Doctor Who: Series 8, Episode 2 – “Into the Dalek” (2014)

 

I hope “uneven” doesn’t turn out to be the theme for this season, but that’s what we have so far.  Now that the post-regeneration wonkiness is out of the way, we get our first “regular” Twelve story, and it’s a collection of fascinating ideas and some likeable one-shot characters, but it doesn’t feel terribly cohesive.

 

I was excited to see Phil Ford writing for Who again – he co-penned the excellent “The Waters of Mars” with Russell T. Davies, his episode of Torchwood is a good romp, and I’m a fan of his fine work on The Sarah Jane Adventures.  So, I was disappointed that I didn’t enjoy the episode as much as I’d expected.  It was co-written with Moffat, however, and I’m inclined to blame a good chunk of my issues with the writing on him.  Now, I obviously don’t know who wrote what, but sloppiness and odd pacing are problems that I tend to have with Moffat, not Ford, so there we are.  (I’m really not trying to be a cranky Moffat-hater, but I think I’m close to hitting my limit on this particular showrunner.)

 

Anyway… “Into the Dalek” brings the Doctor and Clara (eventually – he has to go fetch her.  The whole part-time companion thing seems weird to me) to the middle of a (presumably) human-Dalek war, and the humans have picked up an intriguing prisoner/patient:  a Dalek that wants to exterminate its own kind.  With the help of a miniaturizer, the Doctor, Clara, and a military entourage literally get inside the Dalek to find out what caused such a fundamental shift from the Daleks’ usual MO.

 

I absolutely adore the concept.  I like learning more about the inner workings of a Dalek, the balance between machine and living thing, and the central issue – are all Daleks inflexibly evil, or could they be made capable of good? – is a good one.  There are echoes of tons of previous stories here.  The miniaturizer takes me all the way back to Four, Leela, and K9 in “The Invisible Enemy,” and going inside a Dalek reminds me visually of the Tessalecta in “Let’s Kill Hitler” and thematically of “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.”  The heavier questions of morality and the Daleks’ potential for good are variously reminiscent of “Genesis of the Daleks,” “Dalek,” and “Asylum of the Daleks.”  Ultimately, I think it lands somewhere in the middle of all of these – it bites off more than I think it can chew, and it never quite resonates the way of these of these stories do.

 

The Doctor isn’t in especially good form here, which is part of the problem.  It’s worrying, since this is supposed to be a “settled” look at Twelve, at who our new Doctor really is.  However, he’s handicapped by two issues.  First, this is a Dalek story, and the Doctor’s long history with the Daleks has a tendency to impair his judgment, give him tunnel vision, and make him react more ruthlessly than he ordinarily would.  Also, he’s working alongside a group of soldiers, which unfortunately tends to bring out his sanctimonious side.  I get that he doesn’t like violence, and he has additional Time War-related issues about combat, but he tends to get so rude and dismissive of soldiers, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  People join the military for all kinds of reasons, and he doesn’t have to treat them like they’re all warmongering Sontarans.  Plus, Vastra eats people – it’s not like his other associates are squeaky clean and nonviolent.  I’m hoping the Doctor we get next week will be more representative of what we can expect.

Relationship Spotlight: Veronica Mars & Wallace Fennel (Veronica Mars)

 

On Veronica Mars, everyone’s favorite adolescent P.I. has a ton of great, fascinating relationships.  There’s the close you-and-me-against-the-world dynamic she has with her dad Keith, the mutual pull of noir-ish attraction with volatile wildcard Logan, the Bond-and-Q friendship/partnership with techie Mac, and the frenemies tit-for-tat with gang leader Weevil.  In the midst of all that, her relationship with her best friend Wallace might feel a little pedestrian, but he anchors her chaotic, dangerous life in a way that she really needs.

 

The beginning of this beautiful friendship, in traditional Veronica Mars fashion, is rooted in intrigue.  Wallace begins his life at Neptune High duct-taped naked to the flag pole – a vindictive gift from the local biker gang – and Veronica is the one to cut him down while their fellow students gawk and snicker.  This is enough for the friendly, upbeat Wallace to breech Veronica’s usual defenses.  He ignores the unflattering rumors about Veronica that run rampant around the school and is persistent despite her attempts to rebuff him.  Slowly, the caustic, guarded Veronica gains a friend.

 

Of course, Veronica spends most of her time up to her elbows in crime and mystery, and her end of the friendship can be a bit mercenary.  She’s eager to reap the benefits of Wallace’s office aid position, enlisting him to pull student files as needed, and he soon becomes her go-to assistant for assorted schemes and traps.  Whether she needs a lookout, a drop-off man, a decoy, or someone to get her out of a jam, she can convince Wallace that he fits the bill.  “I need a favor,” trips off her lips often enough that Wallace can recite it with her in stereo, and though this sometimes causes friction between them, Wallace is generally willing to help with no more than a little good-natured grumbling.

