strange and random happenstance

If you are looking for something to fill the gaping hole left between seasons of The Gilded Age this isn't where you should be looking. And yes, a lot of it just falls on the scope scale. The Gilded Age has a budget of roughly $15 million an episode and this, this did not. The average Hallmark movie has a budget around $2 million. So you can see there's a steep divide. And I went into this with an open mind. I knew to lower my expectations. That this was just the first movie adapting Alyssa Maxwell's Newport books and I should enjoy this delightful series getting exposure, but so many WTF moments kept pulling me out of the narrative. Which means let's talk letterpress. Our heroine, Emma Vanderbilt-Cross, works at a newspaper. Newspapers in 1895 means letterpress. But just slapping a press in a room with a cabinet does not a proper newspaper make. The entire newspaper seems to be run out of one office with an old guy in the corner with a small platen press... Which is actually impossible given the printed newspaper we are shown. Also don't get me started on how slow he sets the type. Did the writers of this know there used to be competitions among newspapers to see who had the fastest typesetters? Because our friend here would come in last. But the vagaries and lack of knowledge regarding printing is, in my experience, quite common. Don't get me started on the Heidelberg Windmill fiasco in Without a Clue! So let's tackle those issues that other people might actually notice. Just look to the inferior fabrics that the dresses are made of. Seriously, is that poor girl wearing a repurposed eighties prom dress for her coming out? And I mean 1980s not 1880s. It's sure pink and shiny enough. Molly Ringwald would approve. Also the costumes are all so ill-fitting and could they just stop randomly adding lace to cover up imperfections. I'd rather see the imperfections than that much lace. But the biggest sin of all is that this was filmed in Canada. "The Breakers" was previously home to Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. And yes, that at least means it's opulent enough, but it's not Newport enough. The thing is we're dealing with two different coasts and therefore two very different architectural styles. Newport is very gilded, as the title of it's most famous show indicates. The rooms in the homes look like they belong in museums with all that gilt. Whereas Vancouver Island, home to Hatley Castle, is all western lumber and oil barron wealth, so the look leans more towards wood with an occasional node to the arts and crafts movement when not just showcasing the lumber. In other words, nothing like the actual homes in Newport. And I just could not suspend my disbelief. You're probably saying, yes, we get it, the production quality annoyed you, what about the plot? Well, our heroine is too dumb to live. She never stays around to listen to people's answers and just hares off. She spent days looking for the servant Mason and she finds him and just wanders off without getting a single answer!?! Um, if you want to write for a newspaper perhaps actually follow through? At least her half brother looks enough like a young Michael Sheen that when she inevitably dies from doing something stupid he can take over the show and I'll be "content" with that.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alyssa Maxwell, And the Emmy Goes To, Costumes, Gilded Newport Mysteries, Hallmark, Letterpress, Michael Sheen, Molly Ringwald, Murder at the Breakers, Newport, The Gilded Age, Vancouver, Without a Clue, X-Mansion

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Published by: HarperTorch
Publication Date: 1990
Format: Paperback, 412 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Crowley and Aziraphale have quite literally been there since the beginning. Man, woman, garden, snake. Crowley was the snake, Aziraphale was wielding the flaming sword while guarding the gates of Eden, but please don't ask about where the sword is now. But nowadays Crowley has the car and the suave clothes that befit his side while Aziraphale collects books. What else is there to do when you're waiting for the world to end? The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch predicted it all back in 1655. And that's not the nice that indicates the end of the world next Saturday is a good thing, it's the other, more "precise" kind. It's going to happen. Everything has been put in place, the "horsemen" are assembling, the time has come for the uprising of evil to herald the end of days. If only there hadn't been that little mix up with the son of Satan a few years back. Because if things had gone to plan it would have been a nice and smooth end to the world, instead it's complicated. Of course some of that was on purpose. Crowley and Aziraphale aren't sure whose side they're on because they rather like the world as it is, even if any tape left overly long in a car will start blaring Freddie Mercury and Queen. So they formed a plan. Crowley was meant to switch the son of an American diplomat with the Antichrist. Which he did. He and Aziraphale then posed as benevolent beings in this boy's life so that good and evil had an equal chance when the end days came. But not even their plan has gone to plan because the baby was switched again. Because the real Antichrist is a boy named Adam Young who has grown up in the perfect idyll of Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire. Which means now that the Apocalypse is nigh the race is on to find the real Antichrist. But Crowley and Aziraphale aren't the only ones looking for Adam. There's Anathema Device, the descendant of Agnes Nutter, and Newton Pulsifer, a descendant of the Witchfinder who burned Agnes at the stake and the only current recruit to the Witchfinder Army. With time against them they all end up working together in ways they never would have thought. But can you go up against a witch who always knew what was going to happen? Or can you thwart the omens?

