The Time Lord and the Impossible Girl

 

Although today’s review is about a fictional relationship, it’s not exactly a Relationship Spotlight post.  More than anything, it’s my thoughts on the very uneasy Doctor-companion dynamic we wound up with this season and wondering What’s It All About.

 

Back when I posted my Whovian wish list last Christmas, I hoped for no romance and good friendship.  Well, my first wish definitely came true, although not entirely the way I would have liked.  I’ve mentioned this before, but it really annoys me that Twelve so frequently criticizes Clara appearance, as if the show needs to explain why he’s no longer interested in being her “boyfriend.”  She looks old!  She has a wide face!  She wears too much makeup!  (And, point of interest, this unfortunate quirk seems to appear most often in Moffat-penned episodes.)  I don’t know what the show’s goal is with this – to show how alien Twelve is that he doesn’t recognize Clara’s a beautiful woman?  To show how brusque, dismissive, and unfiltered he is?  To show, “See, he’s not into her anymore!  Hey, do you see how not into her he is?  ‘Cause he’s not!”  The whole thing is really unpleasant, and that’s not something I like thinking about the Doctor.

 

And of course, Clara no longer has any interest in him “that way” either.  I kind of wonder how the Doctor feels about that.  Even though he doesn’t want that from her, does it hurt to see her looking at him with the same eyes and such a different expression?  It’s probably easier for Clara to reconcile his altered feelings; since he has a new body and personality (and I don’t think, despite the big scene at the end of “Deep Breath,” that she quite equates him with Eleven,) it makes sense that he wouldn’t necessarily feel the same way.  The change is a reflection of him, not her.  Whereas, for the Doctor, Clara is the same as she’s always been, but she doesn’t treat him the same way.  In her case, the change is definitely about him.

 

Unfortunately, my second wish was even further from the mark.  The Doctor obviously still cares about Clara a great deal, and she waxes poetic about their friendship whenever the show needs her to for Teh Angst, but for the most part, she really doesn’t feel like his friend anymore.  She only wants to travel with him when it’s convenient for her (it’s painful to watch him follow her around her flat trying to convince her to go on an adventure with him,) she keeps secrets and tries to manipulate him rather than talking things through, and she doesn’t seem to particularly like who he is (I’m pretty sure Clara would’ve never said she “didn’t know” if Eleven was a good man.)

 

On the wish list, I mentioned my hope that Clara wouldn’t feel saddled with Twelve after losing “the young, cute one,” and although they seem to mainly get past the age thing in “Deep Breath,” I think there is at least a hint of that.  Apart from his youthful appearance and oddly appealing looks, Eleven has a young, cute personality that Twelve just doesn’t.  Not that Eleven is cuddly all the time – he can go scary-angry with the best of them, and when he makes the hard decisions, it’s with world-weary gravitas – but his default setting is a puppy with ADHD and a genius-level IQ.  He’s fun and silly and easy to love.  In contrast, Twelve is prickly, a bit misanthropic, and not one to make a great first impression.  There’s still a lot of warmth in him, but he keeps it below the surface, and Clara doesn’t seem terribly interested in looking for it.  With their interactions, I sometimes get the feeling that he desperately wants her to, maybe even needs her to, but he can’t say it and she’s not picking up on it.

Relationship Spotlight: Rube Sofer & George Lass (Dead Like Me)

 

If there’s one thing a newly-undead girl needs, it’s someone to guide her through the unique challenges of being a reaper and the hassles and headaches of her afterlife.  Though George would argue that it doesn’t always feel like it, Rube is just the ticket.  There’s a lot of shouting, a lot of aggravation, but when it comes down to it, she and Rube care deeply for each other.  Under his supervision, she grows as both a reaper and an undead person, and she gradually finds her way into the regard of the somewhat-closed-off man.

 

When George first becomes a reaper, she’s an absolute mess, no question about it.  She’s furious at a world that let her die when she was only 18, and the last thing she wants is someone calmly explaining her new role in society.  She doesn’t want the nine-to-five grind her afterlife turns out to be, she doesn’t want to take souls from the living, and she definitely doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of Rube’s homespun, usually food-metaphor-based advice.  And so, she acts up and out.  She tries to cheat the system, sometimes to save herself the work or responsibility, sometimes in the mistaken hope of “saving” someone, and to her, Rube is the quiet-voiced warden forcing her to toe the line.