 

But, like I said, friction:  virtually all serious arguments these two have stem from a sense that Wallace does all the giving and Veronica does all the taking in the relationship.  When she asks too much of him, when she’s embroiled in vendettas and he becomes collateral damage, or when he needs help and she doesn’t step up, Wallace stands up for himself and demands not to be taken for granted.  To her credit, Veronica is usually quick to make amends.  She has a habit of getting wrapped up in her own drama, and while it’s true that most of Wallace’s problems are less extreme and far-reaching than hers, that doesn’t mean they’re not important to him, and she sometimes needs to be reminded of that.

 

And when you come down to it, Veronica cares deeply about Wallace.  She shares secrets with him, tries to console him when he’s upset, and makes an effort with the things he cares about – she couldn’t care less about school spirit, for example, but she goes to basketball games so she can cheer Wallace on.  When these two are separated by circumstances or disagreements, you can really feel it.  When Veronica falls out with other characters, she tends to stay stubborn, or at least forced-indifferent, longer, whereas with Wallace, she immediately knows that she’s off-kilter without him and wants to make it right.  He’s such a presence of good in her life – of help, of encouragement, and even just of fun – that she knows how much she needs him.

Amélie (2001, R)

 

This is the first foreign film that I truly loved.  It kicked off my deep admiration for Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s work, and it’s one of those films that sparks your affection for every actor who appeared in it (chiefly, of course, the fabulous Audrey Tautou in the title role.)  It’s a movie I can watch time and time again, one that never feels long or lagging.

 

Amélie is a young French woman who works as a waitress in a café.  Though a charming, imaginative oddball, she’s almost debilitatingly shy and generally keeps to herself.  However, a twist of fate unearths the lost treasures of a young boy who lived in her apartment decades ago, and she resolves to reunite the trinkets with their owner.  Her stratagem pays off well, and she sets about becoming a secret do-gooder.  It’s only herself that she has trouble helping, as she may scheme herself out of a potential love connection.

 

It’s such a vibrant, beautiful film, saturated with color and crammed with amusing characters.  It flits lightly between the past and the present, as well as in and out of fantasy.  It employs an even-keeled narrator, infrequent notes scrawled on the screen, and the occasional aside to the viewer to hold the high-flying plot together, and the result is the cinematic equivalent of a crème brûlée.  I’m hard-pressed to voice just how delightful it is.

 

Amélie’s inventive machinations in others’ lives play a big part of that.  She enchantingly weaves curious details and tidbits into her gifts of kindness.  She collects overheard remarks, interesting news articles, and entertaining television clips and marries them to her careful observations of the people in her life.  Quietly, whimsically, she figures out what they need and gives it to them in the most creative way possible.  Using everything from love letters to garden gnomes, numerous lives become a bit brighter due to Amélie.

 

I also love the way the film celebrates people’s quirks and obsessions, their simple pleasures and pet peeves.  Nearly every character is introduced with a brief introduction of what they like (such as popping bubble wrap or polishing parquet) and don’t like (such as wet swimming trunks or seeing men embarrassed in front of their children,) and many have a singular, consuming interest.  Dufayel, Amélie’s neighbor, has painted new versions of the same Renoir painting for 20 years, and Amélie’s would-be soul mate Nino keeps a scrapbook of discarded pictures from photo booths.  These details and preoccupations are sprinkled so lovingly throughout the film that it feels uniquely human – messy, fond, a little crazy, and above all, remarkably individual.

 

As Amélie and Nino, Audrey Tautou and Matthieu Kassovitz both make their first Jeunet appearances here but fit seamlessly into his world (Tautou later worked with Jeunet again in the excellent A Very Long Engagement.)  The rest of the film is populated by many of his talented, slightly odd-looking regulars, including the terrific Dominique Pinon as a man scorned and Rufus as Amélie’s sedate father.

 

Warnings

 

Language, some drinking, and very French sexual content, including nudity and brief flashes of sex scenes.

Favorite Characters: Mike Watt (Spaced)

 

I’ve already talked about Tim and Daisy relationship, and while both of them will most likely get their own post someday, today’s is about Tim’s best friend Mike.  He’s such a funny, outrageous character that it can be tempting to think of him as a mere cartoonish presence, but like everyone in Spaced, he mixes heart with the hilarity.

 

Mike seems to have two chief loves in his life:  Tim and the Territorial Army (the British army reserves.)  He eats, sleeps, and breathes soldierdom, always carrying at least one “security gun” with him and frequently dressing in combat gear.  When the gang plans an elaborate caper, Tim tells everyone the rendezvous time but needs to convert it to military time for Mike.  The only problem?  The Territorial Army will no longer have him.

 

Yep, the TAs ousted him after a slight incident involving a stolen tank.  Mike, then, is more than a soldier without a war; he’s one without an army.  While he makes do in his day-to-day civilian life – snapping off salutes, throwing himself ferociously into paintball, joining the Rough Ramblers (from what I can tell, a Cub Scout equivalent) – it’s clear that he’s desperate to get back in.