I first picked up Good Omens when it was rumored that Neil Gaiman would be stopping by the 2011 North American Discworld Convention here in Madison, Wisconsin. I found it kind of lacking. Too many characters, too many dated jokes, an ending that was more whimper than bang. I love Gaiman and Pratchett but I was not sure I loved them together. Then Neil made his magnificent appearance with Pratchett and their stories, their friendship, breathed new life into the story for me. I could see what they were trying to do which didn't really happen for me when reading the book. I was too busy figuring out who was who and who wrote which section. After that talk I decided that I should, in the near future, reread it with this newfound appreciation. Of course given my reading habits the near future turned into eight years. But at least it wasn't a whole decade! The main reason I picked it up again is because the book had been adapted by Amazon and David Tennant and Michael Sheen were starring as Crowley and Aziraphale, a more perfect casting I could never imagine. So I reread the book and I enjoyed it doubly as much as I previously did. I still had issues, I still think there are too many characters and sometimes the little vignettes staged to get a certain joke across instead of adding to the narrative take away from the overall structure of the book. Because this book doesn't flow. It's setup after setup and some work and some don't. Which leads me to inevitably talk about the adaptation, which did a good job of fixing some problems while adding in new ones. Who hired Frances McDormand to narrate? She was horrible. But ignoring Frances McDormand, which I admit is hard to do, the adaptation was the opportunity to fix the book and, for the most part, fix it they did. In particular the third episode "Hard Times" which chronicles the friendship of Crowley and Aziraphale through the ages is one of the best hours of television you will ever watch. It is two people who are genuinely friends playing two characters who, despite being on opposite sides of the celestial war, are genuinely friends. It ALL comes down to friendship, and that is a good thing.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Antichrist, Aziraphale, Crowley, David Tennant, For the Love of Book Clubs, Good Omens, Michael Sheen, NADWCon, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter

Any fan of Good Omens or it's two authors will know the turbulent history of trying to get an adaptation of it made. Years and years of trouble and strife all for it to finally come together only because of Terry's death. His death hit me hard, it was one of the only times I've cried for an author and not because of something they've written. And Neil promised Terry that Good Omens would happen. Almost two year's after Terry's death it was announced that Neil himself was adapting the book to be a six part miniseries for Amazon that would be released in 2019. Later that year Michael Sheen and David Tennant (listed alphabetically using David's stage name) joined as the two leads. The show is jammed with the cream of the crop of British guest stars, so much so some people didn't notice a few recognizable Americans snuck in there as well. The show, like the book, is uneven. And don't get me started on France McDormand's narration as God. Never has someone so talented phoned in their performance so epicly. The show would be almost 100% better if they just edited her out. A lesson they took to heart in season two. Yet for me, and for most fans, the heart of the show is the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. Season one's best episode is "Hard Times" and all it is is their relationship through the ages. And it is priceless. Because the friendship and love isn't just between the two characters but between the two actors. Michael and David have become the best of friends, so much so that during lockdown they created and starred in the award winning Staged, which is a fictionalized look at their lives. Therefore the second season of Good Omens had high expectations, because now EVERYONE knew that not only where the leads best friends but they shipped their characters. This show is unapologetically gay and fan service to the max, but that's why there is a second season, because of the fans. Season two works better than season one because it's on a smaller, more intimate scale. The main cast is just a handful of characters and it's all about finding love. Which makes all the Jane Austen references so perfect, even if she was secretly a criminal and to Crowley's shock, an author. But the show still has pacing problems. We spent way too much time with Job, but thankfully Aziraphale having the meat sweats distracted me a bit there, and I could have used even more Jon Hamm. Seriously, I hated his character in season one, but an amnesiac angel let him lean into his comedic abilities which he should seriously do more often. Has everyone seen A Young Doctor's Notebook? Because if not you should get on that right away. And for some reason, no matter how much I do love her, Miranda Richardson just didn't work. But all my problems fell away with the final two episodes. The whole show is about how people in power don't want you to ask questions. They don't want you to think that something they are against is a possibility, so an angel and a demon falling in love? It's the greatest protest you could stage. And stage it they did. So damn beautifully. That HEA was well earned. Sadly it wasn't for Aziraphale and Crowley. Which means if we don't get a season three someone will be hurt. It will probably be me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Young Doctor's Notebook, And the Emmy Goes To, Angel, Aziraphale, Crowley, David Tennant, Demon, Good Omens, Good Omens 2, HEA, Jane Austen, Jon Hamm, LGBTQIA+, Michael Sheen, Neil Gaiman, Staged, Terry Pratchett

