strange and random happenstance

My parents like to cite Doctor Zhivago as their beginning. But personally I think that a compelling case could be made for their mutual love of Thomas Hardy. Before they even met my Dad ranked Jude the Obscure as one of his favorite books of all time and my mom named her cat Eustacia after Eustacia Vye from The Return of the Native. Of course it turned out Eustacia was a boy but Stacey lived a long long life unlike most characters in Thomas Hardy's books. Because my parents held Thomas Hardy in such high esteem he therefore became an author I was reluctant to read. Mainly because if I didn't like him I could possibly be disowned. Or at least I thought so at the time. But my love of James Purefoy made me willing to finally give Thomas Hardy a chance. In other words, I was really excited for the 2003 adaptation of The Mayor of Casterbridge that was made for A and E. And I didn't even make it through the first episode. I honestly don't know how far I made it but it was just depressing and muddy and it was at the height of my hatred of Ciarán Hinds so I washed my hands of it. Which means I wasn't over the moon about watching the 1978 adaptation but I do love Alan Bates so I was willing to give it a try. The problem is that no matter who stars in this tale it's a story of a miserable and horrible man, Michael Henchard. He sells his wife while drunk and blames the drink. Of course it's not the drink that's to blame, it's something rotten and twisted within him. Because if he had been a little nicer, a little more generous, you know what? Everyone could have had a happy ending. Instead there's lots of misery and death and self-flagellation. I mean, seriously, this is a lot to handle. Watching someone in a downward spiral with no way to stop it is not something that is relaxing. This isn't a show to be watched passively. You're an active viewer. You're viscerally involved in watching this man's downfall and just hoping that his death comes soon enough that some happiness can be grasped by the survivors. But at least with Alan Bates driving this crazy train there is acting on such a level that, well, I'm sorry, Ciarán Hinds, you could just never reach it. The simplest expression, the way Alan Bates's face can morph from awe and love to sheer blinding terror and rage in just an instant made the fall of Michael Henchard riveting but not restful television. The fact that the supporting cast includes Anna Massey, Jack Lowden's doppelganger, and the face melting Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark, was just an added bonus. Or another drink at the pub put on someone else's tab? Because Michael Henchard is not a man the better for drink. In fact most of Thomas Hardy is just desperation verging on folk horror. Which, it's a vibe I can get behind. And a vibe this adaptation leaned into. Just look to the scarecrow and how the townsfolk scared Lucetta to an early grave. Seriously, if Carl Davis had made the score a little scarier this might have been horror. But isn't the fall of a man horrible enough as it is? Again, I'd say it depends on the man and Michael Henchard got what he deserved.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Bates, Carl Davis, Ciaran Hinds, Doctor Zhivago, Eustacia Vye, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Horror, James Purefoy, Jude the Obscure, Michael Henchard, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy

My Batman fatigue set in in 2008. If Christopher Nolan couldn't be bothered to take down outdoor signage for the Lyric Opera of Chicago I don't know why I should be bothered to care about The Dark Knight. Also, controversial opinion, Heath Ledger didn't deserve the Oscar that year, but he did deserve it more than Robert Downey Junior. Since then we've gone through quite a few Batmen and my top picks might be a bit controversial, but with George Clooney being back maybe not as much as they once were. And wherever there is Batman there's his trusty butler. In fact for the who's who among actors I think Alfred has drawn the bigger names; Andy Serkis, Michael Caine, Jeremy Irons, Michael Gough, Sean Pertwee, Tom Hollander, Efrem Zimbalist Junior, and on and on. But one interesting development over the years is that Alfred has slowly become less and less posh, Michael Caine and Sean Pertwee really upping the ante. Sean Pertwee's rougher Alfred created by Bruno Heller for Gotham. But I just couldn't get into Gotham despite my Pertwee love. My problem was Gotham was still too rooted in the Batman mythology, seeing all these characters as younger versions of themselves and what they were to become. Which is why I was drawn to Pennyworth. Also created by Bruno Heller he seems to have realized the limitations of his previous series and limited his characters here. Here we have Alfred, and Batman's parents, Thomas and Martha. And that's it. Set in London during the swinging sixties the world created is a fascinating mashup of Last Night in Soho and V for Vendetta with a giant helping of Michael Caine's oeuvre. Our Alfie as played by Jack Bannon couldn't exist without Caine's Alfie. He exudes that cockney coolness and surety while also bringing a bit of Fred Thursday to the role, an inevitability as he played his son Sam on Endeavour for it's entire run. But the show isn't just a standout performance by Bannon, every actor is perfectly chosen to bring to life this vibrant alternative universe that mimics our Cold War but at the same time is wholly unique. Sadly season two leaned too far into mimicking World War II saved only by Peg and Bet. But then again Peg and Bet could save anyone and anything if they had a mind to. So how did they decide to fix the season two mistakes? By making sure everyone knew this show was about Batman's Butler by adding an absurdly ludicrous subtitle. I mean, surly people aren't so dumb they didn't connect the two. Please tell me I'm right because otherwise humanity is doomed. Much like London. Because while we're moving on from diamond geezers to the swinging sixties with hippies we're getting a darker side with the CIA experimenting with "MKUltra" and Patty Hearst and the Manson Family and an artist that looks like a stretched out Brian Eno. Trust me, he's up to no good. So while the aesthetic is very reminiscent of Adam West's Batman 66; brighter colors, dafter plots, and People With Enhancements, AKA PWEs, as pro superheroes and villains, there is a distinct underlying malevolence. Perhaps because they've fully embraced V for Vendetta in what I though was a lovely meta moment but according to the creators of the show is where they were heading all along because they view Pennyworth as a prequel to V for Vendetta as well as Gotham. Say what!?! Does James Purefoy know because I think he'd have something to say. Also you're still not getting me to watch Gotham. No matter how much I want closure and answers.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alfred Pennyworth, And the Emmy Goes To, Batman, Bruno Heller, Endeavour, Gotham, Jack Bannon, James Purefoy, Last Night in Soho, London, Michael Caine, MKUltra, Pennyworth, Sean Pertwee, V for Vendetta

