent two weeks on the other side of the world, in sunny Sydney, Australia, no less, and the week before that I had to prepare for my journey. Anyway, as I'm still jet-lagged - always a good excuse - an ambitious book-related post which I know is overdue will have to wait a little longer. Instead, a lighter subject (which I might spin out to more than one post): films with which I whiled aways the time during the long flights from Copenhagen to Singapore and from Singapore to Sydney and back. Well, some of them. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the selection I made. These are films I'm glad I've seen, but which would probably have disappointed me had I gone to the trouble of going to the cinema to watch them.

The Incredibles (rewatch) and Incredibles 2 As I've mentioned before, The Incredibles is one of my least favourite Pixar film. I rewatched it on the way back to Scandinavia after having watched the sequel on the Copenhagen-Singapore flight, and I still have problems with it. Mind you, the "supers are incredible, and you have to be born one to be one" message - which is both irritating, as it devalues merit and hard work, and confusing, as there aren't any supers - isn't hammered home as much as I remember. Nevertheless, if you're not a superhero fan, there's not a lot you can take away from this film. The Parrs are a nice family, with just the right amount of squabbling going on to make them believable, but I don't really feel that spending time with them is enough for me to want to see the first Incredibles film again. Fanboy-gone-bad Syndrome is a great villain, though - a well-realised mix of intelligence and basic immaturity.

Incredibles 2 has smoother animation than the first film (as you'd expect - it has been fourteen years), and the supers-as-aristos message is thankfully absent. The Parrs are still charming, and even more likeable than in the first film (Violet is a bit of a pain, but she has a just grievance). I was doubtful when so much of the pre-marketing centered around Jack-Jack, the baby in the family, as I usually don't enjoy baby antics in films, but his scenes worked well and were funny and sweet. All in all, I would probably have enjoyed the sequel more than the original film if the villain hadn't been so weak. In the film, Helen Parr aka Elastigirl becomes the poster girl for superheroes in a bid to make them legal again, and quickly comes up against the threat of a villain called Screenslaver, who has a grudge against modern technology. Specifically, the villain monologues, people spend more time before their screens seeking vicarious thrills rather than doing things for themselves. Yes, it's that old chestnut, and there lies the first problem. The Incredibles films are supposed to be set in the late Fifties and early Sixties, when the only screen-enslavement going on was a bit of telly-watching. Even if we allow the Screenslaver an uncanny ability to guess the future, when screens become more of a thing, the very alias the villain uses is an anachronism - it's a play on "screen saver", a phenomenon which wasn't around in the Fifties-Sixties because hey, no home computers.

I wouldn't have minded the clichéd motivation of the villain, though, if the Screenslaver's identity hadn't been so insultingly easy to guess. The villain reveal is set up as a twist, which is now standard in Pixar and Disney films, but it really isn't - it's obvious from the start who the Screenslaver will turn out to be, and the as-per-usual red herring is introduced very half-heartedly. This, I hope, will be the end of the twist-villain trope, which has become increasingly tiresome and predictable of late. We need a Scar/Jafar-style villain-in-front-and-centre-of-the-plot again (and no, the solution is not to bring these fine specimens back in lame, live-action copies of the original films).

Solo All right, I'm going to have to be spoilery, as one of the things that really bugged me about this film - apart from it being completely superfluous - is a reveal that comes at the end of it. Solo and his mates have been up against a gang of pirates led by the promisingly named Enfys Nest. In a late showdown, Enfys takes off his helmet, and it turns out that he is... a she, specifically a freckled girl who looks like Anne of Green Gables. And the "pirates" aren't merciless fortune hunters at all, oh no, they're conducting a righteous fight against evil crime corporations like Crimson Dawn, for whom Solo has been working in order to pay off a debt and get a bit of cash, and would Solo like to join the good fight and...

... whoa, stop right there. First, how many freedom fight fantasies can you fit into a franchise? It's bad enough that we have a resistance movement so generic it's simply called the Resistance (or was it the Rebellion in the first films?), which fights the Empire/First Order because... they're bad. Now we have even more shining freedom fighters, whose virtue is apparent as they have a girl leader - not just a woman, but a girl. With the original Resistance, we didn't get a lot of analysing of what it actually entails to fight in a rebellion - it means killing people and getting your hands dirty (and bloody). They did start to address these themes in Rogue One, though. But here, we are back to the old black-and-white crusading spirit - plucky girl vs scarred Paul Bettany on shady luxury space yacht.

Second, we get one of my least favourite scenarios - when a hero/anti-hero decides not to pay back a debt to a villain, because doing so would give the villain too much power or some such guff, and consequently the protagonist ends up being a wanted man. Honestly, hero away if you must, but could you please pay off your debts first? It's only gentlemanly. And third, the Han Solo we encountered in A New Hope was a hard-bitten cynic. Even if he doesn't join the girl guide pirates at the end of this film, he is far closer to being a classic hero here than the original Han was in the original films. We are in a way cheated of the romp with a non-squeaky-clean protagonist we had reason to expect from a film about Han Solo's early career.

Solo is an OK action flick full of action flick clichés, which doesn't tell you anything new about Han's character. As in-flight entertainment, though, it's ideal.

lördag 6 oktober 2018

Jodie’ll probably be all right – it’s Chris Chibnall I’m worried about

The more time progresses, the more I’m starting to wonder whether having  the Doctor regenerate into a woman in Doctor Who wasn’t a genuinely bad idea. I’ve voiced my doubts before, but I also diplomatically said that we’ll wait and see, and a sex change worked well for the Master. The Master isn’t the focus of the whole show, though. The Doctor is the central, iconic, much-loved character of a 50+ year-old series. All that time he’s been a guy. Changing something so fundamental about him as his gender could have serious repercussions, not least because it feels so unnecessary. Was this something real fans of the show were crying out for? Or did BBC just want to make a point about how wonderfully enlightened it is?

Having said all that, I’ve liked the few glimpses we’ve seen so far of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. If anyone can pull this off, it will probably be her – and I love the Yorkshire accent. (Could it be that regional accents always sound cuter in a foreign tongue? There are Swedish regional accents that sound awful to me, but could conceivably appear melodic to, say, a Brit.) Also, my grumpiness regarding the whole female Doctor thing may partly be due to the aggressive way it’s been marketed, along with other changes to the series.

I do hate it when I get the feeling that someone is trying to catch me out with being a bigot about things I’m actually not bigoted about. I happen to love strong and preferably non-stereotypical female leads in films and on TV (though to be honest the feisty, kick-ass female has become something of a stereotype in her own right – but still enjoyable to watch). However, it’s provoking when the new Doctor Who series is being marketed with the tag line “It’s about time” – as if to say “Yes! Haven’t we all waited for the boring old Doctor dude to finally turn into a woman? No? Then you’re a sexist!” Another instance of “Don’t like it? You’re a horrible person” marketing was the boast put forward that the almost-all-new Doctor Who crew of writers included women and people of different ethnical backgrounds. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but the only thing that interests me about writers for Doctor Who is the quality of their writing. If I’d been one of them, I’d have been offended by the implication that I’d been hired, not because of my immensely popular children’s novels or for that tense TV screenplay I wrote, but because of my gender or the colour of my skin.

These are contentious waters, and before I’ve seen the new series I won’t be venturing out further in them. The odd smug, clumsy phrase shouldn’t damn a series of Doctor Who’s pedigree. From what I gather from an article in Doctor Who Magazine, the new Who writers have very solid credentials, and at the end of the day, the one I’m most afraid will be lecturing us rather than entertaining us is a white male: the show-runner himself, Chris Chibnall.