 

When he’s not treating London as his own personal foxhole, Mike is joined at the hip with Tim.  He enjoys many of the same geeky pursuits that Tim does, from Star Wars to Lara Croft, and is naturally at his happiest if he can incorporate tactical movements and violence.  His walkie talkies are ever at the ready for scheming purposes, and when he and Tim build a competitive battle robot, he treats it like a particularly lethal pet.

 

More than that, though, Mike is there for Tim in ways that his somewhat navel-gazing friend doesn’t always manage.  Whether he’s advising Tim to be cautious with his ex-girlfriend or helping him climb into an air duct, he always has Tim’s back (and that’s literal when they play paintball.)  His protectiveness toward and constant efforts to help Tim are as sweet as they are entertaining, and some of the show’s most surprisingly serious moments come when Mike takes Tim to task for not giving their friendship the proper attention.

 

I should mention there’s a distinct possibility that Mike is in love with Tim.  While there’s no woman he shows an especial interest in, he’s been known to appraisingly compliment Tim’s looks and has outright said, “I fancy you.”  I know that sitcoms are notorious for bromance jokes, but for whatever reason, the dynamic here feels a bit more earnest to me.  Maybe it’s Tim’s reaction to statements like this; he’s non-receptive but no more than mildly annoyed, and on the rare occasions when he’s the bromantic one (like saying, “Hey, babe,” when Daisy tells him his “boyfriend” is on the phone,) it feels overtly jokey in a way that it doesn’t when it’s Mike.

 

Overall, from a gender perspective, Mike is an interesting character.  He’s incredibly nerdy, uber-macho, and openly sensitive, which makes for a neat mix.  Any time his rough-and-tumble military exploits fall flat, it’s because he’s been ambitious and gung-ho beyond his ken, not because he’s generally incapable, and he slips as easily into geek references as Tim does.  All the while, he’s an emotional guy who doesn’t balk at talking about his feelings.  It’s not often that you come across a character like Mike on TV.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2012)

 

Gotta love National Theatre Live.  What a terrific way to see fantastic plays!  I need to watch out – if I’m not careful, I might start to resent any London productions that don’t get recorded for cinema screenings!  Anyway, this time around, it’s a dramatized version of Mark Haddon’s famous novel.

 

Going in, I was curious as to how they’d pull it off. It's a very internal book, with so much of it living in Christopher’s precisely-detailed thoughts.  Granted, that sort of thing is easier to do onstage than in a movie, but it still presents an important challenge.  Any concerns, though, were quickly allayed.  This play incorporates Christopher’s thoughts and observations in creatively functional ways, while also wonderfully depicting the sensory chaos of a neurotypical world from the perspective of someone with autism.

 

One thing I like about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is that, though Christopher’s autism makes up an unmistakable aspect of his character, it isn’t the plot in and of itself.  Rather, the story is about his investigation into the death of his neighbor’s dog, as well as his relationships with his parents.  Christopher’s investigation sends him into unfamiliar territory, forcing him to change and adapt.  It also causes additional friction between him and his father and uncovers secrets that have been kept from him.  It’s a story about learning to venture out, learning to forgive, and learning to trust.  I really appreciate that.

 

That being said, the production is very autism-savvy.  The acting, direction, sound, lighting, and set all work together to help neurotypical people see the world through Christopher’s eyes.  When he’s in overwhelming situations, disorienting dubstep music assaults the senses, the ensemble is a source of constant noise, motion, and intrusive touching (they grab, push, and lift him at will,) and a barrage of lights and words flash across the otherwise-minimalist stage.  There’s information- and sensory-overload everywhere.

 

As I said, a decent chunk of Christopher’s narration from the book is brought to the play.  Sometimes, he delivers the monologues himself, but more often, they’re read aloud (from the book he’s writing) by his teacher, who’s almost ever-present onstage.  It’s a nice device, since it keeps Christopher in the action, and it’s interesting, since many of the lines sound stiff and technical as he wrote them, but his teacher reads them with warmth and feeling.  It helps the show get at the feelings Christopher of course has but has difficulty articulating or expressing in socially-conventional ways.

 

The acting is excellent across the board.  Luke Treadaway ably handles the physical and emotional demands of playing Christopher, and Paul Ritter does a fine job as his father, a man who’s half-drowning in his struggles, who frequently gets it wrong but who’s trying desperately.  Additionally, Sherlock fans will recognize Una Stubbs (Mrs. Hudson) as Christopher’s neighbor.

 

Warnings

 

Thematic elements, some strong language, sexual references, and drinking.

2014 Emmy Awards

 

For me, the Emmys were a bit of a mixed bag this year.  I loved some decisions, side-eyed others, and there were a few awards that genuinely surprised me in the midst of a lot of predictable ones.  As far as the telecast itself goes, I enjoyed Seth Meyers as a host.  He gives good smart-aleck without being overly biting.  All his digs at network TV made me smile, and, though there were a few too many McConaughey jokes overall, Meyers’s “Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey intro battle” with Amy Poehler was super fun.  Billy Crystal’s remarks about Robin Williams were lovely, and Weird Al’s rendition of the Game of Thrones theme was a delight.