The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig
Published by: NAL
Publication Date: December 29th, 2005
Format: Paperback, 453 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

After her brother was revealed to be the Purple Gentian, that most elusive of spies thwarting those Frenchies, Henrietta Selwick thought her life would return to normal. Almack's, balls, being seen at all the right parties, and having her brother's faithful best friend, Miles Dorrington, at her elbow, preferably with a glass of lemonade. But while everyone else gets to engage in espionage she's been forced onto the sidelines once too often and she leaps at the chance to correspond in code with the Pink Carnation, Jane Wooliston, her cousin by marriage. Because, while her brother Richard and his new wife Amy are "technically" out of the spying game, opening a spy school in your house kind of defeats the purpose, and having something little, even if it's these letters and her contact in the ribbon shop, it makes Henrietta feel special. But she fails to realize how special she is, and not just to Miles, but to a deadly French spy with the name of the Black Tulip. Hen is that most coveted of clues, the little sister to the Purple Gentian, and perhaps a link to the Pink Carnation. But who could the Black Tulip be? That spy has been out of action for so long that when a murder is committed behind Lord Vaughn's house the War Office goes into a tizzy at the calling card left behind. Could this spy actually be Lord Vaughn? That slippery and seductive fellow with silver snakes on his waistcoat who has just returned from a long sojourn on the continent? If he isn't said spy, then why is he so fascinated with Hen? But spies are only one thing Henrietta has to deal with. Miles seems not as Miles like lately. It all started with that mysterious Marquise de Montval, she of the blue black hair and flawless beauty, despite her age. Miles has been seen once too often with her, even if he was seen through the shrubberies by a not very well concealed Hen and entourage... They thought the green clothing would help to camouflage themselves. But could Hen's irritation with Miles be more of a romantic nature? Does she stand a chance against this Marquise or should she just resign herself to being killed by the Black Tulip? Meanwhile, back in the present, Eloise is put off and turned on by a certain descendant of the Purple Gentian named Colin. Boys, no matter what time period, are such an annoying mystery, it's so much easier dealing with deadly Napoleonic Spies with flowery names.

The second book in Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series sees us leaving the shores of France and venturing into that most dangerous of territories, the London ton at the height of the season. I grudgingly admit, even to my friend Marie whose favorite book in the series this is, that when I first read it it was not my favorite, despite being more like a Jane Austen story than the previous installment, dealing less with espionage and more with friendships. I felt the ending and the reveal of the Black Tulip lacked something and was on the verge of French farce. But if the reveal didn't sit well with me, as Lauren recently revealed, it didn't sit well with her either. The Marquise was too ineffectual to actually be the Black Tulip. Thankfully Lauren was able to rectify this in later installments and therefore my reservations have been removed. Because if there is one truth universally acknowledged by fans of the Pink Carnation series it's that Miles and Henrietta are everyone's favorite couple. Those ginger biscuits, that floppy lock of hair, Bunny the Bunny, they all hold a revered status among us fans that they almost verge on holy relics. But to me, the joy in this book lies within all the subtle characterizations of their friends on the periphery, friends who eventually stepped forward and got their own stories. But besides Hen's two best friends, Penelope and Charlotte, who make their first appear, there are three characters without whom this book would mean nothing to me. Those three characters are Turnip, Lord Vaughn, and the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. Turnip is a true fop with his over the top embroidered waistcoats. A man who is not afraid to show his allegiance to the Pink Carnation and whose attire leads him into a spot of bother. Lord Vaughn, ah, you seductive, enigmatic man. You are only looking out for yourself and I love you for it and for the images of James Purefoy in Regency garb you bring to mind. You literally steal every scene you are in. Finally, last but not least, because I don't want to be harmed, The Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. Scourge of the ballrooms and impudent young men. She is a force to be reckoned with. My favorite scene? While at a fancy dress ball she confiscates Penelope's spear from her Boadicea costume and uses it to poke people with. Pure, priceless, and wonderful.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: French Spies, Henrietta Selwick, James Purefoy, Jane Austen, Lauren Willig, Lord Vaughn, Miles Dorrington, Pink Carnation, Regency Romp, The Black Tulip, The Masque of the Black Tulip, Turnip Fitzhugh