In preparation for the new series, I’ve been rewatching two Chibnall-scripted Doctor Who episodes: 42 and The Power of Three. I couldn’t bear to rewatch the preach-fest two-parter The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood where a poor woman is roundly berated, and made to hang her head in shame, for (accidentally) killing an obnoxious lizard-being hostage who was goading her, whose venom was poisoning her father and whose species were holding her little boy prisoner. In that situation, world peace would mean little to me too. Dinosaurs On A Spaceship – where a non-reconstructed big game hunter is roped in as one of the Doctor’s team, only so that the strong women on said team could sceptically roll their eyes at him – wasn’t tempting either, especially as I do have a problem with the Doctor cold-bloodedly killing the villain off at the end. True, it’s not out of character: the villain, Solomon the Trader, was guilty of genocide, and the Doctor has been known to be implacable (my heart still goes out to the poor Family of Blood). Still, if Solomon had not been the Trader but rather, say, the Freedom Fighter, I can’t help wondering whether the Doctor wouldn’t have acted differently, even if the atrocities committed had been the same.

On to the episodes I did rewatch, then. 42 is an episode I routinely skip when rewatching Who because of it’s insultingly daft premise. The Doctor and his then companion Martha land on a spaceship which is heading towards a sun, and something on board is possessing some of the crew members and sabotaging the crew’s efforts to get away. In time, the Doctor and Martha realise that the sun in question is alive and taking revenge on the spacecraft because it has scooped out parts of it for fueling purposes. Martha dumps the sun particles back where they came from, and the severely decimated crew is saved.

People who criticise this episode usually give it some credit for its “interesting ecological message”. But it’s the eco message that’s the problem for me, because it’s plain dumb. Once again, a character is shamed (and if we’re to play the gender game, as in the later The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood it’s a woman) for causing the calamity the crew is in. Her failing? Because scooping sun fuel is illegal for some reason, she didn’t “scan for life” before mining the sun. But how the blazes was she to know there could be any life on a sun, or  that the sun itself would be alive, when this is a bonkers premise to begin with? And if the sun is sentient enough to convey the message “burn with me” through possessed crew members, how about instead ventriloquising “I’m alive, you clowns – drop that sun fuel now?”

To be fair, though, 42 didn’t dwell on its wonkily set out moral message too much, and there were other things I quite enjoyed about it, such as Martha’s heart-to-heart with a crew member when they think they are about to die. And I really liked The Power of Three, which is also Chibnall’s latest Who offering (42 was the first). Yes, as has been pointed out, the denouement was a rushed cop-out, the villain reveal a let-down and many questions left unanswered. But who cares, when all kinds of preachiness are mercifully absent? Instead, the main plot – concerning the mysterious appearance on Earth of millions of small cubes, which then do absolutely nothing for a whole year before causing trouble – becomes the pretext for exploring the relationship between the Doctor and his then companions Amy and Rory. He becomes part of their everyday life and hates it. They start to appreciate their everyday life more and worry about how their exploits with the Doctor can have a negative impact on it. “It seems we have two lives – real life and Doctor life.” It’s an insightful and funny (“Patience is for wimps!”) episode about human/Time Lord relationships and some intriguing space stuff. This is the Chris Chibnall I’m hoping we’ll see in the next series, not the PC finger-wagging one. So maybe everything will turn out fine – we humans are “creatures of hope”, after all.

onsdag 12 september 2018

Once Upon A Time final season: Operation Pearly Gates, the strange failure of Voodoo Queen and more

Finally, I have my season seven DVDs of Once Upon A Time, and am thus in full legal possession of the facts of what happens in it and can blog about it. Warning for spoilers ahead: as it's the very last Once season, I'm not even going to try to avoid them.

Simply put, I loved this season. Unlike many fans, I really enjoyed the change of setting, from picturesque Storybrooke to the big-city vibe of Hyperion Heights, a neighbourhood added to gritty Seattle as part of a new curse. Although the season didn't quite live up to my highest expectations, it's still the one I've enjoyed most since seasons one to three. As so often with Once, there are so many promising premises set up that it becomes difficult for the series to deliver on them. Nevertheless, you have to learn to appreciate what you get instead of spending too much time pondering how it could have been done even better.

It is a problem that Emma Swan's not in this season. Like Matthew in Downton Abbey, Emma really is the main character of seasons one to six, to whose story the stories of the other characters are tied. When Jennifer Morrison didn't renew her contract, therefore, the show - like Downton - was knocked slightly off-track, even if it did stomach the blow. Still, the whole concept of season seven being a "new chapter" and centering around Emma's now grown-up son Henry worked creditably, and would have felt completely natural had the show been allowed to continue for one or two seasons more, so there'd be more balance between the Emma and Henry part of the story. The absence (except for the final) of Snow White and Prince David aka Charming was less of a problem. Believe it or not, I actually like Snow and Charming even if they are heroes, but they hadn't had a decent story arc since season three (though at least David had a few good side adventures - poor Snow got practically nothing to work with). Knowing they were living out their happily ever after off-stage was more satisfying than watching them being forced into uninspiring plot lines by writers plainly more interested in villain fun.

And so on to said villain fun. As usual, I could go on the whole day long about Once stories and characters, and will have to restrict myself to one or two themes, concerning my favourite (reformed - yes, really!) villain duo Rumplestiltskin and Regina, aka the Evil Queen. They are both present and correct in this season, which means that to be honest, it's got everything I need.

Did season seven expand on the duo's story in a satisfying way, considering that the finale of season six seemed to provide the ideal cutting-off point for their stories as well as everyone else's? Yes, it did. I admit I rather liked the fact that Rumple got his happy ending at the end of season six while still being alive and kicking - I had expected that his story would end in his dying redemptively and was glad when it didn't. Except now, at the end of season seven, it does. However, taken all in all, it's worth it. A long and blissful life with the ones you love, then a happy afterlife, is the best ending anyone could wish for, and Rumple gets there, with the help of a redemption arc that's much better constructed than the bad-good-bad again-good again roller coaster of season six. Personally, I don't understand why immortals always end up wanting to die, but it is a truth universally acknowledged that they do, so fair dues. And somewhere I am a bit relieved about the whole afterlife business - remembering how the afterlife is organised in Once, one had reason to be a tad worried where Rumple's concerned.

Moreover, Rumple's storyline restored my faith in the pairing the fans call Rumbelle. I shipped Rumbelle as much as the next crazy Rumple fangirl in seasons one to three, but I spent most of seasons four to six wanting to choke the shilly-shallying, hectoring Belle, and the romance more or less limped to the finish line in season six with much of the fizz we'd seen in earlier seasons gone. However, the ultra-romantic and affecting episode Beauty in season seven revived the good old days of Rumbelle lovey-doveyness, and while a guilty part of me will always ship Golden Queen (ship name for Rumple and Regina, very unpopular with die-hard fans), it's hard to quarrel with a love interest whose benevolent influence gets one of the most hard-bitten of fairy-tale villains through the Pearly Gates.

As for Regina, I believe this season is the one - with the possible exception of season three - where she works best as a redeemed character. In season six, she often was the "weak tea" version her evil clone accused her of being, but here she is full of gutsiness and temperament while still being a force for good. One part of her story didn't work, though, and that was her love interest, Doctor Facilier.