 

This is, of course, because Rube has already been where George is now.  He’s learned what happens when an expired soul sits in a heart, when someone dies with their souls still in their body, or when you bend the rules of fate to make someone miss their “appointment.”  He knows how important their work is, and he does whatever he can, not just to get George to do what she’s supposed to, but to help her understand why she has to do it.  Sometimes, he gives her big, confrontational “shape up, little girl” moments, which is what the obstinate, self-centered George often needs.  She gives him lip, and he gets in her face, letting her know exactly how her irresponsibility or meddling affects people’s lives, and more importantly, their deaths. 

 

But that isn’t Rube’s only tactic.  He also realizes that, for all of George’s attitude and defiance, she’s still a confused dead girl trying to make sense of an impossible situation, and there are times when she can’t deal with hard truths delivered bluntly.  In these moments, he’s surprisingly gentle, fatherly, with her.  They often come after he’s warned her of the thin ice she’s on and she’s ignored him, causing the catastrophe he was trying to prevent.  They’re the moments when she most expects the full force of his ire, but he instead offers her quiet support and concern.  I think of when, against his explicit instructions, she tries to make contact with her mother and gets burned for it, or his considerate advice to think of everything she likes about being on Earth and decide if it’s worth sticking around for.

 

I’d imagine Rube prefers these caring scenes with George over the ones where he has to yell at her – it’d be much nicer for both of them if she would just learn to believe him when he tells her she can’t avoid her duties.  However, I think he knows that the strong-willed George has high enough defenses that she’s only receptive to such conversations when she’s taken a hit.  So, he instead gives her what she needs when she needs it: he’s tough on her to try and protect her from making serious mistakes, and when she falls anyway, he’s there to pick up the pieces and let her know she can come back from it.

Captain America (2011, PG-13)

 

This was my first period superhero film, and I remember immediately loving that aspect of it.  I really enjoyed Iron Man when I initially saw it, and it remains a great film, but after I finally started digging into these movies after seeing The Avengers, I was drawn to the different feels of Thor and this film.

 

Captain America, as a superhero film, is less unconventional than Thor in that it offers up a fairly traditional origin story, but it’s told very well and makes excellent use of its 1940s setting.  Steve Rogers’s transformation from a scrappy weakling to a scientifically-modified super soldier provides engaging drama, and it’s great to see him find his place in the fight against fascism.  And even though it takes place so many years before Marvel’s other Phase 1 films, I like that plot elements from it have important bearing on The Avengers.

 

Any discussion of the movie’s good points has to start with Steve himself.  Cap is just so fantastic.  Before seeing The Avengers, I knew that Captain America had a reputation for being something of a boy scout, and I was expecting him to be squeaky-clean and dull (like the titular son of Krypton in Superman Returns, yeesh.)  Quite the contrary – this series understands how goodness can be compelling, and this film introduces us to a good man trying to do his best.  He doesn’t always succeed, and it takes him some time to find his way, but he’s a hero who stands up for the little guy because he knows what it’s like to be one.  Chris Evans really taps into this with his performance – it’s so earnest and rootable, not the least bit Pollyannaish.  So much love for the captain.

 

Even better, he’s not alone.  Peggy Carter is my favorite superhero love interest ever, and it’s only because Black Widow is so awesome that she’s not my favorite Marvel woman in general.  This gutsy, competent agent, played superbly by Hayley Atwell, has claimed a seat at a very male-dominated table, and she doesn’t take crap from anyone.  She’s both badass and feminine, and she’s directly involved in the action rather than being stuck solely in romantic and/or distressed damsel plots.  I was predisposed to like Steve’s friend Bucky, since he’s played by Kings’s Sebastian Stan, but I really enjoy the relationship between those two.  In the beginning, I like that Bucky looks out for Steve without being patronizing about it and that Steve doesn’t seem to resent or covet Bucky’s size, strength, or joie de vivre; he wants to enlist like Bucky, certainly, but Bucky’s success doesn’t come between them.  And later, when Steve has superhuman abilities and nationwide fame, Bucky doesn’t feel threatened by this change.  And of course, we can’t forget Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones (the Dream Lord!) as good and evil scientists, respectively.