I was on the bandwagon for the All Souls Trilogy since the beginning. I am not fanatically devoted to the series as some of my friends are, I do not spend my spare time rereading the books over and over again, but I can honestly say I'm a fan. Though when Matthew Goode was cast as Matthew I was like nope. I don't know why, my mind just revolted, and I am a fan of his! But I was so darn curious about the series... so I waited until they all aired and got a one week free trial to Shudder and binged the whole first season. It only took me five minutes to see I was completely wrong about Matthew Goode's casting. He is Matthew, and not just because they have the same first name. I can never picture anyone else now. So good on you Goode for convincing me! Therefore a show that was originally a "show I'd one day see" became eagerly awaited viewing... and oh, the wait for season two seemed so long, but it was worth it. Season two is based on the second book in the series, Shadow of Night, which is hands down my favorite in the series because Elizabethan England! Also, wonderful cameos from historical figures like Kit Marlowe, but did I mention Elizabethan England? But what brought this season into a whole other stratosphere was the genius casting of James Purefoy as Philippe, Matthew's "father." Here's to Goode again who lobbied and cajoled to get Purefoy cast. Now Purefoy is a favorite of mine and I will literally watch anything he is in, but his acting in this was sheer perfection. His final episode where Matthew and Diana are married and mated elevated the whole show to a new level. There are just some actors that bring out the best performances in everyone and this is what happened. They all knew the importance of this episode and though it is a bottle episode with only really three characters, it's just perfect. Even my brother and father were talking about how this episode and James Purefoy's acting raised the show from cheesy fun to Emmy worthy genre television. I'm sad that this is likely the last we'll see of Purefoy as Philippe, but he's left his mark on this series that won't be forgotten as I settle in for the long wait for the final season to drop.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, All Souls Trilogy, And the Emmy Goes To, Binge, Bottle Episode, Elizabeth England, Emmy, James Purefoy, Marlowe, Matthew Goode, Philippe De Clermont, Shadow of Night, Shudder

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Published by: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 1848
Format: Hardcover, 486 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Wildfell Hall has a new resident. A mysterious widow and her young son who want nothing to do with the outside world. The outside world disagrees. The nosey neighbors must know everything they can about the mysterious Mrs. Graham. Young Gilbert Markham wants to know everything but for a very different reason, he is inexorably drawn to the young widow and cannot understand why she remains aloof and detached, craving solitude over companionship and love. Gilbert Markham's attentions to the young widow do not go unnoticed by others and leads his spurned ex, Eliza Millward, to spread malicious gossip throughout the small community about the widow. The whispers combined with Helen Graham's feelings for Gilbert lead her to make a decision she might regret. She decides she must disclose her past so that he can move on and realize their love is doomed, and not just because her husband isn't dead, but because he doesn't really know who she is. To that extent she gives him her diaries. All her inner feelings and thoughts and all her secrets bound forever between the pages of a book.

Mrs. Helen Graham is really Mrs. Helen Huntington, the wife of a cruel man who has more vices than she could enumerate and surrounds himself with the worst of humanity at their home, Grassdale. Though their marriage wasn't destined to debauchery. At first Arthur Huntingdon was witty and pretty and Helen in her naivete thought she could reform this bad boy. At the birth of their son though things changed. Arthur didn't like his son and heir getting all of Helen's attention and set out to form the boy in his own image. Helen fled her husband because he was trying to imprint their your son with his own dubious morals. She could have suffered anything if it was just herself that was the target of Huntington's malice, she stubbornly married him after all, but their son is another matter. Her brother helped her escape the life she trapped herself in only to find herself wanting that which she can not have due to her circumstances. But after years of feeling hunted in her own home can she remake her life? Is freedom enough without Gilbert Markham? Or will her old life haunt her until she or Huntington is dead?

Sometimes I am a very contrary person, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a case in point. Instead of reading the book before watching the miniseries I decided to watch the miniseries first which then put me off the book. I know, it has Toby Stephens and James Purefoy in it so how could it be bad? But I watched it prior to Sherlock partially redeeming Rupert Graves in my eyes and my hate of Rupert Graves has been a long standing issue. My hate is also a hard thing to put my finger on, was it The Forsyte Saga or Take a Girl Like You, both where he played cheating cads, that made me want to forever punch him in the face? I think I might never know. Putting the Rupert rant behind us my steadfast rule of reading the book prior to watching any adaptation for some reasons is exempt when it has to do with the Brontes. I had seen so many adaptations of their books prior to ever picking one up that they are grandfathered into my weird reading habits with this clause. Yet I still question how this adaptation failed with that cast! It was dull and lifeless and I remember barely being able to finish it and this from a girl who finished the Jane Eyre adaptation with Ciaran Hinds. PS I hate Ciaran Hinds more than I've ever hated Rupert Graves.

The miniseries turned me off the book and because of this the book languished for years waiting for the time when I would pick it up and love it. I seriously can not think of any reasonable excuse why it took me this long to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I was under so many misconceptions about this book that I should have just trusted my gut which tells me that Anne Bronte is awesome. I am serious when I say that I think Anne might just be my favorite Bronte. This isn't just me rooting for the underdog, though she is the least embraced of the sisters, this is totally to do with how awesome her books are. Let me brake it down for you. Charlotte is the most famous, I mean, Jane Eyre, while Emily is the one the more malcontent readers are drawn to with her sole writing credit, Wuthering Heights, and that leaves Anne kind of stuck in the middle with her two books, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey. And I call foul! To all the readers and especially English teachers out there the world over who gravitate towards the two ends of the Bronte spectrum and fail to educate others that Anne is the best of both worlds! She has the darkness of Emily with the narrative structure of Charlotte. I think I need to form an Anne support group...

