Murder Most Foul
Saturday, October 1, 2022
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Season 29 - The Turn of the Screw (1999-2000)
One night back in undergrad two of my friends and I decided to go rent a movie. Remember video stores? Full of all those wonderful films yet somehow kind of grubby. We were walking from Rivendell (no really, my friend Matt lived in a big purple housing co-op named Rivendell) to the local video store a few blocks away. On the way there we found over $20 in cash on the ground that some drunk college student had obviously dropped. So dinner and a movie was on said drunk college student who was probably pissed in more ways than one when they found out. Four Star Video was known for it's rather indie pics. You could find basically anything there that was offbeat. After much toing and froing we decided on the Ethan Hawke/Kyle MacLachlan version of Hamlet and The Turn of the Screw, because Colin Firth. I'm not sure how far we got into Hamlet before it was ejected, but could have been twenty minutes could have been a thousand years. And that, my friends, is why you always rent two movies when you go out in case one is an absolute stinking pile of shit. Well, we didn't fair that well with The Turn of the Screw either. None of us had actually read the story, so we were all unprepared for the whole evil wins ending. What's more, and in fact more to the point of why it failed to meet our expectations is that Colin Firth was in the first five minutes and then never seen again. That's false advertising that is putting his name first! And yes, after this debacle my friends said I should pay them for having to sit through videos dubbed my choices... but they were free! And more importantly we did put it to a vote! But looking back, while The Turn of the Screw isn't my favorite ghost story out there this is the best direct adaptation there is, because at least they didn't throw in a weird insane asylum/murder conviction plotline like the 2009 version with Michelle Dockery did. So if you're looking for a faithful adaptation of The Turn of the Screw you can't go wrong with Jodhi May and Pam Ferris who are superb actors, but if you're looking for the best adaptation out there check out The Haunting of Bly Manor instead.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Benediction
February is a tricky month. People just really don't feel like doing anything. We're sick of winter, we're sick of holidays, we just want to ignore whatever the groundhog says and just keep hibernating. With this in mind I've tried to make February on my blog about comforting reads and what makes me happy. For three years now that's been Downton Abbey. While I could continue this tradition, I feel that with the end of Downton Abbey* I should likewise end this tradition and move onto something new. But I still had a need to make it British, because this is the season of Masterpiece No Longer Theater... and this is where Benedict Cumberbatch comes in. Unlike most of the world who hadn't heard of Benedict until Sherlock popped up on our screens in 2010, I was a fan for many years previously. Of course being the omnivorous Anglophile that I am I had seen many things with Benedict for years and years without knowing who he was, he is a chameleon, Atonement anyone?
That all changed in 2006 when I watched To the Ends of the Earth. It was raw, it was gritty, but it also had the most magical ball scene I've ever watched. I was sold. Benedict Cumberbatch was were it's at. What's great about him, aside from his sense of humor and his celebrity impersonations and his ability to morph into any character and his looking occasionally like an otter, is that he stars in so many movies, television shows, plays, and miniseries, that are adapted from fiction. This is perfect for my purposes! This could go on for years! (Though seriously, someone stop me if I start reading Hamlet for fun.) I LOVE reviewing adaptations, and therefore I have an excuse to read books I haven't gotten around to AND watch Benedict Cumberbatch movies. It's win win in my mind and I hope it is in yours as well; because February is now all about Benedict. He's here to bless us with his presence. We're getting a Benediction!
*Please, under no circumstances make a Downton Abbey movie! Everything ended perfectly and all a movie would do would muck things up, complicating our beloved characters lives only to have to uncomplicate them. What's wrong with leaving well enough alone! Downton Abbey movie rant end.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Book Review - Henry James's The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Published by: Modern Library
Publication Date: 1898
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
On Christmas Eve ghost stories are being told around the fire and Douglas says his will chill them to their very bones, but he will only tell it in the words of his friend, who at the time was a young governess. Douglas sends away for her journal, which she gave to him for safe keeping after her death, and when it arrives he begins the story. The young governess is hired by the attractive uncle of two children, Miles and Flora. He has them ensconced in the country at his estate in Essex and has no desire to be bothered in any aspect of their upbringing. Upon her arrival at Bly the governess is taken in by the angelic beauty of Flora, just as she will be by Miles when he is expelled from his boarding school and returned to Bly, an occurrence she cannot understand, due to his apparent perfection.