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Published by: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 1930
Format: Paperback, 322 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

"If you want to know why the Bright Young Things are remembered, here’s a large part of the answer. For all their essential silliness, they produced two great novelists, Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, both of whom brilliantly chronicled that fleeting and self-reflective world. In Vile Bodies, we find all the excesses of the Bright Young People writ large.

There’s no better description of the Bright Young milieu than the one Waugh provides in Vile Bodies: “Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St. John’s Wood, parties in flats and houses and shops and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming baths….”

Waugh wrote as one who knew. He was a central member of the set. So, naturally, I couldn’t resist having him put in a cameo appearance in The Other Daughter…." - Lauren Willig

Adam Fenwick-Symes is returning from the continent having written his autobiography and remembering that he has a fiance back home in England, the lovely Nina Blount. On the channel crossing he is surrounded by an odd assortment of passengers, the oddest being the American, Mrs. Melrose Ape, who proselytizes with her "Angels." Sadly Adam's book is seized by customs as being unsavory and he therefore shows up at his publishers empty-handed and owing them a book or a return of his advance. He is able to do neither and re-signs with them under very onerous terms and calls Nina to say that they sadly cannot be married now. Nina insists they will eventually find a way and that that night's party is far more important and pressing at the moment. Adam's future goes from bright to bleak and back again in the blink of an eye. One day Nina's father gives him money to help the young couple, the next Adam realizes he was the butt of Colonel Blount's joke. Then Adam gets a job writing a gossip column with a steady paycheck, only to have Nina lose him the job because of a grave error in her judgement, which is always dictated by her "pains." They live a life that is penurious and luxurious all at once and if only the young couple could get married, but seeing as Nina is now engaged to Ginger Littlejohn, leaving Adam in the lurch, what is a bright young boy to do?

In my family the works of Evelyn Waugh began and ended with Brideshead Revisited. Yes, he obviously wrote other books, but to my family, and in particular my father, it didn't matter. We had copious copies of the book on many shelves. We had the complete miniseries on VHS, and eventually on DVD. We even had Aloysius with a dainty hairbrush in one of the bedrooms. I never really thought much of Evelyn Waugh beyond Brideshead Revisited, and then Stephen Fry came along to correct me. When my friend Huyen moved back to Wisconsin from D.C. and into her own apartment the two of us would quite frequently have movie nights. We'd rent all the girly and period films that our other friends refused to watch during our weekly knitting night. And yes, we had a knitting club, The FEKS, The Fine Eyes Knitting Society; we sneaked in our love of Austen by making it sound like a swear from Father Ted. The two of us would troupe across the street to the Family Video and pick out the movie of the week. We learned valuable lessons from I Capture the Castle, mainly that Henry Thomas grew up attractive and it's really creepy watching Mr. Collins ask anyone to dance even when he isn't Mr. Collins. From De-Lovely we learned that Cole Porter became trapped in a wheelchair because of meeting boys in fields for a little extra-martial fun. Horses are dangerous, yo. And from Bright Young Things we learned that Stephen Fry could make a movie that was not in the least memorable.