 

Onto the awards.  First off, did Modern Family really need another win?  It’s a nice show, and I like it, but really?  It just makes me shake my fist all the more at the lack of love for The Mindy Project this year, or Community ever.  That said, I got a kick out of Ty Burrell’s speech “written by the kids of Modern Family.”  And as rote as Jim Parsons’s win was, I’m okay with it.  Maybe Sheldon’s possible aceness is bringing out my solidarity, but I still love Sheldon, and I thought he had a good year.

 

Drama was, predictably and well-deservedly, a near-sweep by Breaking Bad.  Of course it was going to win just about everything, and nobody was taking that trophy from Bryan Cranston.  And if Tyrion’s trial wasn’t enough to get Peter Dinklage another statue, I’m glad Aaron Paul won.  Still, that didn’t leave much love for other shows.  Maybe now that Breaking Bad is over, Hannibal can at least get a nomination or two (or twelve? please?) thrown its way.

 

Or a win for House of Cards, for that matter.  I’m surprised that we didn’t see a stronger showing from Netflix in general.  Kevin Spacey was my only pick for a possible Cranston upset, and I really wish Orange is the New Black had been better recognized.  As I hoped, though, the fabulous Uzo Aduba snagged a win for her sterling portrayal of Suzanne (too bad she got it at the pre-awards.  Bad form, Emmys!)

 

It was interesting to me that The Normal Heart won best TV movie.  I thought it was very well done, of course, but it’s always a little weird when something wins the top award in its genre and nothing else.  Writing, directing, acting – nada.  Fargo similarly took home few trophies (though it also grabbed a directing award,) but its best miniseries win wasn’t expected for me, since that show is so tight and insane and amazing. 

 

However, Sherlock’s snatching up of several top awards definitely surprised me.  To go from having zero Emmys (despite consistent nominations) to the triple whammy of best writing, lead actor, and supporting actor for a miniseries/TV movie is a big turnaround.  Have the Emmy voters joined tumblr?  I wish Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman had been around to accept their awards, though, especially Freeman.  I have a feeling he’d have been absolutely befuddled to win an Emmy, and that would’ve been some amusing television.

Top Five Independent Shorts: Buster Keaton

One of the things I love about Buster Keaton is how well he worked in making both feature-length and short films.  Before he started filming features, he made a slew of two-reel shorts that are crammed with creativity, energy, acrobatics, and some of the funniest work he ever did.  While the features spend time telling the story and give you room to breathe between gags, the laughs in many of Buster’s shorts are almost literally nonstop.  Depending on how motivated I am, I may start reviewing them more fully later, but for now, here are the absolute must-sees.

  

One Week (1920)

 

Buster and his new bride receive a build-it-yourself house kit as a wedding gift, and when her ex-beau sabotages the building process, the house they wind up with is one-of-a-kind.  The whole building is crooked, the front door is on the second story, and it’s prone to spinning like a merry-go-round when the wind picks up.  Absolutely hilarious, not to mention an engineering marvel.

 

Neighbors (1920)

 

Buster is in love with the girl across the fence, but the pair is kept apart by their squabbling parents.  The sheer number of gags Buster mines from a fence and a clothesline is incredible, and his persistent efforts to be with his girl are both enterprising and remarkably agile.  The standing-on-shoulders sequence alone is astounding.  And even simpler gags, like a pair of broken suspenders, are golden in Buster’s capable hands.

 

The Playhouse (1921)

 

This short is best known for the technical masterpiece of its opening sequence, in which Buster plays everyone onscreen:  playhouse performers, orchestra musicians, and audience members, at one point duplicating himself nine times in a single shot.  It’s so amazing that people forget the rest, which is a shame, because it’s excellent.  Highlights include some fantastic twin gags and Buster’s dead-on impression of a monkey.  Honestly, if you squint, you can’t tell the difference.

 

The Boat (1921)

 

Why did this make the list?  Damfino!  I love that this is a silent film whose biggest laugh is a pun told via telegraph – it’s so Buster.  Beyond that, the story of Buster and his family’s catastrophe-fraught maiden voyage on a homemade boat is fantastic.  Everything about the storm sequence is made of win, and you can never go wrong watching Buster try to lower a lifeboat.

 

Cops (1922)

 

Chase scenes are Buster’s catnip, and this short is one giant excuse to have Buster flee from an entire police force.  Thanks to a series of mishaps, he collects more and more uniformed pursuers and unleashes all manner of nimble tricks to avoid them.  There are street cars and fire escapes involved, and a sequence with a ladder that will leave you gaping in amazement at Buster’s dexterity – talk about iconic.

Doctor Who: Series 8, Episode 1 – “Deep Breath” (2014)

 

And so ends our eight months of waiting.  New season, new mystery, and most of all, new Doctor!  I’ll avoid spoilers for the various important goings-on, but more spoiler-phobic Whovians may still want to avert their eyes.