But soon their idyllic life is shattered by the appearance of two people. This man and woman seem to come and go as they will. After discussing them with the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, she learns the female spectre is none other then her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and the male is Peter Quint, Miss Jessel's lover and another former employee. Only both of them are dead. The young governess is convinced they want the children and will do anything to achieve their nefarious goals from beyond the grave. But even if this is what is really happening can she stop them?
Much like the young heroine in The Turn of the Screw I had my head turned by a hansom man and visions of romance. Many many years ago my friends Matt and Becky and I were walking to the video store, you remember those, you could rent physical movies on these large clunky tapes that could get easily damaged and had to be rewound before returning. We were in the trashier section of our college campus and we found $40 on the ground. Knowing it was probably a drunken frat boy who had lost said money we pocketed it and used it to rent some movies.
After looking for ages we decided on two movies, the new Hamlet staring Ethan Hawke and The Turn of the Screw, because, well, Colin Firth. There was one thing all three of us could agree on, and that was Colin Firth is hot. Also the movie not sounding too much like a period piece, Matt agreed, and again, Colin Firth is hot. We lasted only about twenty minutes into Hamlet before we gave up, yes, it was that bad. But we did watch all of The Turn of the Screw... after this both my friends said I should pay them for having to watch the two movies because I had suggested them in the first place. We compromised by making me return them to the video store.
I was left with two thoughts after watching the movie, one, false advertising, you put Colin Firth's name as a star he should be in more then five minutes, and two, evil wins!?! No matter what your interpretation of events, it's evil, in some form, that is victorious. And as evil took root, I waited for Colin to reappear, and he never did. I fell for the same bait and switch as that young governess. Of course she was unwilling to ask him for aid in a time of need to show her reliability and fortitude, whereas I was all like, Colin, come back! Since then the BBC has made another version, this time with several stars from Downton Abbey, which again left me unsatisfied. For so many years I have been under this impression that The Turn of the Screw was this amazing classic that was being done an injustice by bad adaptation after bad adaptation. I now know that that isn't the case. The Turn of the Screw is just a badly written story with enough wiggle room to allow for many interpretations of the text.
In the final analysis the question isn't was the governess insane or were there supernatural forces at work, the question is, is this even readable? The answer is no. The writing in this book verges on the indecipherable. James took a lot of flack for his overwriting stories, and, I can see why. He has a tendency to not only write too much but write sentences that seem to turn back in on themselves so he talks himself out of his original idea. These long sentences with too many commas have a tendency to be the length of paragraphs, and in a few rare instances, pages long, always ending up in an entirely different place then where they started and becoming increasingly incoherent in the process.
If James can't be bothered to maintain a train of thought in a sentence it's no wonder the book is all over the place and ripe for adaptations that can take as many liberties as they want, because, let's face it, even James didn't know where his story was going. If it wasn't for the fact I knew the plot, well, I wouldn't have been able to figure it out by just reading it. I spent more time fighting to grasp onto the text and try to get some sense out of this book then any other book I've ever read. In the end I gave up to the inevitable and just let the text wash over me as my eyes glazed over and I prayed for the end.
But the inability of James to write coherently is nothing to his structural issues and his unsympathetic characters. Firstly, there is no suspense in this story. I'm not sure if this derives from his inability to set the stage or just the fact that I didn't care if all the characters died horrifically, but there was no jeopardy that made me want to keep reading. A ghost story should at the very least have some suspense, some ability to have the hair on your next rise up and question the sudden chill in the room. Now to the aspect that annoyed me most. James uses the "framing" device of having a group of friends sitting around the fire telling each other ghost stories on Christmas Eve. I have no problem with this, what I do have a problem with is that this "framing" device was left unfinished and in the end was more of a prologue.