But what's so interesting about Anne is that in her work she is in some ways responding to her own siblings as people and writers. Anne's desire for "truth" in this novel comes from a desire to counter the pro bad boy image her sisters had created in their works. But there's a deeper part of me that wonders if she's not just messing with Charlotte and Emily a little. Who, given the chance, wouldn't try to mess with their siblings a little? Her sisters did everything to make this bad boy redeemable by love trope and then in comes Anne and blasts them out of the water. Huntington is a bad boy to equal Heathcliff and Rochester, but love is unable to sway him. He even wants to corrupt his own child! The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an opus to the irredeemable. I can just picture the sisters sitting around their fireplace on a cold night in Haworth talking about their dream men and Anne just looking askance at them and plotting how to prove them wrong, preferably in three volumes, she was, after all, a silent plotter. I don't think anyone has ever summed this up better than Kate Beaton in her "Hark, a Vagrant" comic, "Dude Watchin' with The Brontes," so I won't attempt to and move onto other things. Though I will mention I have this piece framed in my library I love it so much.

Moving on... What I find amazing in this book, and in fact all the work by the Brontes, is how they were able to capture an entire outside world while living their cloistered lives and put it on the page. It just goes to show that sometimes writing what you know isn't the only answer, but writing what you feel is. Over a hundred and fifty years later this book pulses with life. It was criticized at the time for being too repulsive and scandalous, but that is why it resonates till this day. It is the truth of human nature and fallibility that Anne sought out to capture and did. Infidelity, adultery, drugs, drink, games of chance, everything not written about in literature of it's day that still causes so much heartbreak. Yes, you could argue that Anne was filtering this all through the lens of the hedonist lifestyle her brother Branwell lived. But you can't say that dealing with Branwell's multiplicity of addictions and personality defects didn't bring the darker aspects of humanity right to Anne's front door. So, arguing against myself, maybe she was writing what she knew? Either way, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shows that no matter how you live your life it gives you an understanding of the world at large and it's degradation's.

The degraded life that Helen lives made me connect to her because, not only did I pity her, I worried that she wouldn't make it out of this situation, ironic because having watched the miniseries I knew the outcome, but still I worried. But as to the debauchery, one problem I have always had and mention repeatedly in literature set during this time is the overuse of the Hellfire Club. It seems if you are debauched during the Regency or early Victorian eras you therefore have to belong to some incarnation of said Hellfire Club. But here I make an exception. Usually the Hellfire Club is just a trope used by modern writers, as in those still currently writing, as a basic touchstone for debauchery that modern readers will latch onto. Think of the spunk it took for a little ex-governess to allude to the Hellfire Club in a book written in 1848! You Anne Bronte are the exception that proves the rule! When you wrote those few lines alluding to fire and brimstone it was not yet hackneyed, it was controversial. I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me and literature. This poorly written review will have to suffice.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anne Bronte, BBC Miniseries, Branwell Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Ciaran Hinds, Emily Bronte, Hark a Vagrant, Hellfire Club, James Purefoy, Rochester, Ten Years, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Toby Stephens

I'm still scratching my head as to why I forgot to include Hap and Leonard last year because their second season which aired in 2017, based on Joe R. Lansdale's book Mucho Mojo, was one of the most suspenseful and riveting seasons of ANY television show I've ever watched. Words can not do justice to the investigation of a sinister serial killer in their midst whilst also somehow complimenting that with dark humor that is spot on. As I've said before when talking about Altered Carbon, I will watch anything with James Purefoy in it, but there are only a few Purefoy shows that achieve a level of near perfection, The Following and Injustice being the only two which came to mind before I found Hap and Leonard. But add to Purefoy the charismatic relationship he has onscreen with the always wonderful Michael Kenneth Williams and they're the best dynamic duo to be seen in a long time on our screens. And as an aside, Michael Kenneth Williams is, in my mind, the only thing that could have improved Solo: A Star Wars Story which is easily my favorite Star Wars film since the original trilogy, and yes, I know that might be a controversial opinion, but there you have it. What's interesting about the show, besides wonderful casting from Andrew Dice Clay to Jimmi ('My father was named Mary. His father before him was named Mary. And his father before him was named Craig.') Simpson is that for a period show, set in the late eighties, it is so timely and relevant. This past season, and sadly it's last as Hap and Leonard was cancelled, dealt with racism and the KKK, a sight that is not unfamiliar in today's America. Perhaps it was too real for some people. For me it was perfect.       