Yes, you read that right. And I'm puzzled as to why I didn't like this romance, as I should be one of the few people who have no problem with the concept. I think Dr Facilier in Disney's Princess and the Frog is a great villain - actually I believe we haven't seen anything better villain-wise in animated Disney films since. In Once, Daniel Francis is a suitably suave Facilier, and I loved the way he was introduced in the episode Greenbacks. But him and Regina? I didn't buy it. I don't think it's just my bias talking when I say that there's more heat in one of Regina's "Aw, Reformed Rumple - how cute is that?" glances on her old friend/enemy/teacher/rival/crush than in all of the scenes between Regina and Facilier put together. It's a shame because a pairing between a reformed villain and a villain with no current plans for reform is an idea which could spark some interesting situations. Does Facilier fancy Regina as she is now or the Evil Queen? Is it an old Evil Queen part of Regina that's drawn to Facilier, or does she honestly think she can do a Belle on him? If the series had been renewed, my guess is that Facilier would have been kept on and built up as a Rumple surrogate - it might even have worked. As it was, when he is dispatched by an unreformed version of Rumplestiltskin from the Wish Realm just as he's mocking the original Rumple for going soft and becoming the worst version of himself - "Well, I find that really insulting. I mean, I'm the worst version of me" - I wasn't sorry at all but shamelessly cheering on the badass Rumple doppelganger.

Dearie me, I've run out of time and space for commenting on the Wish Realm, haven't I? As well as for bringing up the alternative (superior) version of Hook (this show loves doppelgangers), the wonderfully catty wicked stepsister Ivy/Drizella, the engaging new Alice in Wonderland and her romance with Robin (daughter of Robin Hood and the Wicked Witch of the West masquerading as Maid Marian - a plot line feasible only in Once), the Cinderella controversy, Zelena getting her happy ending with a surprisingly (given her usual taste in men) tame love interest... Ah, well, maybe another time.

torsdag 30 augusti 2018

The utter pointlessness of the Disney Beauty and the Beast remake

OK. So I know I've voiced my scepticism of Disney's live-action remakes before. But things have reached a point now where I've gone from "hm, not sure about this idea" to "for pity's sake stop making these things - you're strangling your own brand!". I thought Disney was on the wrong track before - now I know it. In fact, I would be willing to bet that we've reached the end of the Disney Revival era and are heading for another "dark age" Mouse-wise.

Catching up with the live-action Beauty and the Beast on Netflix isn't the only thing that's made me worry about Disney's future. First, there were the Wreck-It Ralph 2 trailers where Vanellope meets the Disney princesses on the internet, with various in-jokes ensuing. I normally love all kinds of mash-ups and cross-overs, but the knowingness of the these jokes left me completely cold. It was far too close to the cynical tone of the Shrek franchise for my taste, and the princess cameos show no appreciation of all the good will these girls have brought their brand. Honestly, if the Disney people themselves won't stand up for their princesses, even if they do happen to sing and bond with animals, who will? Compare this with the good-natured fun poked at the princess trope in Enchanted, a film that nevertheless showed that good, old-fashioned magical romance and the rose-tinted world-view of "a real princess" can make the world a little brighter.

Then I saw a video of what to expect of Disney and Pixar in 2019, and would you believe it: just like 2018, the list of upcoming films was made up entirely out of sequels and live-action remakes - three of the latter. Though I am curious about Frozen 2, at this point I would rather have seen something new from my favourite animation studio, just to show their well of ideas hasn't run dry. But no. From Pixar we get Toy Story 4 and from Disney animation Frozen 2 - that's our lot. As for the rest, they are swamping us with their live-action remakes, which I'm more and more convinced are completely pointless.

Which finally leads me to the Beauty and the Beast 2017 remake. First, let me make it clear that I'm not going to compare it to the Once Upon a Time take on Beauty and the Beast at all, as I realise that every version of the story where the Beast turns out to be a mere bland prince - including, um, the original fairy tale - will fall short in my estimation compared to Once's villain-lover's fantasy scenario. The battle here stands solely between the animated classic from the Nineties and the live-action extravaganza of 2017. And the animated film wins hands down.

I didn't hate everything about the remake. The settings were visually stunning - the Beast's castle above all; the musical numbers were neatly choreographed; Kevin Kline's Maurice is the most likeable version of Belle's father I've come across (Maurice in the animated version was nice enough, but too much of a kooky dad stereotype); the villain Gaston and his sidekick Le Fou and their relationship are given some depth, which I found convincing; and Dan Stevens acquits himself creditably as the Beast, with a nice, dry delivery of his grouchy lines, though he has zero chemistry with Emma Watson's Belle. I liked Gaston pointing out to Belle that if she was still a spinster when her father died, she could be reduced to begging on the streets - it was a nice reality-check moment. Finally, including a detail from the original story which wasn't in the animated version - Maurice gets into trouble at the Beast's castle for stealing a rose from the garden for his daughter - was classy.

But the good points don't begin to justify the existence of a remake of the animated Beauty and the Beast, which is superior in every other way. Belle is better in the animated film. Watson has the looks for the part, and did a good job of another bookish heroine, so I can see why they went with her. But her singing, while not as bad as, say Russell Crowe's in Les Mis, isn't much to write home about, whereas Paige O'Hara sang beautifully as animated Belle (and I can vouch for the Swedish dub being top-notch too). Also, animated Belle was a lot more - well - animated than Watson, who doesn't emote much in this film. Moreover, adding an inventor's streak to Belle's character was totally unnecessary. She's bright, she's bookish - character traits which Disney added to her character back in the Nineties and should take full credit for - and that's quite enough to be going on with. Belle's character doesn't have to be "fixed".

The Beast is better in the animated film too, in spite of Stevens's best efforts. He has more character development, and is well-drawn quite literally - if there's one criticism, it's that he looks a little too cuddly for a Beast. Nevertheless, it is better than the freakish CGI Stevens has to put up with, which looks as if the hairy face of a man had been grafted on to the body of an animal of some kind. Animated Beast was all animal (which explains why it was imperative for him to be changed back, cute though he was, just to avoid bestiality).

The romance is better in the animated film. It's quite serious when animated characters have more chemistry than two real actors who aren't exactly rookies, but this is the sad fact. Sparks flew when animated Belle and the Beast danced. There's nothing like that between Watson's and Stevens's Belle and Beast; they look as if they only dance because they know they have to in order to recreate an iconic moment.

The servants are way better in the animated film. There they are charming and full of expression. In the remake, they are odd-looking CGI characters with nothing like the ability to show every emotion they experience during the strange Beast-Belle courtship. A bewildering plot element is added, whereby the servants will not only stay in their present furniture/kitchen utensil form if the Beast fails to break the curse, but will actually become inanimate objects and cease existing as living creatures altogether. This adds gloom to a part of the story that is meant to be light relief, and isn't needed in any way; surely the prospect of becoming human again is all the motivation the servants need in order to encourage a romance between Belle and their master.