 

I just love the film’s WWII backdrop.  I like the sepia tones of New York City, like an old newsreel come to life, and I always love old-timey high-tech gadgets.  The V-for-Victory spirit is captured well, especially in the bond drive scenes.  It’s a shame that we got one Captain America movie in this setting, but I have high hopes for Agent Carter.  Is it January yet?

 

Warnings

 

Comic book violence, drinking, and some language.

Favorite Characters: Veronica Palmer (Better Off Ted)

 

This isn’t a comparison I would’ve ever thought I’d make, but in a way, Better Off Ted is a tiny bit like Kings.  Back when it premiered, I watched it offhandedly, in large part because I had nothing else to do at the time.  I thought it was fine, nothing extraordinary.  However, it didn’t take long before I was completely in love with this oddball comedy, and when it was canceled after its second season, I mourned it hard.

 

Essential to Better Off Ted’s comic success is the complete sincerity with which the mostly outrageous characters react to the absurdity around them.  Life and business at Veridian Dynamics is a high-octane dose of surreal madness, and although the characters are similarly larger than life, they somehow ground all the insanity and make it feel wonderfully, hilariously true.  I could write about any one of them, but it’s fitting, I think, that my first post about Better Off Ted is about the captain of its ridiculous ship.

 

Though Veronica isn’t the top dog at Veridian – she has a boss who appears on occasion, and she has to frequently troubleshoot ways to get ideas approved “upstairs” – she’s in charge of Ted and all the other regulars.  In many ways, she’s a model executive; her sights are usually set on the bottom line, she doesn’t have any particular investment in whether or not something is actually feasible, and any efforts she makes to mask her indifference toward the underlings are halfhearted, to say the least. 

 

These traits are funny enough on their own.  Veronica’s always good for a drive-by insult, and I love the eternally-ludicrous tasks she gives her workers.  It’s great when, upon learning that the employees would appreciate being treated as individuals, she has their cubicles decorated according to one of four corporate-approved themes.  But Veronica’s character has plenty of other comic wrinkles, and though they complement these main tropes, they bring their own added humor to the mix.

 

There’s of course her tightly-wound coldness (“The company feels that if we ease up because someone dies, it will only encourage other people to die,”) and her almost alien disregard for the concerns of the plebs (“Ugh!  There are employees everywhere.  It’s like I’m walking through spider webs.”)  There’s her frightening intensity (“Ted, you’d a guest.  I can’t have you flinching every time I shoot a gun in here,”) coupled with her blasé pragmatism (“Yes, Ted, I know.  I shouldn’t hit people on the staff.  I’ve been hearing that since grade school.”)  There’s her calm superiority (“I’m different than other women, Ted, and by different, I mean better,”) and one mustn’t forget her deep, abiding, utterly random prejudice (“I think it’s Dutch.  It sounds like their stupid handiwork, with their cheese and their giant propeller buildings.”)

 

And, perhaps most surprising of all, every once in a while, she really comes through.  It’s often related to her business-savvy, naturally – not many people could, given shockingly little prep time, pull off a successful presentation for a product they haven’t actually come up with.  However, on occasion she also shows a glimmer of regard for others beneath her robot-like detachment.  More than once, she actually bends the rules(!) for Ted’s sake!  Oh, and she can sit calmly discussing the web-dwelling octo-chicken created in the lab.  How much does Veronica rule?

Top Five Songs: Kiss of the Spider Woman

 

(I didn't have much luck finding pictures from the pertinent scenes, so this one will have to do quintuple duty and represent the whole show.)

 

I recently picked up a CD of this Kander & Ebb show, and I’ve been listening to it a lot.  There’s the cast, of course – Chita Rivera and Anthony Crivello, and the incredible Brent Carver, who I loved in Parade.  Plus, though it won’t replace Cabaret as my Kander & Ebb musical of choice, the score is excellent as well, with my favorites listed below.  (Note:  I get a vibe that Molina is a straight trans* woman rather than a gay man, but the show uses male pronouns, so I will, too.)