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Altered Carbon, And the Emmy Goes To, Hap and Leonard, Injustice, James Purefoy, Joe R. Lansdale, KKK, Michael Kenneth Williams, Mucho Mojo, Psych, Star Wars, The Following, The Two-Bear Mambo

Altered Carbon was one of the shows I was most looking forward to this past year. This had nothing to do with the desire to see an ambitious cyberpunk book series brought to life and everything to do with my love of James Purefoy and Joel Kinnaman. I watched that horrid adaptation of Mansfield Park for you James Purefoy, I will watch anything you are in! And the truth is, at times, this show was brilliant. The problem was the moments of brilliance made you realize they were capable of achieving perfection so when the show lagged you really felt it. Set in the future where human consciousness can be downloaded into new bodies, AKA sleeves, this allows death to no longer be an obstacle and the rich can literally live forever. Enter Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi Kovacs hired by the wealthy James Purefoy to find out who murdered his previous sleeve. Takeshi is downloaded into Joel's beautiful body and has to deal with this new body's history, his own history, and his job. If the show had stuck to a linear storyline of who killed James Purefoy instead of going off on long expository rants mainly dealing with Takeshi's fucked up personal life this show could have really worked. But going forward I don't know if I will be interested in watching. The show hinges on the interesting conceit of different actors playing the same role. Now this conceit isn't that original, even Woody Allen has done it, but where this conceit fails is I have this connection to the characters played by these specific actors, do I want to see Joel replaced by Anthony Mackie? Eh, I'm not sure.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Altered Carbon, And the Emmy Goes To, Anthony Mackie, Family, James Purefoy, Joel Kinnaman, Mansfield Park, Takeshi Kovacs, Woody Allen

High-Rise
Based on the book by J.G. Ballard
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Louis Suc, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, Jeremy Irons, Keeley Hawes, Sienna Guillory, Enzo Cilenti, James Purefoy, Dan Renton Skinner, Stacy Martin, Louis Suc, Toby Williams, Peter Ferdinando, Reece Shearsmith, Augustus Prew, Tony Way, Bill Paterson, Leila Mimmack, Neil Maskell, Julia Deakin, Dylan Edwards, and Fenella Woolgar
Release Date: September 13th, 2015
Rating: ★
To Buy

Following the death of his sister, Doctor Robert Laing moves into a 25th floor studio apartment in a luxurious modern 40 story high-rise. Every modern convenience is taken care of. You'd never actually have to leave the building, and soon that becomes the case, more out of need than necessity. Being in the middle of the building Laing is more open to befriend those both above and below him. He starts seeing an attractive single mother from the floor above, and befriends a family, the Wilders, from a lower floor. But Laing will ascend to the heights when he's invited to the penthouse, where the building's architect Anthony Royal lives. Laing comes to a party which he didn't know was fancy dress, humiliated and thrown out of the party with one of his own medical students looking on he becomes trapped in the elevator in a power outage that is to become commonplace, not a rarity. Due to a series of fortuitous circumstances Laing is able to get revenge on his uppity student, but that student's subsequent suicide seems to be the catalyst for the complete disintegration of law and order within the high-rise. The power outages have been followed by the water being shut off and garbage chutes overflowing. The infrastructure of the building is failing and Royal might just be keeping the authorities away as the building devolves into outright warfare. This isn't "growing pains" this is a microcosm of civilization tearing the class system to shreds. But there is one person who has a plan. Richard Wilder plans to take off the head of the beast. Anthony Royal will die at his hands, what happens next doesn't matter.  

Here is a sentence I never thought I'd write: There are some things that even Tom Hiddleston's bare ass can't fix. I know! This is a shocking revelation to me as well. But High-Rise is one of those high concept adaptations that has literally been in development since the book was written in the 1970s and never really found the right team to shepherd it to the big screen. And yes, I am including the team that actually made this movie, because seriously, it's two hours of my life I want back. A fairly straightforward book was made into a bizarre orgiastic incoherent mess that critics just gobbled up and audiences hated. It's more like a hedonistic verging on incomprehensible overly long music video than a film. There's no structure, just writhing bodies. And such bodies! I mean, the talent on board here is astonishing: Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Jeremy Irons, Keeley Hawes, James Purefoy! I could go on and on because this is like a dream cast with the cream of the crop taken from British television and cinema but if High-Rise proves one point, you can get the best actors in the world and if the vision isn't there, if the writing doesn't shine, if the plot is nonexistent, they can in no way save the film. As I shockingly said before, not even Hiddlesbum could save this mess. Though perhaps we can throw a little blame at Elisabeth Moss? She's destroying dystopian adaptations left and right these days... 

What confused me most about this adaptation is why oh why did they decide to make it period? Yes, this is 100% enshrined in 70s glory. This was the biggest mistake they could have made. The reason the book actually works is that there is a universality to it, so while it was written in the 70s you can totally see it happening now. This specificity of period makes it dated and implausible. Yes, I say implausible. Because if this uprising had occurred, if this past had happened, then the future we live in would be different. There's a reason dystopian literature is either in an alternate timeline or in the near future. This makes it believable. The world we live in could take a turn into a giant dumpster fire and then we're there. We have reached dystopia. Having this horror happen in the past and then forgotten while Margaret Thatcher talks on the radio? Um, no. What's more is the era went on to inform the sets and the costumes. This leads to the audience having a disconnect. I kept thinking, oh look, there's something I vaguely remember from my childhood, or the Wilder's apartment has a vague Star Wars feel to it, Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen must have been called in to decorate. There was no immediacy to the story and the horrors within. I couldn't connect because this 70s framework was a distancing device. But the biggest flaw? Don't model your high-rise lobby off a set from the original Battlestar Galactica.  