 

Plot first:  we’re back in Victorian London, which, these days, means another appearance by the Paternoster gang Vastra, Jenny, and Strax.  Though I still enjoy them, I feel like there are diminishing returns on this crew, especially Strax.  I thought he was just about perfect as the Sontaran nurse in “A Good Man Goes to War,” but he’s just been a violent buffoon since then.  It’s cheaper, less creative, and not as funny.  Anyway, the TARDIS finds its way to old London town with a bang (and a roar.)  There’s a dinosaur, a spate of mysterious “spontaneous combustions,” and a man with half a face.  For the most part, it holds together as a sci-fi romp, with a few thrills and some good action.

 

In terms of the alien plot, this might be one of my favorite Clara outings.  She’s able to be clever and brave, and she makes contributions to the story, although it seems like her most significant actions may continue to be making stirring speeches.  Is it too much to ask to see the woman do something?  The jury’s still out on whether or not we’ll get anything like concrete personality traits from her, but now that the whole Impossible Girl thing has been dealt with, I’m hopeful that she’ll be allowed to be a person instead of a mystery.  Seriously – free Clara!

 

The writing, courtesy of Moffat, is (unfortunately typically) rather heavy-handed.  I get that the new Doctor looks old, and that’s an adjustment, but the way the dialogue harps on it makes it seem like Peter Capaldi has a foot in the grave.  There’s way too much pointed speechifying about how he’s the same man and why anyone who loves him less due to his age is a horrible, shallow person.  It also repeatedly accuses Clara of being upset about “her boyfriend” (ugh) turning into some old guy and very insistently wants you to know that the new Doctor is done with flirting.  (Why it has to tell us over and over instead of just, you know, not flirting, is beyond me.)  It makes the episode feel defensive and self-conscious instead of owning itself.

 

If the above is a mixed bag, the important part – the new Doctor part – is almost uniformly wonderful.  It’s hard to be too definitive at this point, since there’s some major regeneration wonkiness going (the Doctor initially has trouble telling Clara and Strax apart,) but so far, I’m digging Twelve.  He’s weird and alien, an odd mix of cold and compassionate, with “independently angry” eyebrows and a mind that threatens to leave him two or three stops behind.  He seems to be a bit more serious than his recent predecessors, but he still makes amusingly-ADD non-sequiturs and has the old Doctor twinkle in his eye – I love the moment where he climbs out the window instead of using the door because it’s “more him.” 

 

PC is every bit as extraordinary as I figured he’d be.  Simultaneously energetic and thoughtful, funny, heartfelt, intense, and very, very Scottish.  He carries off the regeneration crisis well, and the episode’s best moments come from his exploration of his new self and his almost-shy attempts to convince Clara he’s still the Doctor without trying to give away how much it matters to him.  If the writing doesn’t let him down, he’ll be an absolutely superb Doctor; I can’t wait to see more.

Top Five Stories: The First Doctor

Tonight we meet the latest Doctor, and I’ll geek out about it in tomorrow’s post, but today’s is about the man who started it all.  Although One isn’t my favorite – that initial crankiness and crotchetiness almost feels like cognitive dissonance now – I still enjoy his era.  It’s so cool to watch the show find its feet, and One has a dynamite trio of companions right out of the gate (it’s just possible that you’ll find them heavily represented below.)  Here are my favorites of his:
 

“The Aztecs” (Series 1, Episodes 28-31)

 

The early years of Who had some nice pure historicals, entertaining adventures in the past with no alien involvement whatsoever.  This is one of them, not to mention a rare occurrence of the TARDIS seeking an Earth locale outside of Western Europe and the U.S.  Barbara is mistaken for a goddess and tries to change history, Ian lays the smackdown on some Aztec warriors, and the Doctor accidentally gets engaged.  What else could you possibly want?

 

“The Dalek Invasion of Earth” (Series 2, Episodes 4-9)

 

This Dalek story has some great tension, as everyone’s favorite genocidal pepper pots take over the Earth of the future, and the Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara aid the resistance movement.  Barbara executes one of the most badass Dalek take-outs ever performed, and the final scene between the Doctor and Susan is gorgeous.

 

“The Reign of Terror” (Series 1, Episodes 38-43)

 

Team TARDIS visits the French Revolution!  Perfect vacation spot, right?  Another pure historical, and a terrific one.  It’s sadly incomplete, but the DVD has animated reconstructions of the two missing episodes.  Anyway, we get a fabulous disguise by the Doctor, and everyone tries to make it out with their heads still attached.  Good, suspenseful drama, and 18^th century France put less of a strain on the show’s budget than certain other settings, so the episodes look pretty great too.

 

“The Space Museum” (Series 2, Episodes 26-29)

 

Susan had left the companion trio by this time, but Vicki is a nice addition to the group.  In this serial, the dynamic quartet gets a glimpse of their own future when the TARDIS jumps a time track and they see themselves in suspended animation as museum exhibits.  Their efforts to prevent the future from happening make for an interesting, creative story.