 

“Dressing Them Up” – I love this breezy, peppy number.  Brent Carver’s Molina is so wonderful, and this song, describing his pre-prison life as a window dresser, hits you squarely with all the force of his personality.  I like the way he’s so proud of his window-dressing accomplishments that he doesn’t even care that the gruff Valentin won’t be impressed.

 

Best line:  “You’ll never catch them wearing a frown / Or catch them dressing me down / For my finesse at dressing them up.”

 

“Marta” – The simple, aching melody here is so lovely.  As Valentin describes his girlfriend on the outside and how he thinks of her, there’s a poignant sense of longing that cuts through the whole song.  It nicely creates this dreamlike feeling of contentment and then wakes you from it.

 

Best line:  “So I close my eyes, / And I hear her step, / And I know she’s come to hold me. / So, my senses stir, / But it’s never ever her – / It’s just a dream of her.”

 

“Gabriel’s Letter / My First Woman” – Another bittersweet song about love.  This one stitches together a gentle brush-off letter from Gabriel, the man Molina loves who’s “just not that way,” and Valentin’s remembrance of his first sexual experience.  The two different melodies blend wonderfully, and it’s an interesting contrast between an end (that never really started) and a beginning (that’s cherished but only half-recalled.)

 

Best line:  “What did she look like? / Probably plain. / Who can remember? / But to me she was the keeper of all mystery.”

 

“You Could Never Shame Me” – In this gorgeously heartfelt dream scene, Molina imagines a conversation with his mother, who assures him that she knows all about him being “different” and doesn’t mind.  It’s sweet, earnest, and could easily serve as the official PFLAG theme song.

 

Best line:  “Some other mamas have children / Whose secrets hurt them so, / But you have no secrets – I already know.”

 

She’s a Woman” – Best for last:  Molina’s quiet, wistful envy of Valentin’s Marta.  Not only because Valentin loves her, but because she simply has the good fortune to be a woman.  I love how the song builds from its soft, dreamy beginning to the big, almost desperate finish.  Just stunning.

 

Best line:  “Milky lotions, scented creams - / She’s the climax / Of your Technicolor dreams. / How lucky can you be? / So lucky, you’ll agree. / And I wish that she were me, / That woman.”

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014, PG-13)

 

While I don’t think Mockingjay needed to be split into two films, I’m pleased with the overall effect.  Unlike other Part 1 movies I could name, it feels like a complete film on its own, with no prevailing sense that it’s just set-up for next year’s main attraction.  It doesn’t drag, but moves along at a good pace while allowing a little extra time for color and character moments – though I think Catching Fire is excellent, plenty of good stuff from it feels rushed or short-changed.

 

It’s impossible to talk specifically about any Hunger Games installment without spoiling earlier twists, so my discussion of the general premise will spoil a few things that came before.  Consider yourself warned.  Mockingjay finds Katniss a wreck after the events of Catching Fire; her district is in smoldering ruins, Peeta is being held prisoner in the Capitol, and in her underground sanctuary with the rebels of District 13, she’s expected to step up and be the face of a revolution.  However, much like the Games relied so heavily on media and image, Katniss is called on to be more of an emblem than a leader.  It’s Katniss, so you know she’s not just going to sit back and do what she’s told, but the vision District 13 has is of a gorgeous freedom fighter giving stirring speeches and wielding prop weapons in front of a camera.

 

I’ve always liked this element of the series, the emphasis on the power of images, of media manipulation.  In the Games, Katniss was a pawn of the Capitol, and here, she’s asked to be a pawn for the other side.  It muddies the waters in a good way, because there’s subterfuge and propaganda no matter where she is, and her world doesn’t divide neatly between those wearing white and black hats.  I love her inner struggle between consenting to be the “mockingjay” and wanting to make a more tangible contribution to the war effort, whether it’s to get into the fray and fight or to help ease people’s suffering.  In a way, it’s a lot like Steve’s plot in Captain America, wherein the army tries to turn him into a symbol rather than let him be a soldier.