The embracing of the 70s aesthetic goes deeper into destroying this film than you might think. As I've mentioned there's a disconnect by having the story take place in the past versus the present or near future, but more than that by having it set in the 70s the film isn't a commentary on the universality of human behavior but a commentary on human behavior during this specific time. Despite what may or may not have happened in the 70s it's come to mean certain things in popular culture. It's viewed as a time of excess, drugs, drinks, and swingers! Where cops didn't have to answer for killing the occasional criminal and justice was sometimes gotten in the most nefarious of ways. Therefore we already have these preconceptions of the 70s and to have this acted out on screen it just seems a product of the time, the 70s was the catalyst, not man's base nature. It's like the director and the writer, who happens to be the directors wife, just didn't get it. The book is a statement of human nature and the devolution of man, and the movie is just "wow, things were crazy in the 70s weren't they?" And in that last scene with Margaret Thatcher coming on the radio? Are they trying to make the film into a political statement of what Thatcher did to England? Because that's a cheap shot. Trying to tag your own message on when you couldn't even properly convey the author's message.

With this bizarre music video style the whole film contains there is one scene, and one scene only that I think captured the essence of the book while creating a new spin on it, letting the filmmakers leave their stamp on the classic book, all while still feeling like an homage to the Annie Lennox "Walking on Broken Glass" video. Doctor Laing is invited to a party in the penthouse. Anthony Royal and his wife are throwing a fancy dress party and the theme is the French court of Marie Antoinette, which of course they didn't bother to tell their guest from the lowly 25th floor. Why is this so perfect? Well the book, not the movie, is about the stratification of the classes within the high-rise and how those lower down are trying to topple those at the top. What happened in France as a result of the excesses of Marie Antoinette and her court was The French Revolution, off with their heads and all that. What is happening within the microcosm of the high-rise is what happened on a larger scale in France. The filmmakers are grounding what is happening in the high-rise with historical precedence, which I think is the only time in two hours of rubbish where I almost liked the film. For that brief instance they got it. Also with the cover of ABBA's "SOS" by Portishead we get a wonderful double meaning, triple if you really want to bother with the whole 70s of the thing. What we get with the song is a menacing warning to those decadent partiers that their time has come, but also a warning that what happens in the high-rise stays in the high-rise. There will be no one coming to save ANY of them. Now if only they burned the whole thing to the ground, film and all I might be satisfied.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 70s, ABBA, Adaptation, Battlestar Galactica, Class System, Dystopian, Dystopian Drama, Elisabeth Moss, French Revolution, High-Rise, J.G. Ballard, James Purefoy, Keeley Hawes, Margaret Thatcher, Tom Hiddleston

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Published by: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 1848
Format: Hardcover, 486 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Wildfell Hall has a new resident. A mysterious widow and her young son who want nothing to do with the outside world. The outside world disagrees. The nosey neighbors must know everything they can about the mysterious Mrs. Graham. Young Gilbert Markham wants to know everything but for a very different reason, he is inexorably drawn to the young widow and cannot understand why she remains aloof and detached, craving solitude over companionship and love. But soon Helen Graham realizes that her feelings for Gilbert mean that she must disclose her past so that he can move on and realize their love is doomed, and not just because her husband isn't dead.

Mrs. Helen Graham is really Mrs. Helen Huntington, the wife of a cruel man who has more vices then she could enumerate. She has fled her husband because he was trying to imprint their your son with his own dubious morals.  Helen could have suffered anything if it was just herself that was the target of Huntongton's malice, she stubbornly married him after all, but their son is another matter. After years of feeling trapped and hunted in her own home, can she remake her life, or will the old one haunt her?

Sometimes I am a very contrary person, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a case in point. Instead of reading the book before watching the miniseries I decided to watch the miniseries first which then put me off the book. For some reason I view the steadfast rule of reading the book first not applying to the Brontes. I had seen so many adaptations of their books prior to ever picking one up that they are grandfathered into my weird reading habits with this clause. Yet I still question how an adaptation with Toby Stephens and James Purefoy, not to mention Rupert Graves, Pam Ferris, and Paloma Baeza, could be so bad. It was dull and lifeless and I remember barely being able to finish it.

The miniseries turned me off the book and because of this the book has languished for years waiting for the time when I would pick it up and love it. I seriously can not think of any reasonable excuse why it took me this long to read it. I was under so many misconceptions about this book that I should have just trusted to my gut which tells me that Anne Bronte is awesome. I am serious when I say that I think Anne might just be my favorite Bronte. This isn't just me routing for the underdog, though she is the least embraced of the sisters, this is totally to do with how awesome her books are.

There's a part of me that knows Anne's desire for "truth" in this novel comes from a desire to counter the pro bad boy image her sisters had created in their works. But there's a deeper part of me that wonders if she's not just messing with Charlotte and Emily a little. Who, given the chance, wouldn't try to mess with their siblings a little? Her sisters did everything to make this bad boy redeemable by love trope and then in comes Anne and blasts them out of the water. Huntington is a bad boy to equal Heathcliff and Rochester, but love is unable to sway him. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an opus to the irredeemable. I can just picture the sisters sitting around their fireplace on a cold night in Haworth talking about their dream men and Anne just looking askance at them and plotting how to prove them wrong, preferably in three volumes, she was, after all, a silent plotter. I don't think anyone has ever summed this up better then Kate Beaton in her "Hark, a Vagrant" comic, "Dude Watchin' with The Brontes" so I won't attempt to and move onto other things.