There are other bewildering additions in the live-action film, which have been pointed out and criticised elsewhere. One of the strangest were the efforts to somehow make sense of the Enchantress's reasons for casting the curse. This only makes her come across as more of a prize bitch because she is shown to put so much thought into the whole thing. This is a fairy tale (albeit written by a female French author in the 18th century rather than an actual folk tale): an Enchantress is entitled to show up, take a dislike to a prince, curse him and buzz off without giving the incident a second thought, and without having puzzled out whether the prince's servants "deserved" to be cursed along with him. It's what Enchantresses do. Notably, though, these additions don't add up to anything approaching a fresh take on the material. So why, then, make a film which is essentially a rehash of an animated classic, only less good? The live-action Cinderella has a little more reason to exist because the animated version, charming as it is, often pushes the actual Cinderella story to the background in favour of cat and mouse slapstick. The animated Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, keeps to the story and tells it well.

What bothers me is that now that the remake exists, Disney will probably promote it as the Beauty and the Beast adaptation at the cost of the animated film. I can only hope quality will win out in the end, and that somewhere along the line the Mouse will come to its senses and start making worthwhile films again.    

måndag 13 augusti 2018

Heatwave reading: Sanditon

In some ways, selfishly, I miss the heatwave already. It provided such a perfect excuse for not doing anything too ambitious - like reading anything too heavy, let alone blog about it. Using the heatwave as a pretext, as well as the fact that a TV adaptation of Sanditon by Andrew Davies, no less, is in the pipeline, I cheated when it came to the next step in my Jane Austen Rereading Project. Instead of selecting one of her actual novels, I instead chose to reread her novel fragment called Sanditon, ably completed by "another lady" (publisher: Simon & Schuster New York).

Much as I remembered, I actually enjoyed the other lady's efforts more than Austen's. I recall forming a very dim view of Austen's fragment first time around, and while I was less critical this time, I still could not see any signs that Sanditon would have turned out a masterpiece if Austen had finished it. The plot hasn't really got going by the time her narrative ends roughly 70 pages in. Moreover, most of the characters that have been introduced aren't that interesting. Lady Denham, Sanditon's matriarch (though with no children of her own), seems the most promising from a drama point of view, as long as not too much time is spent exploring her stinginess, which is a tedious flaw for a character to have. Mr Parker, with whose family the heroine Charlotte is staying during her Sanditon holiday, is a perfect dear, but there is a limit to how much fun can be had with his overenthusiastic promoting of Sanditon as the new up-and-coming seaside resort. He is saddled with two sisters and a brother who are hypochondriacs - another character quirk it's less than thrilling to read about, though the friendly officiousness of one of the sisters is a trait more calculated to drive the plot forward. Mr Parker's remaining brother Sidney has only just arrived in town when Austen breaks off, and has Love Interest for Charlotte written all over him. We learn little more than that he likes to make fun of his family, which I suppose singles him out as the sensible one but is not very endearing in itself.

There was one character's main flaw that I found interesting: Lady Denham's poor relation Sir Edward is revealed to be much taken with the rakish characters he reads about in novels by authors such as Richardson, and he's dead set to emulate them. In other words, he's a villain-lover, wilfully ignoring novel writers' attempts to set up rakes as an example of how not to behave, and instead siding with the seducers. It's interesting to see an author aware of the fact that readers will sometimes not react to a novel's characters the way the writer intended. Austen is scornful of Sir Edward's "perversity of judgment" and puts it down to his not having "a very strong head", but at least she has taken note of the phenomenon. Though rakes aren't the kind of villains I have time for, my sympathies in the case are rather with Sir Edward. Nevertheless, as he is "downright silly", he doesn't make for much of a villain himself.

The other lady who completes the novel does her very best with the starting point she's given. She doesn't dwell too much on such things as the Parkers' hypochondria, and she puts a lot of effort into making Charlotte - who in Austen's fragment comes across as little more than an observer, and not a very charitable one at that - into a likeable heroine. Charlotte's pining for the lively Sidney raises the novel's stakes just as it threatens to become too much of one seaside excursion after another. Nevertheless, there were times when I still found the novel a little dull. Perfect reading for a heatwave, though.

Andrew Davies will probably be making his own completion of Austen's fragment for his TV adaptation. It will be fun to see what he comes up with, though I do wonder why a star-quality scriptwriter like himself would want to adapt something as slight as Sanditon. Then again, maybe I'm overly harsh. Perhaps there is something inherently unsatisfying about novel fragments, at least for me: I'm no big fan of Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood either. You sort of expect the novel a first-rate writer is working on when he or she dies to be among the best things that author has written, because you assume their skill to develop with every novel they write. But it doesn't always work that way: I can't be the only one to think Great Expectations is a far better novel than Our Mutual Friend. With my expectations of a half-finished masterpiece disappointed, I'm probably more critical of passages I find uninteresting or clumsy (Sapsea in Edwin Drood! Oh dear, oh dear) in a fragment than I would be had they been part of a finished product.

Also, it's understandable if Davies wants to try his hand at something more relaxing after War and Peace and Les Misérables, like a regency romp which can somehow be linked to Jane Austen. And it's not as if I'm not looking forward to watching it. 

torsdag 19 juli 2018

Game of Thrones season three: Shipping Jaimienne

I never came across the phenomenon of “shipping” until I became a Once Upon A Time fan – this particular kind of fan behaviour is pretty big in connection with Once. For those as ignorant as I, to ship two fictional characters is to really, really wish for them to end up in a relationship (hence “ship”). If the two characters are already a couple, you root for them to stay together and be happy. You go “aaah” over their romantic scenes, get upset over their break-ups and view any threat to their relationship with hostility. My delight when I found out that there are others like me, who obsess over the love life of their favourite fictional characters the same way or even more than I do, has been tempered by the circumstance that shippers, apparently, have something of a bad reputation among other fans. They can start “shipping wars” and turn the fandom “toxic”. I can readily believe that plenty of shippers go completely overboard, but crazy fan behaviour (confusing the actors with their characters, harassing writers etc.) tends to be the same whether it’s shipping-based or not. I see no reason for not indulging in some shipping, as long as it’s done responsibly and without becoming a complete pest about it. For my own part, my obsessions tend to be less with a particular couple and more with individual characters (i.e. villains), with whom I am prepared to ship practically anyone as long as my favourite’s getting some.

I will give sceptics of shipping and romantic relationships in drama in general one thing, though: if romance is to be made an important part of the story, it has to be done well. It is generally done well in Once: even if you might not be entirely convinced by all the show’s pairings, a lot of effort is put into the relationship side of things. Now in Game of Thrones, on the other hand…

Which finally brings me to the topic in hand. At long last, I have finished watching season three of Game of Thrones (at this rate, I will never catch up with the rest of the world with my GoT  viewing), and yes,  I’m still interested enough to want to continue with season four. There were times during this season, though, when I was prepared to give the rest of the GoT saga a miss. There are characters who annoy me (Daenerys Targaryen, a soulfully pretty, slave-liberating, somewhat self-righteous contender for the Iron Throne) or don’t interest me at all (principled, pouty Jon Snow), so whenever the story centres on them I’m tempted to twiddle my thumbs. Then there’s the excruciatingly drawn out, deeply unpleasant storyline centring around Theon Greyjoy – already the unluckiest bastard in all the seven kingdoms – being held prisoner and tortured in scene after scene by a sadistic captor who seems to be doing it just for kicks. This was the plotline that nearly made me give up on GoT altogether, because the writers seemed to be torturing Theon just for kicks as well. His sufferings in no way bring the story forward, and yet (to judge from some stray comments on the Net) they are apparently expanded upon compared to what happened in the original novels. For pity’s sake, why? It really bugged me, and I don’t even like Theon very much.