 

The film does a nice job following the book.  It hits the major beats well and leaves room for more of the “little” moments that didn’t get a lot of screentime in the first two films (not entirely, of course – in particular, Finnick seems to get the short straw much of the time.)  Additionally, it fleshes out some of the outside-world elements, which I love.  It’s really affecting to see slogans and themes from Katniss’s televised “propos” appropriated for scenes of the districts rebelling.  It ties her plot in better with the larger story of what’s going on in Panem.

 

Jennifer Lawrence is, predictably, wonderful.  While Katniss’s PTSD isn’t as prominent in the film as in the book, Lawrence beautifully captures her pain, desperation, and inner conflict.  As Peeta, Josh Hutcherson makes the most of his reduced role and makes me excited to see what he’s going to do with Peeta’s story in Part 2, and Sam Claflin’s performance as a more shell-shocked Finnick is a great contrast to his work in Catching Fire.  Among the adult cast, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Julianne Moore as President Coin, and Elizabeth Banks as Effie are especially great, and it’s cool to see Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell or Jamie Moriarty, depending on your fandom) as the subversive filmmaker Cressida.

 

Warnings

 

Violence (including implied torture,) some disturbing images, and thematic elements.

College (1927)

 

While this isn’t one of my favorite Buster Keaton films, any classic Buster is good classic Buster.  My biased modern brain tends to think of College as “good for a silent movie,” whereas Buster’s best work is good, period.  Still, there are some fine laughs to be found in this collegiate comedy.

 

Let’s ignore the fact that Buster was in his early 30s and playing an 18-year-old here, specifically the highly academic and staunchly anti-athletics Ronald.  However, when his girlfriend Mary turns up her nose at Ronald’s scholarly focus, he changes his tune in the hopes of winning her back.  As he works his way through college, he tries his hand at a wide array of sports, determined to impress Mary if it kills him – which is a distinct possibility.

 

Right off the bad, part of the problem is that Mary is no prize.  She’s cute, sure, but she’s awfully quick to throw Ronald over, and you can’t shake the idea that she’s not worth the back-breaking effort he’s putting in.  From baseball to football to track, he throws himself into his athletic pursuits and finds that his collection of how-to books haven’t prepared him.  Each new sport offers a different set piece in which Ronald tries his luck and, generally, falls flat on his face.

 

This is the movie’s other major sticking point:  Ronald is an almost hopelessly-uncoordinated weakling.  Now, Buster’s characters usually start out clumsy and end up nimble with little explanation of how they got to be so, but the contrast seems starker in this film.  Ronald is such an athletic charity case that he can’t outrun a pair of little boys half his size, so it doesn’t quite feel genuine when he becomes strong, swift, and graceful by the movie’s close.  Not to mention, plenty of the costumes plainly show how muscular Buster is, and a throwaway stunt early on demonstrates that, while Ronald is tragic on the sports field, he can somersault while holding a cup and saucer and not spill a drop.  Uncoordinated weakling – really?

 

But that’s enough about the movie’s faults.  The above-mentioned stunt is a definite rewind-moment, where Buster does something so funny or impressive that I have to see it again.  Though College doesn’t have as many of these moments as my favorite films of his, it still has some fun sequences.  There’s a scene of Ronald valiantly trying to do tricks while working in an ice cream parlor – tossing the scoops and catching them in the cup, that kind of thing – that’s a stitch, and the entire opening is a riot.  Buster puts some rain-soaked clothes and a seat by the radiator to excellent comedic use, and he does this odd little tilting motion while giving a speech that I simply can’t describe.  I could die laughing at him in this scene, and all he’s doing is leaning – he really was one-of-a-kind.

 

It’s interesting to note that this movie contains the only instance of Buster using a stunt double in his independent films.  It turns out he couldn’t pole-vault through a second-story window and, not wanting to halt production while he took the time to learn, brought in an Olympic pole-vaulter as a wringer.  For one shot in 11 features and 19 shorts, that’s not too shabby.

 

Warnings

 

Slapstick violence and a scene of unfortunate racial humor.

Meditations on Missy (Doctor Who)

 

My spoilery review of this season’s Who finale was so packed that I didn’t get a chance to touch on Missy, and I really want to take a look at this character.  Big spoilers ahead on Missy, her identity, and important events from the finale, so read on at your own risk.