So, other things! What I find amazing in this book, and in fact all the work by the Brontes, is how they were able to capture an entire world from outside their cloistered lives and put it on the page. It just goes to show that sometimes writing what you know isn't the only answer, but writing what you feel is. Over a hundred and fifty years later this book pulses with life. It was criticized at the time for being too repulsive and scandalous, but that is why it resonates till this day. It is the truth of human nature and fallibility that Anne sought out to capture and did. Infidelity, adultery, drugs, drink, games of chance, everything not written about in literature of it's day that still causes so much heartbreak.

The degraded life that Helen lives made me connect to her because, not only did I pity her, I worried that she wouldn't make it out of this situation, ironic because having watched the miniseries I knew the outcome, but still I worried. But as to the debauchery, one problem I have always had and mentioned repeatedly in literature set during this time is the overuse of the Hellfire Club. It seems if you are debauched during the Regency or early Victorian eras you therefore have to belong to some incarnation of said Hellfire Club. But here I make an exception. Usually the Hellfire Club is just a trope used by modern writers, as in those still currently writing. Think of the spunk it took for a little ex governess to allude to the Hellfire Club in a book written in 1848! You Anne Bronte are the exception that proves the rule! When you wrote those few lines alluding to fire and brimstone it was not yet hackneyed, it was controversial. I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me and literature, this poorly written review will have to suffice.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anne Bronte, BBC Miniseries, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Emily Bronte, Hark a Vagrant, Hellfire Club, James Purefoy, Mary Barton, That Summer, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, This Summer, Toby Stephens

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Published by: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 1848
Format: Hardcover, 486 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition then one reviewed)

"I have to confess: I loved this book as a teenager (an oppressed heroine fleeing from an abusive husband! A devoted hero who sees the good in the reclusive heroine! An adorable little moppet of a boy!), but when I was researching That Summer, I decided to watch the BBC version, since the costumes are exactly the right time period for me (and, yes, I may have a little weakness for BBC costume dramas). The heroine in the film version irked me. And now I can’t quite separate the two.

Anyhow, now that I’ve got that out of the way….

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a seminal work for me on the way to That Summer because, like Mary Barton, it was published in 1848. Unlike Mary Barton, it deals with the propertied classes with which my heroine, Imogen, would have been familiar. Like my Imogen, the heroine of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Helen, fancies herself in love in her youth, marries unwisely and then is forced to live out the consequences.

This is a theme that fascinates me. Remember your crushes in your teens? Remember the unwise romantic choices you made? What if you’d married one of them? And found yourself owned by that man, his property under the law, with no legal identity, no independent means, no recourse?

Sends a chill down your spine, doesn’t it?" - Lauren Willig

Wildfell Hall has a new resident. A mysterious widow and her young son who want nothing to do with the outside world. The outside world disagrees. The nosey neighbors must know everything they can about the mysterious Mrs. Graham. Young Gilbert Markham wants to know everything but for a very different reason, he is inexorably drawn to the young widow and cannot understand why she remains aloof and detached, craving solitude over companionship and love. But soon Helen Graham realizes that her feelings for Gilbert mean that she must disclose her past so that he can move on and realize their love is doomed, and not just because her husband isn't dead.

Mrs. Helen Graham is really Mrs. Helen Huntington, the wife of a cruel man who has more vices then she could enumerate. She has fled her husband because he was trying to imprint their your son with his own dubious morals.  Helen could have suffered anything if it was just herself that was the target of Huntongton's malice, she stubornly married him after all, but their son is another matter. After years of feeling trapped and hunted in her own home, can she remake her life, or will the old one haunt her?

Sometimes I am a very contrary person, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a case in point. Instead of reading the book before watching the miniseries I decided to watch the miniseries first which then put me off the book. For some reason I view the steadfast rule of reading the book first not applying to the Brontes. I had seen so many adaptations of their books prior to ever picking one up that they are grandfathered into my weird reading habits with this clause. Yet I still question how an adaptation with Toby Stephens and James Purefoy, not to mention Rupert Graves, Pam Ferris, and Paloma Baeza, could be so bad. It was dull and lifeless and I remember barely being able to finish it.

The miniseries turned me off the book and because of this the book has languished for years waiting for the time when I would pick it up and love it. I seriously can not think of any reasonable excuse why it took me this long to read it. I was under so many misconceptions about this book that I should have just trusted to my gut which tells me that Anne Bronte is awesome. I am serious when I say that I think Anne might just be my favorite Bronte. This isn't just me routing for the underdog, though she is the least embraced of the sisters, this is totally to do with how awesome her books are.

There's a part of me that knows Anne's desire for "truth" in this novel comes from a desire to counter the pro bad boy image her sisters had created in their works. But there's a deeper part of me that wonders if she's not just messing with Charlotte and Emily a little. Who, given the chance, wouldn't try to mess with their siblings a little? Her sisters did everything to make this bad boy redeemable by love trope and then in comes Anne and blasts them out of the water. Huntington is a bad boy to equal Heathcliff and Rochester, but love is unable to sway him. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an opus to the irredeemable. I can just picture the sisters sitting around their fireplace on a cold night in Haworth talking about their dream men and Anne just looking askance at them and plotting how to prove them wrong, preferably in three volumes, she was, after all, a silent plotter. I don't think anyone has ever summed this up better then Kate Beaton in her "Hark, a Vagrant" comic, "Dude Watchin' with The Brontes" so I won't attempt to and move onto other things.