And then there are the romances, which for the most part are unengaging. Several of them follow the same template, too. Tyrion Lannister falls in love with a beautiful slave girl with a mysterious past who doesn’t appear to be very wedded to the Lannister cause. Robb Stark falls in love with a beautiful female medic from another realm who isn’t very wedded to the Stark cause. Jon Snow falls in love with a beautiful “wildling”, i.e. a girl who belongs to the tribes which The Black Watch (which Jon forms part of) is always driving away from the northern border, and who – understandably enough – has no truck with his cause whatsoever. These love interests are little more than horizon-widening plot devices. There’s no interesting dynamic between the characters in the couples in question. The men love the the women because they’re hot. The women love the men, because… they just do. The relationship between Jon and Ygritte the wildling girl takes a potentially interesting turn, but mostly, whenever one of these pairings are on screen, even I find myself longing for some derring-do instead.

There is, however, one potential relationship that shows promise. Jaime Lannister isn’t a character I’ve mentioned before, as I regard him as more or less a waste of space. I suppose I should give him points for trying to be the witty villain who tells his enemies unpleasant truths about themselves, but the fact is, he’s just not very funny, which makes his attempts at wisecracking more irritating than anything else. In this season, the imprisoned Jaime is entrusted to the female warrior Brienne, whose mission it is to engineer a hostage-swap where he’s traded for the Stark family’s two daughters. All sorts of things go awry, however. After having showered insults over Brienne for a long part of the way – mostly on the theme of how unattractive she is – Jaime finds himself minding when she stands in peril of being raped, and comes up with a stratagem to save her. Brienne, for her part, feels herself honour bound to fight Jaime’s corner when the soldiers who pick them up viciously turn on him. Throughout Jaime’s and Brienne’s subsequent adventures, they start looking ut for each other, and come to respect each other.

It might not lead to romance, but I’d love it if it does. If not, at least we’ll have a properly built-up relationship of some sort between a man and a woman which doesn’t hinge on the woman’s sultry charms. The Jaime-Brienne dynamic isn’t the only reason I’ll persevere with Game of Thrones – there are other things to admire, such as the overall first-class acting, the deft plotting which juggles a large number of characters and storylines skilfully, and the no-expense-spared production values which make all those grim fortresses and wealthy slave cities look so convincing. But I confess, at the moment, I’m kind of shipping it.

onsdag 11 juli 2018

Tales of wonder

I have always felt rather sniffy about “Young Adult” (YA) novels, because I’ve not seen the need for a specific category of books aimed at young adults. If you’re a teenager, you’re old enough to tackle novels for adults, including the classics – perhaps especially the classics, as they are often more focused on telling a good story than modern prose. When I was a teenager myself, we were given a couple of examples of teen literature to read at school, and I wasn’t impressed – I especially remember a “realistic” teen romance which took place in just the kind of dreary school environment I  wanted to escape from.

Since I was a teenager, though, a lot has happened, and YA literature has boomed. Also, nowadays authors of these books tend to recognise that their young readers may be more interested in exploring new worlds than being reminded of the most humdrum aspects of their own lives. On the other hand, why should this need only be acknowledged in young readers? Part of me still believes that if storytelling was promoted more and escapism less frowned on in modern novels for “grown-ups”, then there would be less call for YA fiction.

However, if writing novels in this category helps authors to release their inner storyteller and expand on flights of fancy which they wouldn’t have dared include in their work otherwise, then I must admit that YA fiction has a purpose. Here’s hoping, though, that we adults who are no longer young will also be able to find our way to the best of these books. We need magic too.

What has prompted these reflections was my finding and consuming Stephanie Garber’s Caraval and Legendary (I bought the latter as a hardback, which only goes to show how engrossed I became with this book series). They turned out to be absolute page turners, and reminded me of an aspect of fantasy fiction which has fascinated me from girlhood – the different “stages” of a journey in an imaginary land where the hero or heroine faces challenges which they overcome by calling on different aspects of their personality. Though I’ve never read Pilgrim’s Progress (it sounds off-puttingly preachy), as a girl I loved how the concepts of places like Vanity Fair and Valley of Humiliation were woven into the story in Little Women. The moral lessons were and to a great extent are lost on me, but the places themselves fired the imagination. There was a similar feel when I watched the film The Neverending Story (no, I’m ashamed to say I haven’t read the book) as a kid or read about the forest in Howard Pyle’s Arthurian stories which you couldn’t enter without experiencing an adventure.

Caraval taps into the sense of wonder that such fantastical tales convey, as it concerns a magical game, staged each year in the imaginary world where the novel takes place and overseen by the mysterious master of the game known as Legend. Scarlett, the novel’s heroine, is the daughter of a tyrannical governor of one of the outer islands of the empire and has longed to participate in the games of Caraval since childhood. When she finally obtains tickets for herself and her sister, though, it looks as if it’s too late, as Scarlett is about to marry in a week’s time and hopes her marriage will free both her and her sister from her father’s oppression (she has never met her husband-to-be, but he writes nice letters). It is up to her younger sister Donatella to engineer an escape from their island and make sure Scarlett is taken away against her will. By the time Scarlett reaches Legend’s island where the Caraval takes place, though, her sister is nowhere to be found.

Scarlett’s fears for herself and her sister are well-founded, but while one understands her risk-adversity it is a relief when she is finally within the confines of the place where Caraval plays out and ready to play the game (it turns out to be the only way to find her sister). I loved the magical treasure hunt aspect of the plot where Scarlett searches for clues in various wondrous places and meets mysterious characters who can either help or hinder her in her quest (or both). While there’s a Caraval game in Legendary as well – this time it’s the risk-taking Donatella who plays – the game itself didn’t feel as thrilling as in the first book as there are a lot of other things going on at the same time. But while Caraval was my personal favourite, Legendary was also very hard to put down, and it’s vexing to have to wait almost a year for the final part in the trilogy, Finale. But of course it has to be written first.

The YA aspect of the novels is most apparent when it comes to the romances: both girls are in their teens, and their love interests are a little on the teen-swoony side, though Donatella’s is better than Scarlett’s. In their defence, they aren’t clear-cut heroes. The novels are aware of the allure of villains: Donatella says at one point that the best kind of villain is one you secretly like, which shows a nice spirit. In Caraval, Legend himself seems to be a villain, though he could also be the girls’ ticket to freedom. In Legendary, it appears that Legend may not be as black as he’s painted, and in fact a mere baa-lamb compared to a great threat to the empire which he helps to contain. The new villain introduced in Legendary is fairly promising, though the predictable development of an age-old plot device connected with him is a disappointment, as is the anti-climactic revelation of Legend’s identity. Nevertheless, this book series takes its villains seriously. But ah, what shall I do for pretty boys…

onsdag 27 juni 2018

The Newsroom post-mortem

I’ve finally watched the final (third) season of The Newsroom, which turned out to be a mere six episodes long. I can’t say I was particularly sorry that the series was cancelled, but cancelling it midway through a season – which appears to be what happened – does seem a bit harsh. If anything, this season annoyed me less and was easier to get through than seasons one and two – I actually found myself mildly looking forward to watching an episode of an evening. On the other hand, that might be because subconsciously I knew that there were only six of them.

Given all my complaining over this series, why did I bother watching it at all? The answer is the script. It’s comforting to see that Aaron Sorkin can still deliver on the wisecrack front. Watching The Newsroom made me curious to see if he’ll create a new TV series anytime soon which might fare better, and I’ll certainly be checking out Molly’s Game. However, in pretty much all other aspects, The Newsroom fell short of The West Wing, which has been its problem all along.