 

From her first cameo in this year’s premiere as the Mary Poppins-esque overseer of “Heaven,” fans have been speculating about just who Missy is.  Among other guesses (the Rani? an evil regeneration of Romana?), her name led some fans to hit the nail on the head.  It’s not so surprising, given Moffat’s penchant for wordplay, that Missy is the Who version of Irene Adler’s password.  Missy = Mistress = the Master, the first onscreen depiction of a Time Lord regeneration that crosses gender.  We knew it was possible – when Eleven first checked the length of his hair, he momentarily thought he was “a girl,” and his stories about the Corsair in “The Doctor’s Wife” confirm cross-gender regeneration – but we’d never seen it.

 

Overall, I’m fairly pleased with the result.  I think I would’ve preferred her written by a showrunner with a less “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” approach to gender, but it’s not too bad.  The ludicrous flirting/macking/claims that the Doctor is her boyfriend are the most irritating – it’s like she can barely control herself.  (On a side note, I’ve always wondered which is hardwired for a Time Lord, their orientation or the gender(s) they’re attracted to.  Take the Doctor:  mostly ace-ish but at least partially romantically attracted to women.  Would it be the same for a female Doctor because she’s inherently into women, or would it flip because she’s inherently straight?  Of course, with the Master’s long-established obsession with the Doctor, we don’t exactly have a clear-cut answer here.  I’m sure the Tennant-Simm Doctor/Master slash fans are particularly jealous of these two.)

 

But though I’m not sure about some of her dialogue or her behavior, I adore her plan.  It’s pure, twisted Master all the way.  As I said, the Master’s always had this intense tug-of-war obsession with the Doctor, and I love the idea of her giving him an army of undead Cybermen to resolve all the conflicts in the universe.  She’s baiting him with the means to save the unjustly slaughtered, but she’s coupling it with war, something he can’t bear.  She’s doing it all to “get her old friend back,” and she plans to do it by dragging him down to her level and proving he’s just as power-hungry and corruptible as she is.

 

Then, throw in the idea that, while the bodies in the Cybermen are whatever was on hand on Earth at the time, the consciousnesses she’s been collecting in the Nethersphere have been cherry-picked from across the Doctor’s timeline.  We see her this season scooping up minds of the dead from Twelve’s adventures, but it’s not just the current incarnation – the frickin’ Brigadier is turned into a Cyberman.  So, her gift of a mindlessly-obeying, killer Cyber-army is populated entirely by loved ones the Doctor has lost, people he failed to save, people who died because of his mistakes, or people who gave their lives for him.  How sick is that?!  I mean, my goodness, talk about a head trip.  Although some have lately been pushing the idea that Twelve is cold and callous, that he doesn’t care about collateral damage, Missy knows better than that.  Her plot goes straight for the emotional jugular, hitting the Doctor everywhere it hurts the most.  I hope we see this incarnation again, because I can’t remember the last time the Master pulled something so perverse, and that was some excellent TV.

Little Dorrit (2008)

 

Apparently this is a good week for writing about adaptations of books but not the actual books themselves.  After the earlier post about the film of A Single Man, today’s write-up focuses on this Masterpiece miniseries of the Charles Dickens novel.  Though my chief literary-miniseries source remains Jane Austen, there have been some nice projects made based on Dickens, and this 8-hour program is terrific.

 

The Little Dorrit in question is Amy Dorrit, a young woman born in a debtor’s prison.  Thanks to her gentleman father’s profligacy, she’s spent her entire life in its shadow, taking odd jobs by day and bringing her meager earnings back to her father in the prison every night.  She’s the quiet caretaker of, not only her father, but her older brother and sister as well, along with various indigent friends.  When she forms a chance friendship with the well-to-do Arthur Clennam, the kind-hearted man seeks to improve her family’s financial situation, but she wants nothing more than his love.