To frame a story you need it at the beginning and the end, not just the beginning! I get that he might have wanted to end with the "shock value" of what happened to the insufferable Miles, but, well, the governess's story went on, she somehow got another job and came to meet Douglas and impart this story to him. How the hell did she get another job? Just, gaw! She was THE WORST GOVERNESS EVER and someone else employed her after this? Something shouldn't be labelled a classic because of the time you can spend discussing the text and delving into the deeper meanings, sometimes you're just thrusting your own ideas and meanings onto a text that doesn't deserve to be cherished, but deserves to be forgotten in the mists of time... or the mists that hide the spurious phantasms around Bly.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Dorothy Parker
"It occurs to me that there are other towns. It occurs to me so
violently that I say, at intervals, "Very well, if New York is going to
be like this, I'm going to live somewhere else." And I do — that's the
funny part of it. But then one day there comes to me the sharp picture
of New York at its best, on a shiny blue-and-white Autumn day with its
buildings cut diagonally in halves of light and shadow, with its
straight neat avenues colored with quick throngs, like confetti in a
breeze. Some one, and I wish it had been I, has said that "Autumn is the
Springtime of big cities." I see New York at holiday time, always in
the late afternoon, under a Maxfield Parish sky, with the crowds even
more quick and nervous but even more good-natured, the dark groups
splashed with the white of Christmas packages, the lighted holly-strung
shops urging them in to buy more and more. I see it on a Spring morning,
with the clothes of the women as soft and as hopeful as the pretty new
leaves on a few, brave trees. I see it at night, with the low skies red
with the black-flung lights of Broadway, those lights of which
Chesterton — or they told me it was Chesterton — said, "What a marvelous
sight for those who cannot read!" I see it in the rain, I smell the
enchanting odor of wet asphalt, with the empty streets black and shining
as ripe olives. I see it — by this time, I become maudlin with
nostalgia — even with its gray mounds of crusted snow, its little
Appalachians of ice along the pavements. So I go back. And it is always
better than I thought it would be."
Dorothy Parker was one of the 20th century's most clever, caustic, witty writers. As a member of the Algonquin Round Table she became famous as much for her biting remarks as for her brilliant writing.
A prolific poet and critic, Dorothy published more than 300 poems in the 1920s. The collection of her writing, The Portable Dorothy Parker, has never gone out of print.
In the 1920s and afterward, Dorothy Parker contributed to The New Yorker and Esquire, making her a landmark of the literary scene in New York.
And when you're talking landmarks of Literary New York, there's one place that you have to visit, and that's The Algonquin. The Algonquin is at 59 West 44th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue, or if you're being pedantic, 5th Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. The hotel's first desk clerk, and eventual owner, Frank Case, fostered the arts and in particular struggling writers creating an environment in which the Round Table, that most vicious of circles, was able to bloom. From 1919 to 1929 most of the writers and wits for The New Yorker and other magazines would pop by and have a long lunch wherein they would trade barbed insults and try to one up each other. Not only is this hotel key for your true Literary New York experience, but it's key to Dorothy Parker. She was not only a member of the vicious circle, but she was a resident of the hotel on and off and her ghost is reputed to haunt the halls.
The group first gathered in the Algonquin's Pergola Room (now called The Oak Room) at a long rectangular table. As they increased in number, Algonquin manager Frank Case moved them to the Rose Room and a round table. Initially the group called itself "The Board" and the luncheons "Board meetings." After being assigned a waiter named Luigi, the group re-christened itself "Luigi Board." Finally they became "The Vicious Circle" although "The Round Table" gained wide currency after cartoonist Edmund Duffy of the Brooklyn Eagle caricatured the group sitting at a round table and wearing armor. To join this hallowed group "the price of admission [was] a serpent's tongue and a half-concealed stiletto."
Despite all the famous writers and celebrities who have lived at The Algonquin over the years I can't help but smile at the hotel's most famous current resident, Matilda the Cat! The tradition of having a cat in the hotel was started by Frank Case after he took in a stray. Though Frank didn't realize what he was starting with that first cat, Hamlet, who was named after that famous Dane by John Barrymore. Since then many a Hamlet and a Matilda have lived there. So go for the cat, stay for the literature!
As a final note I find it vastly entertaining that the offices of The New Yorker were actually located right across the street from The Algonquin, making Vicious Circle meetings easy to slip out to, but that location must wait for another day. Parker and her cronies where in at the beginning, and instead of starting out on West 44th street, the original offices where in the house of it's founder, Harold Ross and Jane Grant. Located in Hell's Kitchen, at 412 West 47th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue, the little white four story house is still standing, if you care to pay homage to a magazine that has fostered the arts for almost a century. The past and the present merge in New York, to create living history and an experience you won't easily forget if you are lucky enough to visit.
"I suppose that is
the thing about New York. It is always a little more than you had hoped
for. Each day, there, is so definitely a new day. "Now we'll start
over," it seems to say every morning, "and come on, let's hurry like
anything."
London is satisfied, Paris is
resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that
something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. There
is excitement ever running its streets. Each day, as you go out, you
feel the little nervous quiver that is yours when you sit in the theater
just before the curtain rises. Other places may give you a sweet and
soothing sense of level; but in New York there is always the feeling of
"Something's going to happen." It isn't peace. But, you know, you do get
used to peace, and so quickly. And you never get used to New York."