It may seem unfair to keep comparing The Newsroom to The West Wing, but it’s hard to forget the latter series when watching, because you recognise elements in The Newsroom which were also present in The West Wing but worked better there – or if they didn’t work, they didn’t weigh down the quality of the series as a whole in the same way. There was already a tendency to preach in The West Wing, but more often than not it was balanced out by counter-arguments, and what’s more, The West Wing took the opponents of the Bartlet administration seriously and neither demonised nor belittled them (except that one Republican candidate who came across as somewhat dim-witted). The Newsroom doesn’t even present the other side of an argument. Most of the main characters have exactly the same views on the media, American politics and moral questions overall. There is no real debate.

I realise that I may have misconstrued what the series was trying to do by showing what a “good news programme” could be like. I grew up with Swedish news programmes whose brief was to strictly record what was going on in the world, without supplying any particular angle on it. They didn’t always succeed with their objectivity goal, but at least they tried, and any bias shown was subconscious rather than part of an effort to sway public opinion. Any political discussions on Swedish TV are still relegated to specific debating programmes. So this, then, to my mind, was what news should be: to the point, objective, and deadly dull. The Newsroom’s take on good news reporting seems rather to be to push a certain angle on the news in a clever and entertaining way. My spluttering over the obvious bias shown in the process may quite simply be down to cultural differences.

Even so. In this season, we had – among other plot lines – an alarmist story about the world coming to an end because the highest percentage of carbon dioxide on record was measured… on top of a volcano. Seriously? The show flirts with a Snowden-like plot about a government whistle-blower, but this was shut down (because of the cancellation, presumably) in over-quick time with the unexplained suicide of the whistle-blower in question. We never get to know what her agenda was, nor is there much discussion on the pros and cons of government leaks. To me, the last preachy straw was when Neal (high-minded idealist), back from being on the run over the whistle-blower story, berates the guys (couch-potato troll types) who have been managing the news station’s web site in his absence. They were just about to post an item about “the 10 most overrated movies of all time”. Why, Neal asks rhetorically, is this considered more interesting than the 10 most under-rated movies? Um… because it’s funnier? Is Sorkin, who habitually places rants doing down phenomena he has an objection to in the mouths of his characters (the luckless couch-potato troll 1 had already had a dressing-down from Sloan on air in the very same episode), really the right person to lecture us about negativity?

The Newsroom is, incidentally, consistently snobbish about “new media”. I can understand it in a way – some stories you hear about, say, social media getting out of hand are genuinely scary – but the constant idealisation of the “old media” (which traditional TV news programmes are a part of, apparently) does start to grate after a while. There have been ruthless hacks operating and character assassination going on in media circles ever since the printing press was invented.

If the characters in The Newsroom had been as likeable as the main cast in The West Wing, these gripes would probably have mattered less. Watching The Newsroom made me realise how hard it must be to create a top-notch series with a largish set of main characters. It becomes important that you care not only for one or two of them, but for most of the ensemble. But how do you do that? It’s not as if the characters in The Newsroom are disagreeable in any way, and they’re well acted. (Olivia Munn as Sloan is so good it took me a while to realise she isn’t given much to work with personality-wise.) They just never manage to be much more than Sorkin mouth-pieces. Bartlet’s crew were nicely indivualised – supremely competent yet human C.J., glamorous Sam, Eeyore-ish Toby, arrogantly boyish but self-deprecating Josh etc. – and the cast was stellar. They managed to engage my sympathy, in spite of there not being a hot villain in sight.

Even in series where there is a hot villain, like in my favourites Downton Abbey and Once Upon A Time, I much prefer it when I can feel sympathy for most, if not all, of the other characters besides my darling one, and at least not actively begrudge those I don’t like a prospective happy ending. Downton and Once mostly deliver on this score, and at times when I have been out of temper with every character except my villain fancy (which does occasionally happen) it has saddened me. A strong ensemble of recurring characters is a big plus, then. But what the magic formula is for creating one for a TV series beats me.

onsdag 13 juni 2018

The Woman in White adaptation wariness

I could blame the heatwave for the long blog pause, but truth be told it's more a matter of dearth of subject matter. My reading these last weeks has included a) Once-related fan fiction (for the most part sadly Rumple-free) b) a pedestrian historic crime novel, which is neither good enough to merit a recommendation nor bad enough to merit a rant c) a YA novel which was actually very good indeed - but in Swedish (as the author, Sara Bergmark Elfgren, is one of the writers behind the successful The Circle, it may be translated soon - so even if you're a non-Swedish speaker, keep your eyes open for an atmospheric ghost story set in an old Stockholm school). As for TV viewing, it has been bitty and unambitious. And not even Han Solo - especially when he's not played by Harrison Ford - can get my lazy self to a cinema at the moment.

So we're back to the theme which has occupied me for a while now, which is: has costume drama abandoned me, or have I abandoned it? My last "what has happened to me?" pang came when I found out, via Amazon, that there was a new TV adaptation of The Woman in White available. I'm on record as approving of Wilkie Collins and recommending that his work should be brought to the small screen. Like everyone else, I consider The Woman in White to be his best novel. And yet, when I saw this adaptation advertised, my spontaneous reaction wasn't "Yes, finally!" but "Do I have to?".

There is, I know, a fairly new Moonstone adaptation out as well, but I feel on safer ground ignoring it as I have never pretended to like The Moonstone. The previous BBC adaptation from the Nineties was made bearable by containing some of my favourite then-living British thesps, albeit wasted in non-villain roles. I don't feel obligated to try another one, though. But The Woman in White? Count Fosco? Marian Halcombe? Charles Dance as hypochondriac Mr Fairlie? I should be excited, shouldn't I?

Grasping for other explanations for my lack of enthusiasm than the possible Macra-devolving of my mind, I can really only think of one - that adaptations of The Woman in White I've come across in the past haven't been that impressive. Again, there exists a Nineties adaptation, with Tara Fitzgerald - no less - in the pivotal role of Marian, Ian Richardson as Mr Fairlie and Simon Callow as a surprisingly svelte and comparatively low-key Fosco. You'd think it couldn't go wrong, but in spite of its stellar cast, it failed to thrill. What I remember best about it was my irritation over the fact that they changed the nature of "the Secret" which the woman in white of the title, Anne Catherick, claims to know. "The Secret" concerns Sir Percival Glyde, baronet, who also happens to be the person who keeps Anne locked up in an asylum (though to be fair, she doesn't seem altogether sane).

Now, I'm going to have to be spoilery about the book here. Sir Percival Glyde's secret is that his parents were never married: therefore he is illegitimate. Presumably, someone thought that modern viewers wouldn't be able to understand why anyone would go to great lengths to hide what, in most of the western world, no longer constitutes a moral stain on a person's character. But the point of Sir Percival's secret was never that he was ashamed. Wilkie Collins himself didn't think illegitimacy particularly shameful (see No Name), and not even Dickens - who could be infamously high-handed in moral matters (on paper, at least) - thought it fair to blame a child for the marital status or lack of it of its parents (see Bleak House). Victorians aren't necessarily as fusty as we imagine. What made "the Secret" so harmful for Sir Percical was its legal implications. Were it to be known that his parents were never married, he would lose his claim to both title and family fortune. It's actually an elegant twist that "the Secret" which Anne makes so much of isn't what makes Sir Percival a villain - it's the steps he takes to cover it up. I'm sure modern viewers are perfecly able to grasp that Sir Percival isn't a bastard for being, well, a bastard, but instead, Collins's intricate plot building was scrapped in favour of a child abuse story (this being a modish plot device in dramas at the time).