 

The storytelling is a bit problematic – like Esther in Bleak House and many of Dickens’s prominent female characters, Amy is a fairly saintly Angel of the House.  It’s not an uncommon archetype for Victorian writers, but it means that Amy’s selflessness often belies belief; she’s just too much of a paragon.  Though the book doesn’t ignore Amy’s feelings about her constant, unappreciated service for her family, the miniseries does a more effective job of really dramatizing it, and that helps to ground the character a little more in this version.  Yes, she’s only really content when she’s giving of herself to others, but Claire Foy’s beautiful performance highlights her pain at the dismissive treatment she receives.

 

Because her family really is awful.  Her beloved father is the worst – she loves him so completely, is basically living entirely to serve him, and he’s utterly tone-deaf to it.  He’s forever attuned to any perceived slights at his reduced circumstances, and any time Amy says the wrong thing or shows the smallest sign of not being wholly at his beck and call, he lets loose the most insidiously passive-aggressive guilt trips to make his slavishly devoted daughter feel horrible about herself.  There’s a scene where some modest perks of his are jeopardized when Amy fails to fall in line with something that would irrevocably change her entire life, and he just goes on and on about some “friend” whose “sister” heartlessly refused to do this very insignificant thing that would’ve eased her poor destitute father’s “(I mean) brother’s” suffering.  It was a hard scene to read, but seeing it play out onscreen, where he won’t let it lie and she just silently crumbles and takes it, is so heartbreaking.

 

The miniseries excels best at softly tragic scenes like this one, but it also has a fine touch for the comic moments.  Additionally, it has an amazing cast that includes Matthew Macfadyen as Arthur, plus Andy Serkis (Gollum himself), Maxine Peake (Veronica from Shameless,) and Whoniverse folk Freema Agyeman (Martha!), Arthur Darvill (Rory!), and Eve Myles (Gwen from Torchwood.)  Everyone wonderfully realizes their characters from the book but, apart from the stellar leads, I want to single out Ruth Jones as Flora, Arthur’s old flame who hasn’t quite burned out yet, and Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame from the Titantic episode of Doctor Who, and former History Boy) as John, the assistant turnkey besotted with Amy.

Relationship Spotlight: Jesse St. James & Rachel Berry (Glee)

 

First of all, so there’s no misunderstanding – Glee is utterly and absolutely a guilty pleasure series.  It started out as a messy-but-fun show with enjoyable music and cool Broadway actors and has largely devolved into a confused heap of goodness-knows-what.  I continue to watch because 1) I’m still hooked by some of the characters, 2) some of the performers can turn straw into gold, and 3) I’m pretty much unable to quit a show I’ve invested any significant stretch of time in (hey, I stuck with poor How I Met Your Mother to the bitter end!)

 

Also let it be known that the Rachel/Jesse story takes more than a few hard nonsensical turns.  I still literally don’t know how the writers thought they were getting from point A to point Q in the last few episodes of season 1, and Jesse’s butchered characterization in season 2 is saved only by Jonathan Groff’s sheer watchability.  They’re not a relationship for the ages, it’s not great storytelling, and the show spends plenty of time actively muddying their waters, but heaven help me, I just love these two.

 

In the back half of season 1, Rachel needs an obstacle to keep her from her at-the-time endgame romance with Finn, so she’s given a short-term love interest in the form of the possibly-(almost certainly?)-duplicitous Jesse.  Like Rachel, he’s a show-choir diva with talent too big for Ohio, a flair for the theatrical, and a powerful belief in his own star quality.  He adores the same Broadway shows, dedicates the same hours and effort to perfecting his musical performances, and sings into hairbrush-microphones with the same earnestness as her.  After the time she’s spent with Finn, who likes her but seems to find her inscrutable, it’s no wonder that she clicks so easily with Jesse.  Throw in the fact that he’s the lead of a rival glee club and you have a Tony-and-Maria-esque forbidden love that must be like catnip for the overdramatic Rachel.

 

It’s endlessly fun to watch Rachel and Jesse serenade each other (Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff singing together will always be a good thing) or speaking the same Broadway-reference shorthand.  Jesse’s best episodes on the show are when the series had a cracky, surprising sense of humor, and I love some of the preposterous nonsense he and Rachel spout together:  her breathless little gasp when he challenges Finn to a sing-off to “settle” things between them, their secret rendezvous in the Sondheim autobiography section of the library, his request that, if she won’t tell him what’s bothering her, they at least sing about it.  Theirs is a ludicrous, larger-than-life pairing filled with wonderfully silly dialogue and fantastic duet chemistry.