Bright Young Things, the adaptation of Vile Bodies, might be one of the least memorable films I have ever watched. Considering that the film is chock-a-block with my most favorite of British actors from Michael "Seriously How Hot Was He in Far From the Madding Crowd" Sheen to David "10th Doctor" Tennant I am shocked I don't remember more. In fact my only lasting impression was that Richard E. Grant was in a single scene. Yep, that is the sum total of my recollections of this film, a lack of Richard E. Grant. Stephen Fry is a gifted writer, so therefore it puzzled me as to why this movie was so forgettable. Now, having read Vile Bodies, I can see the fault was not in the adaptation but in the source material. The main problem is there is no plot to the book. I know many people in my book club would site the same problem in Brideshead Revisited, but there the language and the evocation on memory balance any deficit in plot. Vile Bodies was the second novel Evelyn Waugh had ever written and his lack of experience shows. He wasn't even thirty yet and his experience of the world was closed to this vibrant, but cloistered, society. The book is nothing more then in-jokes, a 20s roman à clef, that leaves you with a feeling that you had to be there to appreciate the joke.

The aspect that most rang true to me and I think explains a lot about this cloistered culture is the appropriateness of the quote at the beginning of the book from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. When you fall into the world of these Bright Young People you never quite know what's going on, there are parties with no rules, parties with costumes, parties where you come as other people, it's all rushing and talking and drinking, a headlong rush to just keep moving. Because if you don't keep moving you don't just stand still, you fall behind as Carroll logic would have it. So when you first pick up this book it's all unattributed dialogue and just words slamming against you and you're trying to fight it, you're trying to make this book work and fit in a traditional sense. But that's not what the culture was about, it was about being different and going with this new flow. When the characters all get in a car and head off to the races it somehow all clicks. The unattributed dialogue and the confusion works. You, like Alice, have fallen down the rabbit hole, if only you had realized it earlier you could have given up the struggle and just let it wash over you. Vile Bodies isn't written to make sense, it's written to capture this feeling, this moment in time. It's like you're at a party and only catch bits and pieces of conversation, but that's all you ever had the chance of catching. Grab what you can but keep moving forward in a headlong rush because this lost generation is all about the Alice mentality.   

But even in this confusing morass of gibberish that never had a chance in a million years of attaining the studied and superb insanity of Lewis Carroll you catch glimpses of Waugh's genius to come. The newspaper that Adam Fenwick-Symes occasionally works for is one of the successes of the novel. Waugh catches the humor inherent in the hypocrisy of people basically reporting on themselves, which should come as no surprise because it's actually a job Waugh had for a short while. Though he takes it further making it more commentary then the drivel that makes up the rest of the book. By having the columnists not even write on real people he gives us an insight into the shallowness of the times, both of the reading public and the Bright Young People themselves. The fake articles are hilarity and a bright spot in a rather plodding and dull book. Though by far my favorite character was Nina's father, Colonel Blount. With his inability to remember Adam, his love of films, and his gleefully putting out the Vicar he was the embryo of who would become one of Waugh's most memorable characters, Edward "Ned" Ryder, the father of Charles in Brideshead Revisited. Edward Ryder is one of the most well written and comedic of characters ever to be set in print, always bemoaning Cousin Melchior, and brought to amazing life by Sir John Gielgud. So if Vile Bodies had to be written just so we could one day have Brideshead Revisited, I guess it's an acceptable bargain.