Then there was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Like Love Never Dies, it contains some first-rate musical numbers, but is let down by its plot (and, in this case, sometimes by the lyrics). At the time I saw the Woman in White musical, what bothered me the most - as I was deep into my James Carker phase - was that B-list villain Sir Percival Glyde died in the same way as Carker, i.e. he was smashed under a train. I thought this was distasteful villain-death-snitching, and anyway, wasn't a burning church (which was how Sir Percival copped it in the book) dramatic enough? Now I understand the musical's references to  The Signalman better I can more readily understand the change of villain death, but there are three other changes to the story it is harder to forgive.

One, in the musical, Marian Halcombe is in love with Walter Hartright, the hero who swoons over her half-sister Laura Fairlie. This isn't the only place where this silly theory has been aired. I remember a sequel to The Woman in White that I read once - the main plot concerns how Walter (who's a painter) becomes obsessed with Turner - where Marian is also in love with Walter. I also seem to recall a theory that Collins, who himself had two women on the go, imagined a kind of ménage à trois consisting of Walter, Laura (the pretty one) and Marian (the clever one). But there is no indication whatsoever in the book that Marian is in love with Walter. It's unfair to give her selfish reasons for discouraging the Walter-Laura romance, like the musical does, when she sides one-hundred-per-cent with her sister throughout the novel and is downright annoyed when they can't find any obvious fault with Sir Percival which would justify Laura in breaking off their engagement. The man Marian frankly admits being attracted to (though of course she never acts on it as he's chummy with Sir Percival, married to Laura's aunt etc.) is Count Fosco. When it comes to classic novels, a heroine who admits to seeing the appeal of a villain (of the brainy kind - the worthless cads are doing all right) is a rare thing. And yet there are people who would have her pining after Walter!

Two, in the second part of the musical there's a cringeworthy scene where a tarted-up Marian flirts with Fosco and catches him off-guard so she can search his rooms for clues about Anne. The musical's Count Fosco is in fact far from a dead loss, though he's played too much for laughs. His lyrics are witty, and his big number "You Can Get Away With Anything" contains some worthwhile tips on how to be a successful (fictional) villain: "You can get away with anything, it all comes down to style... Yes, you can have your cake and eat it, the love of those whom you betray...". But the scene with Marian in seduction mode is degrading for them both. The novel's Marian, who wants to fight like a man, not a woman, would never stoop to such a stratagem, and Fosco would never fall for it.

Three, they changed "the Secret". Again. Granted, the musical's version is better than the TV adaptation's (Sir Percival has an affair with the thankfully just-about adult Anne Catherick and then drowns their child), but it's still so unnecessary. In the novel, when Walter hears Anne railing against Sir Percival he suspects that the baronet has "wronged" her in the usual, that is sexual way. When he hints to the girl that this could be the case, however, she is utterly bewildered. It's a fun way to up-end the reader's expectations - and it seems that the Victorian reader's expectations in this regard weren't that different from ours.

All the same, all these adaptation faux-pas should make me more inclined to see a new version which, perhaps, does better, not less. I have dutifully ordered the new adaptation and will watch it in due course. Reviews indicate that it may actually be faithful to the original story this time. The cover does look cheap, though.

onsdag 23 maj 2018

Jane Austen - hard-headed or romantic?

As I anticipated, I really enjoyed rereading Jane Austen's Persuasion. Emma is still my favourite, but I believe Persuasion comes in second for me, trumping Pride and Prejudice. Maybe the first-rate film with Amanda Root's immensely likeable Anne Elliot plays its part - going by the novel versions alone, Lizzy Bennet is more engaging than Anne. But Anne's a sweet heroine all the same, and only one of many genuinely nice characters in the book. Her immediate family may be caricatured, but otherwise both the settings and supporting cast in Persuasion make it pleasant to spend time in the novel's world. The love interest, Wentworth, is perfectly OK - a great deal better than Knightley, at any rate. His sister and brother-in-law, the Crofts, are lovely, and Anne's in-laws the Musgroves - though no intellectuals - are good-humoured and decent. Wentworth's naval friends in Lyme are also a warm-hearted bunch and contribute to making the description of this coastal town so attractive. Though Anne spends so much of the novel suffering from the pains of (as she imagines) lost love, Persuasion is a surprisingly cosy read.

The available film and TV adaptations do a good job of capturing what goes on in the book, but there are one or two surprises. For one, I was impressed with those who have done the adapting, for there is less direct dialogue in the novel than one might expect, especially in the early parts. We get a clearer view of what's actually going on in Anne's mind than can be conveyed on the big or small screen, even by the best actress - there's quite a lot of introspection. I was also surprised by the fair portrait of Lady Russell, who is the one responsible for breaking up Anne's and Wentworth's first engagement. Anne's snobbish father and sister may not have be thrilled by the idea of her marrying a penniless naval officer with an uncertain future and no "breeding", but they never care enough about Anne to put up any strong opposition to the match: it is Lady Russell who does the persuading of the title. As a result, Anne's and Wentworth's happiness is delayed for more than eight years until they find their way back to each other. Nevertheless, Lady Russell is far from being an ogre: she is shown to be genuinely devoted to Anne and to have good judgement in other matters. When Anne takes up the acquaintance of an old friend in Bath who has fallen on hard times, Lady Russell warmly supports her. I liked her reaction to hearing from Anne that Wentworth is showing a interest in Louisa Musgrove: "internally her heart revelled in the angry pleasure, in pleased contempt, that the man who at twenty-three had seemed to understand somewhat of the value of an Anne Elliot, should, eight years afterwards, be charmed by a Louisa Musgrove". It shows that Lady Russell is well aware of Anne's worth. It's also very human, as much as to say: "Ha! See? I was right - he is no good".

A funny thing about Jane Austen is that there actually is quite a lot of romance in her novels. Many readers first discover them when they are in their teens or twenties and revel in the love stories and happy endings. Later, they will probably be told more than once by people in the know that Austen is a sharp, hard-headed observer of her times, with a keen satirical edge, and that gushing "Janeites" who stress the swoony costume-drama aspects of her plots do her no favours. That may be true enough as far as it goes, but there are quite a number of instances where Austen seems to advocate the romantic rather than the sensible option. In Persuasion she sees nothing odd in Anne holding a torch for an old love for eight long years. True, we know that her love was reciprocated, so it's not a question of entirely one-sided pining. Nevertheless, an unromantic observer would probably have thought that the best thing for Anne would be to snap out of it. Austen also shows sympathy for Anne's mindset, and that of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, when they reject highly eligible suitors because they can't imagine being with anyone except the man they truly love, even if it seems doubtful (especially in Fanny's case) that he feels the same way. Austen does poke some fun at Anne's thoughts along these lines - "Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy, could never have passed along the streets of Bath" - but she still finds this view of love and marriage natural, even if a comfortable existence as a single woman was a rare thing in her day. Marrying was how you secured your livelihood, and waiting for "the one" a luxury most women could ill afford.