So, other things! What I find amazing in this book, and in fact all the work by the Brontes, is how they were able to capture an entire world from outside their cloistered lives and put it on the page. It just goes to show that sometimes writing what you know isn't the only answer, but writing what you feel is. Over a hundred and fifty years later this book pulses with life. It was criticized at the time for being too repulsive and scandalous, but that is why it resonates till this day. It is the truth of human nature and fallibility that Anne sought out to capture and did. Infidelity, adultery, drugs, drink, games of chance, everything not written about in literature of it's day that still causes so much heartbreak.

The degraded life that Helen lives made me connect to her because, not only did I pity her, I worried that she wouldn't make it out of this situation, ironic because having watched the miniseries I knew the outcome, but still I worried. But as to the debauchery, one problem I have always had and mentioned repeatedly in literature set during this time is the overuse of the Hellfire Club. It seems if you are debauched during the Regency or early Victorian eras you therefore have to belong to some incarnation of said Hellfire Club. But here I make an exception. Usually the Hellfire Club is just a trope used by modern writers, as in those still currently writing. Think of the spunk it took for a little ex governess to allude to the Hellfire Club in a book written in 1848! You Anne Bronte are the exception that proves the rule! When you wrote those few lines alluding to fire and brimstone it was not yet hackneyed, it was controversial. I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me and literature, this poorly written review will have to suffice.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anne Bronte, BBC Miniseries, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Emily Bronte, Hark a Vagrant, Hellfire Club, James Purefoy, Mary Barton, That Summer, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, This Summer, Toby Stephens

Name: Jessica Stroup

Dream Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Fantasy Movie Adaptation: Julia Conley

First Impression: Reaper. Damn, I really loved this way too short lived show with gay demons played by Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black. The show was about Sam, a normal guy who finds out he's the son of Satan. One of his love interests, played by Jessica Stroup, may or may not have been his half sister and yet another of Satan's childern. Seriously, it's funny and a little sick all in one.

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Dream Movie Adaptation: There's something no nonsense and tough about her that I think really gets to the heart of who Julia is.

Lasting Impression: The Following. Joining this deliciously campy show about a serial killer and his followers in season two as Kevin Bacon's niece Sam, she's a kick ass female Ryan Hardy who better hook up with Mike, that's all I'm saying.

What else you've seen them in: She's been around for years popping up here and there. When she showed up on The Following it was really bothering me where I had seen her before until I was able to get on imdb and go, oh yeah, Reaper! Jessica has been on Grey's Anatomy, Family Guy, True Blood in the memorable opening scene of the series before it went to shit, among others.

Can't believe it's them: 90210. Seriously, why, just why?

Wish they hadn't: Again, shall we discuss 90210? I tried to watch this when it came back and barely lasted to the reveal of who is the father of Kelly's baby, it's Dylan by the way. Just no.

Bio: Born in South Carolina, she headed to LA at the age of 17, turning down a scholarship to the University of Georgia. Taking acting classes she was soon being cast in horror movies, which also happens to be a genre she likes, with The Shining being a favorite film. She's one of the characters I hope will survive on The Following to come back next season. But if she doesn't... maybe we can get this whole Lauren Willig dream movie franchise off the ground?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 90210, James Purefoy, Jessica Stroup, Julia Conley, Lauren Willig, Reaper, That Summer, That Summer Spotlight, The Following, The Shining, True Blood

Now to that most surly of men... is he good... is he bad... do we really care? Bring on Lord Vaughn!

Name: James Purefoy

Dream Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Sebastian, Lord Vaughn

First Impression: Mansfield Park... why did they have to kill him!?! WHY! Just... oh, I can't get started on how I hate this film again... one of the reasons? James Purefoy dies!

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Could there be another actor out there who can do haughty humor while looking drop dead sexy? Plus did you see how great he looks in Regency clothes?

Lasting Impression: A Knight's Tale, so cute as the King... he was the King right? Prince? Whatever, he was cool while wearing hot furs, the plot, eh, not so important.

What else you've seen them in: Ah... Rome anyone? Also... you really see all of him if you get my drift. From films to television, he's willing to star in and easily adapts from Bronte to Austen, from Cambridge to Comics... He's not one of those stars, who once they hit the big screen, won't go back to the small. Personally I'll watch him in anything, from Solomon Kane to The Philanthropist... of course that was sadly canceled.

Can't believe it's them: Bedrooms and Hallways... just watch it and see. Plus a whole new way that Margaret Thatcher has been debased in the popular media, and rightfully so.

Wish they hadn't: Left V for Vendetta, I love this movie, but his voice and body over Hugo Weavings, yes please, any day! But there's more, I have many Purefoy regrets... WHY did he do that awful Mansfield Park and WHY did he do Maybe Baby!?!? But then again, an actor so prolific, is bound to do crap every once in awhile... like that atrocious Vanity Fair... did they understand Becky is supposed to be unlikable!?!

Bio: James is one of those actors who, after the first time you see them, you know you have to see more. You in fact get very angry when watching A Dance to the Music of Time, because for some reason the final episode recast him, and you're not having any of that, thank you! Sorry, personal grievance there... I have some issues to deal with.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 13 comments  

Labels: A Knight's Tale, Bedrooms and Hallways, James Purefoy, Lauren Willig, Lord Vaughn, Mansfield Park, Pink Carnation Spotlight, Rome, The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, V for Vendeta, Vanity Fair