 

And okay – I get that Jesse’s definitely on the wrong side of shady, and I get that his ruthless fame-over-friendship stance flies in the face of Rachel’s major arc, learning to share the spotlight and not always putting herself first.  That said, I love that Jesse genuinely seems to like her for who she is.  While Finn’s compliments to her mostly run, “I love you even though you’re…” (crazy/not that pretty/selfish/annoying/disparaging remark of choice,) Jesse doesn’t do that with her.  Her drive, her drama, her outrageousness, and everything else that people make fun of her for are things that he likes about her.  Although he obviously has a massive ego, he never gives the impression that he deigns to be with her or that he’s doing her a favor by going out with her.  Given much of Rachel’s high school experience, she could really use someone like that, and if the show had ever regarded them as anything more than a temporary Finn/Rachel roadblock, they could’ve grown into something fun, interesting, and great.

A Single Man (2009, R)

 

*Disclaimer: The last time I watched this movie, I exclaimed out loud when I saw the Weinstein Company ‘W’ logo during the opening credits – I hate that that man had a hand in so many great movies. In the case of A Single Man, the Weinstein Company didn’t produce it on the front end, but they did distribute it.*

 

You may infer from the picture, the year, and the rating that today’s post is about the movie and not the Christopher Isherwood novel it’s based on.  The book is exquisite, an absolute melancholic beauty, but the film is tremendous in its own right.  Though I’m sure it helps that I saw it before I read the book, I don’t really mind its deviations from the original story; the film always feels true to the soul of the book even when it changes the details, and it’s a gorgeous piece of evocative cinema.

 

George is an Englishman working as a professor in California in the early ‘60s.  Though he carries himself fairly well – a little sadly, but nothing beyond reason – no one can see how badly he’s broken inside.  It’s been a year since the unexpected death of his longtime partner, Jim, and ever since, it’s been a struggle simply to “become George” every morning.  The film takes place over a single “goddamn day” in George’s private grief, one he’s determined he won’t repeat.  The plot wanders a little (though it has a more specific through-line than the book,) but that’s all right, because George himself is wandering.  We follow him to and from work, on errands, alone, with students, with neighbors, with friends, and into his remembrances.

 

Every time I see this film, I’m floored by its use of color.  Most of the movie is washed-out and sepia-toned.  At first, one might think it’s merely a stylistic choice to suit the time period – after all, the film briefly switches to black-and-white when it steps inside an old photograph – but it’s so much more than that.  The flashbacks to George’s years with Jim are saturated with color, brilliant despite their unremarkable backdrops.  This is odd, since it’s far more typical for flashback sequences to get some sort of distinctive treatment (black-and-white, sepia-toned, fuzzy around the edges, etc.) and for the rest of a movie to be shot “normally,” but this film takes the opposite tactic.

 

That’s because George isn’t living in his present.  His life is the one he used to have, and so he passes like a quiet ghost through a day of browns and grays while his memories are soaked in tangibility and immediacy.  Similarly, there are a few moments in the film where George is pulled out of his thoughts and brought into the present, his head above water for a brief respite, and the color seeps back in for these moments.  A kind word, a soft smile, and just for a minute, George feels a connection again.  The whole device is so fantastic.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more effective screen technique to communicate the feeling of grief and depression. 

 

Colin Firth plays George with such gentle mournfulness, a silent shipwreck of a man hidden behind his stiff upper lip.  I’ll admit that he feels more like a character than Isherwood’s George, who’s so visceral and person-like, but he’s a better fit for the slightly different story the film is telling, and he carries it to perfection.  This was the first time I ever saw Matthew Goode, and he’s effortlessly great as Jim.  Nicholas Hoult (Tony from Skins) does a fine job as one of George’s students, Julianne Moore has a memorable turn as an old friend, and the movie also features Ginnifer Goodwin (Snow White!) and Lee Pace in small roles.

 

Warnings

 

Sexual content (including brief nudity) and strong thematic elements.