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
TV Review - Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Release Date: February 26th, 1977 – April 2nd, 1977
Starring: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, John Bennett, Deep Roy, Michael Spice, Chris Gannon, Alan Butler, Tony Then, Vincent Wong, John Wu, David McKail, Conrad Asquith, Judith Lloyd, Vaune Craig-Raymond, Penny Lister, Dudley Simpson and Patsy Smart
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
The Doctor brings Leela to Victorian Earth so that she can learn such things as how to wear real clothes and maybe even what silverware is for, and to see a Victorian stage magician at work. Sadly, they don't make it to Li H'sen Chang's show, being set upon by members of the Chinese Tong of the Black Scorpion, who worship the God, Weng-Chiang. Strange disappearances have been happening, centered around the Palace Theatre that Henry Gordon Jago runs and which is the venue for Li H'sen Chang. Early in the night a cab driver arrived accusing the theatre manager because the theatre was the last place his wife was seen alive. Could this cab driver be the man who the Tong where attacking when The Doctor and Leela interfered?
When the body appears in the river some time later, The Doctor's suspicions are confirmed. The Tong has, for some reason, silenced a man who could like Li H'sen Chang and the Palace Theatre to the missing women. At the autopsy, The Doctor strikes up a friendship with the good Professor Litefoot, who soon becomes a part of their investigations. Yet Professor Litefoot may be more important than any of them thought, what with being raised in China. Could the God Weng-Chiang really have returned? Or is it someone else cunningly using the Tong's devotion for his own means? It will take all of them to bring down this madman, for it is he who is responsible for the disappearances of the women as well as countless other atrocities.
I remember years and years ago watching this episode for the first time and being bored out of my mind. I don't know why I didn't connect to the episode, it has Holmesian elements, especially in Tom Baker's outfit, Jack the Ripper, Victorian London... yet, for some reason it bored me to tears and I just wanted it to end, which it didn't for a long time, being a six-parter. Going back to it now, I was at first rather apprehensive, I was expecting to be bored to tears. I wasn't! The only tears where the occasional tears of laughter from the lack of budget, mainly the Victorian ROUS (Rodents of Unusual Size) which where occasionally real rats in scaled down tunnels or men dressed like giant rodent stuffed animals, that where remarkably clean for living in the sewers. I'm saying, a little grease could have gone a long way.
Also, I loved that this evil genius villain who combines the horrors of Jack the Ripper and the chic of The Phantom of the Opera has so much trouble finding a box. I mean, really? The Tong and a midget, who is really a pig creature (more tears of laughter here, oink oink) can't get one box from an old man? Hilarious. Yet, it was so well acted, and just such Victorian Camp fun, I don't know why I didn't like it my first time around. I say for anyone looking for a true Steampunk episode of Doctor Who that is into old school Doctor, you need to check out this! Part Phantom part Jack part Sherlock part My Fair Lady and all Britishy fun and goodness. And don't discount Jago, that man look familiar? Christopher Benjamin should! He's Mr. Lucas from Pride and Prejudice, amongst countless other credits. Also, Mr. Sin is every Oompa-Loompa in the newest adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Another fun game to play is to watch how many times Li H'sen Chang blinks... he almost broke Rufus Sewell's record of six blinks total in all of Kenneth Brannagh's Hamlet, and dood, that movie was long. He could totally defeat the Weeping Angels!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Book Review - Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten
Something Rotten: Thursday Next Novel the 4th by Jasper Fforde
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: August 5th, 2004
Format: Hardcover, 389 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Your Favorite Books Brought to Life - Christmas with the BBC
Grab a seat and a cup of eggnog as the BBC brings us some wonderfully cheery shows for the holidays. Also because sarcasim can't be typed... that was sarcastic, marginally. I'm really looking forward to this seasons viewings with David Tennant as Hamlet and the new adaptation of The Turn of the Screw... but happy these ain't. They are bordering more on the awkward family get-togethers where old family films are shown and then feuds are revived and all hell breaks loose. Hopefully the ladies of Cranford will add some balance to what would otherwise be a dramatically bleak holiday season. That said... I can't wait! To tide you over to Christmas Eve, here are the trailers for the BBC... they're hoping to light up your season... I think they don't get irony either... unless one of the Addams family was writing the press release... in which case, yes, cheery holiday fare with the Bard and evil incarnate! Also what exactly is Eddie Izzard in? Never mind, The Day of the Triffids it is... see happy! In that disaster film sort of way.