 

“The Romans” (Series 2, Episodes 12-15)

 

One more pure historical to finish things off – they really helped keep the format fresh.  Here, the gang gets into trouble in ancient Rome.  There are unspeakably cute scenes between Ian and Barbara (they so got together in the end, right?), companions getting thrown to the lions, cases of mistaken identity, and a fire that the Doctor had absolutely nothing to do with.  Simply wonderful.

Richard III (circa 1592)

My self-assigned summer reading list included a tetrad of Shakespeare histories, all of which come to a head in this famous play.  I’m glad to have finally read it – with Shakespeare, it’s definitely a case of “so many plays, so little time.”  While I don’t find it as astonishingly well-written as my favorites of his, it’s a fine play about a fascinating character.

Reading through of the first 75% of the tetrad, the three Henry VI plays, I was surprised that Richard appears at the end of part 2 and takes a significant supporting role in part 3.  Richard III is so well-known, but I hardly ever hear people mentioning the Henry VI plays, so it’s strange to think of it as a conclusion to a larger story.  But now, having read all four plays in succession, I can’t quite imagine knowing it out of context.  Although it’s clearly the best-written of the four, the play itself exists best in conjunction with the other three.  (It helps to have read the Hollow Crown tetrad as well, written later but set earlier.  There are a handful of references to people and events from these plays that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.  This is what happens when you’re not up on your medieval English history – you have rely on what Shakespeare tells you.)

Anyway, Richard III is the story of how Richard, the deformed, duplicitous Duke of Gloucester, contrives against those standing between him and the crown, including his older brother and his young nephews.  A self-proclaimed villain, there’s nothing Richard won’t do to advance his aims.  His utter lack of compunction served his family well in the earlier plays, when his House of York wrestled the crown from the House of Lancaster and his oldest brother became king – he gladly got his hands dirty to further the cause of York.  Now, though, that same ambition has turned his own flesh and blood into enemies, and Richard isn’t an enemy you want to have.

It’s interesting to look at Richard from our modern viewpoint.  Where Shakespeare says “villain,” we would probably say “psychopath,” and indeed, many hallmarks of psychopathy are present and specifically acknowledged within his character.  He has no sense of remorse or empathy, and he views people as inconsequential pawns he uses for his purpose.  Though he’s not emotional (in earlier plays, he’s the only one not to weep when members of his family are killed,) he’s skilled at mimicking the requisite feelings and is a master manipulator who plays just about everybody. 

As far as the text goes, it’s rich with excellent lines.  Many of them come from Richard himself:  the dark dramatic irony in his deceptions, the hungry vigor in his soliloquies, and the scathing aspersions hiding under his barely-feigned niceties.  My biggest shock, quote-wise, comes at the very start, in line 1.  I honestly had to laugh when I discovered that “Now is the winter of our discontent” is immediately followed by “…Made glorious summer by this sun of York; / And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house / In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”  So basically, everything is awesome and everyone who’s ever cribbed this quote is saying the exact opposite of this speech?  Yeah, sounds about right.

Warnings

Lots of heinous acts of villainy, a fair amount of violence (including murder and battle scenes,) and plenty of Elizabethan innuendos.

Relationship Spotlight: Aaron & Jaye Tyler (Wonderfalls)

 

Strictly speaking, Wonderfalls is my least favorite Bryan Fuller show, but that speaks more to the quality of the other series than to the faults of this one.  I get that it can be a little to insular for its own good, and that Jaye’s acerbity sometimes overtakes her better traits, making it hard to relate to her.  Still, it’s a highly original, entertaining series in its own right, and nowhere is it more successful than in the various Tyler family dynamics.

 

The Tylers are great because you can pick any two members and find a distinct and believable dynamic between them.  This is rare enough on TV, even more so when the show doesn’t actually center around the entire family – while Jaye’s parents and siblings get plenty of screentime and characterization, the youngest Tyler very squarely drives the narrative.  I like pretty every character combination within this family, but my favorite remains the brother-sister duo of Aaron and Jaye.  Caroline Dhavernas and Lee Pace have pitch-perfect sibling chemistry, and the writing for these two is fun, funny, and endlessly interesting.

 

Like most of Jaye’s relationships on the show, her interactions with Aaron change considerably over the course of the far-too-short series.  At first, Aaron, while mildly ridiculing of her “trailer park, hillbilly lifestyle,” doesn’t concern himself much with Jaye, and that’s the way the antisocial retail clerk likes it.  She thinks her family spends way too much time in her business and appreciates that Aaron doesn’t bug her about her life or her increasingly-odd behavior.

 

Until the day Aaron catches her talking to his mother’s cow-shaped creamer (quick tutorial for the uninitiated:  at the start of Wonderfalls, inanimate objects – usually animal tchotchkes – begin talking to Jaye, giving her cryptic instructions that ultimately lead to helping others.  Only Bryan Fuller, people.)  Suddenly, he’s worried that she’s losing it, and when she tries to bluff her way out of his accusations, he resolutely decides to get to the bottom of it.