Jane Austen is a sharp observer, and the quality of her writing alone explains why her novels have survived when those of many of her contemporaries have not. Nevertheless, one reason she goes down so well with modern readers must surely be that she, in her own wry way, is all in favour of following one's heart.                     

fredag 11 maj 2018

Eurovision 2018 – another snooze

I had trouble with my lack of Eurovision enthusiasm last year, and I’m afraid the trend is still the same – what used to be a reliable guilty pleasure almost feels like a chore this time around. Is it me or is Eurovision becoming boring? All right, it’s still recognisably Eurovision. They still have the spectacles    like an opera singer from Estonia with a giant colour-changing dress   and hard-pressed commentators who try to put across forced jokes which even the most gifted comedian would have struggled with. But the tunes! As last year, they’re not bad, exactly, just forgettable. Earworms are conspicuously absent. C’mon, a good chorus and a good singer – is that so very hard to find? I watched the first semifinal and caught up with the second semifinal’s songs on Youtube, which is really not the ideal medium to hear them. Who knows, if they could bring back the Eurovision panel to Swedish TV, which reviewed ten songs or so at a time in a series of hour-long programmes scheduled on Tuesday nights when nothing else was on, then maybe I could start to view Eurovision-prep as worthwhile entertainment again. As it is, whenever I saw on Youtube that a song went on for more than three minutes, I got impatient in advance.

Enough complaining. These songs are the ones that I’ve found passable so far (I’m excluding songs that didn’t make it to the final):

Norway: Back in the day, I was actually not as impressed with Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytaleas everyone else. Now, because of its mildy prophetic content, it has risen in my estimation, and I often torture my neighbours by yowling “He’s a fairy-ta-a-a-le, yeah” (a change of pronoun being necessary in this case). Trust me, it is very hummable.

Rybak’s entry for this year is lively and upbeat, but the content is a little on the cutesy side – even I, who normally have a high tolerance level for cutesiness, thought it a bit much. The song is written as an answer to an eager young fan’s question about how to write a song. There’s something children’s-programme-like about it in consequence, and the chorus is consciously simple, like something you could throw together on a synthesizer. Not pure gold, then, but not straw either.

Denmark: It’s easy to mock the Ye Olde Nordic Pop-Tune Genre, where the songs sound like the kind of thing vikings might have sung if they’d had Karaoke. The over-earnestness of the Danish group of ancient warrior types made me smile, but the number did sound nice and melodic. I wouldn’t mind if our neighbours won with this one.

Austria: Again, not something you sing in the shower. Still, this was a solid, well-sung ballad, which builds towards some sort of crescendo.

Australia: Out of this year’s batch of “let’s make the world better” songs, this struck me as the most competent. The Aussies are taking pains to send radio-friendly ballads to Eurovision every year since they were allowed on board, which shows a nice spirit. Like Austria’s number, though, this is a little dull.

Moldova: it was because of ballad fatigue, but this uptempo number cheered me up. Granted, it sounds a lot like one of those Greek-dance-on-the-beach tunes – I’ve not seen the song performed live, but you almost expect a goat to show up on stage, along with enthusiastically clapping girls in colourful headscarves. We’ll see.

Aaand… that’s it, basically. Sweden’s entry this year sounds like something playing in the background of a commercial, or maybe something leather-clad guys might strip to. Germany’s song isn’t an embarrassment, thankfully, but I’d be surprised if it was a winner. Who knows, maybe next year we’ll get to hear a new “You’re The Only One”.

måndag 30 april 2018

Nobel-prize-awarded reading (yes, really)

2018 does seem to be shaping up to become a better book year for me  than 2017. The Austen Rereading Project, from which I’ve been taking a break the last couple of weeks (I’ll start it up again soon with Persuasion) has made sure that there were at least some books on my reading list which I was sure to like. What’s more, the project seems to have fulfilled its purpose of making me more keen on reading generally again.  I recently, to my immense self-satisfaction, finished Nobel Prize-winning Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and what’s more I did enjoy it.

Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature – when they’re not a complete misfire (no names need be mentioned – the answer is blowing in the wind…)    tend to be too high-brow for my vulgar tastes. Never Let Me Go seemed a good choice, though, if you wanted to read something Nobel Prize-worthy which was neither too long, too involved or too earth-shatteringly depressing, and so I decided to give it a go. Granted, it’s not exactly a cheerful tale, but the premise isn’t as off-putting as, say, that of Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child (which I’m never going near as long as I live). I found on starting to read it, too, that the prose style was very clear and easy to follow – thankfully, no thorniness, long sentences or inexplicable wordplay. However, this  is not the only reason I liked the novel, though I’m always grateful to authors who don’t set out to make the readers feel like idiots.

To be honest, I had my doubts about the novel’s premise. When I first read the carefully worded reviews of Never Let Me Go, which implied that there was some sort of twist which the reviewers felt duty bound not to reveal, I thought: “Come on. It’s as clear as day. The characters in this novel are reared to be organ donors. That’s not even an original concept: isn’t it a staple of sci-fi dystopias?” That Never Let Me Go was not a sci-fi novel (though it does depict an alternative reality) did not, in my eyes, make the conceit automatically cleverer, nor did the fact that the protagonists are raised in surroundings that recall the idyllic picture of public school life you often find in classic children’s and young adult fiction. It looked like a forced contrast to me – “oh, look, poor innocent children growing up in a fool’s paradise, not knowing what horrible fate awaits them”.

Never Let Me Go did not turn out to be as crude as that. In fact, crude and polemic are the last things this novel is. It’s a book where the author has really thought through his idea and the different aspects of it, and before long I became gently fascinated by the ins and outs of the setup. So, the pupils of the Hailsham school are marked out to have their organs harvested in later life – after a spell as carers for other donors, they will keep giving donations until they “complete”, that is die. That  much is clear pretty early on. But where did they come from? Why are they encouraged to be “creative”, and why is so much effort put into their education seeing as they don’t have much of a future? As one key player formulates it at the end of the novel, “Why Hailsham at all?”. At one level, the novel reads like a literary thriller where you try to pick up the clues to what goes on in this world. The everyday life of the Hailsham pupils, during and after their time at the school, is rendered with believable detail. They’re not living in some vague thought experiment; their reality seems very real. Also, we sense the very human unease the outside world experiences in connection with them and others in their situation. In the sci-fi scenarios mentioned above, victims of forced organ donations and the like are treated with determined callousness, because it’s a dystopia where pretty much everyone is supposed to be horrible. In Never Let Me Go, people have a conscience, and this has an effect – sometimes good, sometimes bad – on how the donor question is handled.

Another point in the novel’s favour is that it’s narrated by its most likeable progatonist, Kathy H., a girl who may seem naïve but who is in fact very observant. Her closest friends are less interesting: Tommy, the boy she falls in love with, has a healthy curiosity about the reality of their situation, but he’s a blockhead in romantic matters. Ruth, Kathy’s friend and for a long time Tommy’s girlfriend, is a bit of a mean girl, who from the first expects her friends to go along with her self-deceptions in order for her to look better in the eyes of other pupils/students. The power play between the three, and how they’re affected by the presence of others outside of their circle, makes for an engaging read.

I wasn’t heart-broken over Kathy or the other characters, but their fate is affecting enough, and satisfyingly, answers to the questions you have been posing to yourself are provided towards the end. Ishiguro isn’t too fancy to tie up loose ends, for which I was thankful. If you feel up to reading something high-brow and gently melancholy, then Never Let Me Go is a good bet. The Swedish Academy did something right there (you knew that one was coming, right?).