Though I have to protest the "Angels!" Good god damn, seriously!?! I really don't quite know what to say about them, other then they really don't fit in this book. Were they there as some latent Waugh religiosity that would take over later in life? Because I don't feel like Waugh would have openly mocked Catholicism, so we're not laughing at them? Or are we? What's going on? Or is it a parody on Americans? Or hypocrites? I mean, the rest of the book all fits together, clashes of the young and the old, parodies of the language and lifestyle of the times and then some random Bible-thumpers. It kind of gives Vile Bodies a creepiness that isn't warranted by anything else in the book, well, maybe excepting the two rather precipitous deaths. And I really think if this had been stressed in the movie I would have remembered it. Yes, Waugh and religion go together, but they go together in his more mature, thoughtful work. This is supposed to be fun, right? So why bring in these weird religious figures? But I think my confusion isn't just me. Waugh, as the book went on, seemed to be unsure if his book was actually light and comedic. In the course of writing it he went through a divorce and the second half is decidedly darker culminating in a world war. Perhaps the angels are an outward manifestation of the crossroads Waugh had reached and where he was going to go. That or I'm just trying to justify a book that doesn't live up to what the author was capable of.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alice in Wonderland, Brideshead Revisited, Bright Young Things, David Tennant, Evelyn Waugh, I Capture the Castle, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, The Other Daughter, Vile Bodies

Timeline
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Anna Friel, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, Neal McDonough, Matt Craven, Ethan Embry, Michael Sheen, Lambert Wilsone, Marton Csokasr, Rossif Sutherland, Patrick Sabongui, and Steve Kahan
Release Date: November 26th, 2003
Rating: ★
To Buy

Professor Edward Johnston is teaching at Castlegard in France while excavating the site. The tech company ITC is funding the excavation and this has Johnston wary. ITC keeps suggesting places to dig and they are a little too spot on. Suspicious of their involvement and accuracy he decides to head to New Mexico and confront Robert Doniger, ITC's president, leaving the site in the capable hands of his assistants, André Marek, Kate Ericson, and Josh Stern. A few days after the professor's departure there is a cave in at the monastery site which leads to the discovering of a note from the Professor saying that he is in 1357 and needs help. The carbon dating proves the legitimacy of the note and Johnston's son Chris calls ITC and confronts them about the disappearance of his father. They promise a full explanation if they come to their headquarters in New Mexico.

Arriving in New Mexico the team is told that ITC's interest in their work and in Castlegard is because while trying to figure out how to transport three dimensional objects ITC discovered a wormhole to Castlegard in 1357. The Professor went back to 1357 and is now trapped there. ITC plans to send his team to bring him back because they are the most knowledgeable about the time and place and have a higher chance of success then they do. Of course ITC doesn't bother to warn them of the dangers of the time period they are entering or even the dangers of the technology used to get there. ITC has one goal, protect their ass and assets. If that means stranding people in 1357, so be it. But the Professor and his rag tag crew have more heart and determination then ITC gives them credit for and they're not going down without a fight.

Despite my continual disappointment with Michael Crichton adaptations I was willing to give the Timeline movie a shot. I mean, I didn't really like the book to begin with so how could they make it worse? Oh how naive I was. I should have realized that a mediocre book made into a movie with one of my most hated actresses ever, hello Frances O'Connor, would be nothing but a failed attempt at a blockbuster. Riddled with cliches, hello new character François, you shall be playing our Redshirt today, the movie actually dumbs down a fairly dumbed down book. The plot was streamlined, the women were sidelined, if it wasn't for the the pure visual appeal of trebuchets in action there is nothing worth remembering in this movie. The only joy I got out of re-watching Timeline all these years later was realizing that the despot Lord Oliver was played by a then unknown Michael Sheen, who obviously got that he was in the movie equivalent of Medieval Times and camped it up accordingly.

What shocked me most about this adaptation was the dumbing down, the softening of everything across the board, from plot to characters to hearts to women. Taking each aspect in turn, the plot was striped bare of anything redeemable. Instead of having ITC actually creating this interesting technology, it's just something they stumbled upon. There's a wormhole, we don't know how we found it, we don't know why it works, we don't know what we'll use it for, we don't know if there's a purpose to it, and we won't give you an answer after two hours, just go with it OK? So you have taken the sole interesting aspect of the book, technology that as time goes on looks actually plausible with the research being done at CERN and made it a MacGuffin. Thanks a lot. That's sarcasm. I'm sure the people behind this movie surely aren't able to grasp this, hence me spelling it out. Wormholes creating love stories and two hour battles and chances since 2003!