 

This is where the good Jaye-Aaron stuff really starts.  Aaron is almost more concerned that Jaye won’t confide in him than that she was talking to the cow creamer in the first place.  Though admittedly out of practice, he wants to protect her and gets upset that she won’t let him in.  From here on out, Aaron is the closest thing Jaye has to a confidante – one she doesn’t want, one that she spends a fair amount of time trying to avoid, but a confidante none the less.  When she’s at her most desperate, it’s Aaron that she turns to.

 

Not that either of them turn into Siblings of the Year.  No, a lot of their entertainment value comes from their oddly-compatible dysfunctionality.  Both frequently snipe and insinuate at one another, having unspoken conversations in the middle of family game nights or fondue fests that fly under the others’ radar.  Jaye’s sullen snarkiness goes well with Aaron, who tends to vacillate unpredictably between in-control laidback and panicked.  And, like all Tyler relationships, when the chips are really down, they’re there for each other.  I think of “Crime Dog,” where, despite implying pretty hard himself that Jaye is off her rocker, Aaron is quick to defend her against someone else side-eyeing her mental health.  And when Aaron’s championing gets him in trouble, Jaye jumps in with a less-tactful rebuttal of her (it involves her fist.)  She’s as surprised as anyone to discover it, but “you don’t screw with [her] family.”

Favorite Characters: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)

 

I can’t help it; I love Katniss.  Like Buffy, she’s one of those teenage girl characters I wish I’d had to sustain me through high school.  Not that much could’ve been done about it in this case, since she didn’t exist until after I finished college, but I digress.  Today’s post is about giving a little love to this flawed, fierce heroine.

 

Katniss is one of the latest to join the ranks of the butt-kicking Strong Woman (or rather, Teenage Girl) archetype, and she definitely falls in line with the associated tropes.  She has a natural affinity for archery and shoots wild game and enemies alike with deadly precision.  She’s small but strong, and what she lacks in bulk she makes up for in agility and sharp hunting instincts.  Whether she’s laying a trap or scaling a tree, she gets the job done.  Other tropes are less impressive but expected – she’s a gorgeous tomboy who has no idea that she’s beautiful, and she has no patience for “girly” things.  Yeah, it’s a bit rote and eye-rolling, but she makes up for it elsewhere.

 

Like all the best Strong Woman archetypes, Katniss’s most admirable qualities go beyond her lethal abilities.  She’s a survivor through and through, used to having responsibility on her shoulders.  Since her father died when she was young, she’s been holding her family together and keeping herself, her mother, and her younger sister fed in poverty-ravaged District 12.  Over the years, she’s nurtured her hunting skills and become a savvy black-market barterer, breaking the law for her family’s sake. 

 

I also love Katniss’s smarts.  First in the Arena, and later going up against the Capitol, she frequently faces conundrums and deceptions, and the careful way she works through them is fantastic.  One of her most memorable achievements in the first book is figuring out how to destroy the Careers’ stockpile of food, and I wish the movies had found a way to incorporate the way she discovers the unspoken messages in the gifts Haymitch sends her.  It’s so clever; she reads his intentions almost as well as she follows an animal’s trail.

 

Her most driving characteristic is her need to provide for and protect her sister Prim.  It’s what lands her in the Hunger Games in the first place, and it’s what keeps her going in the Arena – she’s worried that Prim won’t make it at home without her, and she’s determined to get backWhen she’s at her lowest and most wants to give up, she thinks of Prim watching her on TV and forces herself to continue fighting.  Though she’s often prickly and distrustful, her unselfish love for those she cares about, and her continual sacrifices on their behalf, is incredible.

 

Since I mentioned prickly and distrustful, it’s good to point out that Katniss is very believably flawed for someone who’s had to grow up quickly in a harsh world.  She tends to form unfavorable snap judgments of most people and is almost pathologically unable to believe that someone’s trying to help her.  She doubts other people’s kind observations of her and keeps them at arm’s length, and she frequently doubts herself as well.  She’s a pretty internal person, but despite that, she doesn’t know herself very well and wastes time trying to determine what she ought to want rather than what she actually wants.  It’s a real treat to watch her struggle and grow throughout the course of the trilogy – in the face of tremendous odds, she’s a hero and a fighter, and she surprises even herself with everything she’s capable of.

Hate Review: Free and Easy (1930)

 

Generally, this is a blog for celebrating things I love – Who, Sondheim, the Avengers, and so on.  As I’ve said, I like liking things, and I like writing about things I like.  But this is a potent bit of appalling that I simply have to rant about.  Spoilers ahead.  (Also, length warning:  ire is wordy.)

 

I’ve seen Free and Easy, Buster Keaton’s first talkie, before.  I watched it years ago, when I first got into Buster and a load of his movies were on TCM.  I remember thinking it wasn’t very funny, that it was nothing compared to his silent stuff.  I remember noticing that it didn’t let Buster do what he did best – it was all jokes, many of them labored, and hardly any physical comedy.  On the few occasions when he did get to tumble, the focus wasn’t on his slapstick skill but on the tremendous crashing noise picked up by the super-sensitive 1930s microphones.

 

So, unfunny, didn’t use its star well, and clunky sound technology – that’s what I remembered.  But I didn’t know as much about Buster’s history then as I knew now.  I knew he didn’t do well during the transition to sound, but I blamed it on the culture of talkies, a cinematic obsession with dialogue over action.  I didn’t understand the changeover that accompanied this transition:  against his better judgment, Buster signed with MGM, after which he lost all his independence and creative control as an actor, writer, and director.  The Cameraman and Spite Marriage, his first two studio films, feel off compared to his previous work, but Free and Easy is just horrific. 

 

While Buster was still an uncredited director in the two preceding films, on Free and Easy, he was only there to act.  The arguments that wrestled Bustery gags and touches into the other two movies were absent here.  In fact, watching it now, I can practically hear MGM putting Buster in his place after defying them.  It’s utterly un-Buster, trading all creativity for heaps of indignity.

 

Buster’s go-to arc in his own films is as follows:  a boy starts out clumsy, kicked around by circumstance, and grows into a quick-footed hero who saves the day and the girl by his doggedness and inventive problem-solving.  Free and Easy, on the other hand, gives us Kansas yokel turned would-be Hollywood manager Elmer Butts, a bumbling dope who can’t be talked through the recital of a single sentence.  Elmer’s klutziness isn’t his chief fault – rather, it’s an uncanny ability to bring disaster to everything he touches.  He ruins numerous takes on multiple movies that he isn’t even in, and while his good-hearted budding starlet (the girl for this film) takes his catastrophes in stride, her strong-arming mother constantly tells Elmer how stupid he is.

 

The one Busteresque thread is that Elmer does make good in the end, though not at what he sets out to do.  All attempts to find work for his starlet are utter nonstarters, but for whatever reason, people keep throwing movie roles of various size his way, and it’s ultimately decided that he’s a comic genius destined to become a big star.  He doesn’t try to become an actor and doesn’t really want to be one, but it happens as everything does to Elmer:  foisted upon him with very little say.

 

And that, of course, brings us right back to being un-Buster.  Elmer isn’t resourceful or tenacious.  He doesn’t solve a single problem that he has – eight or nine times out of ten, he makes it infinitely worse just by showing up, and on the off-chance that things turn out, it’s because that’s how the wind blows.  Case in point:  when Elmer, his starlet, and her mother leave Kansas for Tinseltown, he’s separated from them on the train.  Since he has their tickets, he wants to get back to them, but after a few weak protests to the conductor who won’t let him change cars, what does he do?  Distract the conductor and slip by?  Jump off the train, take a shortcut to race ahead, and leap back on?  Scramble on top of the train and get in from above?  Nope.  He sits down to make awkward small talk with the conductor until he’s allowed to change cars at the next stop.  Seriously?!  Even if you don’t want him to succeed, at least have him try.

 

I mentioned indignity earlier, which might seem a weird complaint in the context of slapstick, but it’s true.  Normally, Buster’s tumbling is so eye-catchingly hilarious and impressive that it’s clear he’s the man.  When he falls, he falls spectacularly, flipping through the air and landing on a shoulder with flailing limbs everywhere.  And more than that, he springs back up, climbing and leaping his way out of trouble with an expression of calm in the face of the chaos around him.  Nothing undignified about that.  Not so with Elmer.  When he falls, he disappears from frame and we’re left to see others laugh at him or look embarrassed on his behalf.  In the one segment where he’s allowed to tumble capably and athletically, he’s painted with clown makeup and wearing enormous “comic” trousers, as if MGM doesn’t want you to notice what he can do.

 

After literally dressing him as a harlequin clown, rigging him with strings, and making him do a puppet dance (geez, why not just whack him with a hammer that says “We own you, Buster – never cross us again?”), Free and Easy makes its final departure from Buster’s usual arc:  for the first time in a feature film, he doesn’t get the girl.  Oh, Elmer works up the nerve to declare his love for the starlet, in a roundabout “What would you do if someone said he loved you?” way.  The starlet assumes he’s talking about the suave, womanizing movie star with his eye on her, and because this movie hates Buster Keaton, it ends, not with her realizing her mistake and opening her eyes to the guy who’s only ever tried (and, albeit, failed) to help her, but with her getting engaged to the movie star and Elmer putting on a tragically brave face under the clown makeup.

 

I mean, what the frak?!  Who ends a comedy like that?  That’s a third-act pre-resolution mishap at best, and not even a very original one.  It smacks of such ignorance – about movies, about comedy, about underdog stories, and about Buster.  I don’t get how anyone could have conceived it as anything other than a “you’ll do what we tell you” slap in the face of its assertive lead actor. 

 

It’s just gross.  This is a film that takes everything Buster wove into cinematic magic for nearly a decade and takes a crap on it.  Later, when I get around to posting a poem I wrote about Buster’s time at MGM, think of this review.  Metro Goldwyn Morons.