If dumbing down the plot wasn't enough, all the characters were made into idiots! They are literally stupider, as if their minds have been softened into jelly. Firstly, Paul Walker as Chris isn't even an archaeologist, just Professor Johnston's drifter son trying to get into Kate's pants. As for Kate, she's just a general archaeologist, who doesn't have an eidetic memory for architecture and a passion for climbing. Marek isn't the Medieval scholar who has mastered all past languages, that's what we now need Redshirt François for, instead André can wield a sword and shoot an arrow and rescue fair maidens. And the newly renamed Josh as played by Ethan Embry? He's just there for his frosted tips, his 90s goatee, and to try to get his friends home gosh darnit! Plus, by having Doniger stumble on the wormhole our one guaranteed smart person has been replaced by a bumbling David Thewlis, the go-to bumbler.

As their minds all melted into no existence apparently their hearts took on new properties, much like a certain character from Seuss, "Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day." Because the characters don't have the mental capacity anymore to understand the harsh realities of France during the Hundred Years' War, well obviously they're going to cry at every freaking death. In the book they personally lay waste to a lot of French and English troops, because it was a fact of life, a fact that scholars would understand, especially Marek. Instead all the characters are weepy. Understandably they'd get upset over the loss of their friends, but to go into full convulsive shock on killing someone? If it's you or them, I think survival instinct should be kicking in, not the instinct to cry. They seriously have red rimmed eyes for the whole movie! And then they even soften the heart of De Kere. Instead of being a complete and total psychopath who loves to kill, here he's totally not evil or a danger at all really, he'll even kindly tell you his tale of being misused by ITC instead of killing everything in sight like an enraged kitten.

But nothing pissed me off more then the softening of the women. I know a lot people go on and on about how books and movies don't give us strong female role models, and while I'm aware of this fact, well, I've never been that bothered by it. If it doesn't have something for me, obviously I won't read or watch it so it's not like I'm supporting this trope. Re-watching Timeline so close upon re-reading the book I was struck by how they had stripped out the female empowerment and made it almost painful to watch if you are in any way a feminist. The objectification was extreme, they were literally objects for the manly men to protect! Firstly two of the strong female roles, that of Gomez and Kramer, well, they became guys! While I had my issues with Kate in the book, she at least wasn't a helpless woman and a weepy mess. But the true kicker is Claire. Lady Claire isn't a pawn in the book, someone for Marek to rescue, she would be insulted. In fact Marek loves her in the book because she is playing every single angle, she's scheming, manipulative, and always looking out for herself! She's not a banner flown from the highest tower as a rallying point! She's looking out for herself any way she can!

Though this softening of females and hearts is a two edged sword because the result of this mushiness is that instead of being pragmatic the film is able to add a little romantic love, a little chivalry. But chivalry as we see and as was depicted by the Pre-Raphaelites, not chivalry as it existed then, which was about honor and protection, not giving your life for true love. And this romanticism of the past leads to the only redeeming feature of the entire movie, and that is Gerard Butler. He brings so much passion to the role of Marek that the romance of living and dying in another time for true love just makes the tear ducts a little moist. Earlier in the movie when he is describing the unique love depicted in a sarcophagus they found on the site and later when he realizes it's himself, you see the one true thing in this film, the everlasting quality of true love. It might not have been what Crichton wanted, but it raised the film out of the trope-tastic mire it had bogged itself down in for a minute and made me watch a few too many Gerard Butler films... hint, avoid Shooters, even with Ioan Gruffudd it's unbearably bad, and check out Dracula 2000 instead.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: CERN, Chivalry, Dr. Suess, Dracula 2000, France, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Grinch, Ioan Gruffudd, Medieval, Michael Crichton, Michael Sheen, Objectification, Pre-Raphaelite, Shooters, Timeline, Wormholes