strange and random happenstance

The Durrells in Corfu is a series whose existence defies explanation other than a starring vehicle for Keeley Hawes, which I would normally wholy agree with, just not in this case. The thing is, in 2005 Simon Nye wrote the delightful movie, My Family and Other Animals, adapting the book of the same name by Gerald Durrell. A mere decade later he revisited the exact same subject matter but made it into a series. It's the same team just with prettier actors! Embrace the glow up! Imelda Staunton is out, Keeley Hawes is in! And while I would have liked to have spent four seasons with the cast of the movie, I did not enjoy spending four seasons with this iteration of the Durrells. The overwhelming problem is that this show boils down to two concepts; English exceptionalism and mom needing a man. Time and time again the Durrells think they know best, and while they are proven wrong over and over again, they don't grow from their experiences, instead by the end they are putting on a show of how much they've learned from Corfu when really it's just patronizing the locals. And it is oh so painful to watch. This show smacks of jingoism and now I get why the Queen said it was her favorite television show. But moving beyond the racism, there's the sexism. Oh dear lord. While it might be funny to have the writer Lawrence Durrell, who wrote rather racy literature, to boil all of one's problems down to sex, I just couldn't stand it. Not a second went by in this show where he didn't declaim that all of his mother's problems would just evaporate if she just got herself a man. While yes, during this period in history, a lot of a woman's financial stability relied on having a husband, I think Louisa was doing the best that she could. Why would she burden herself with another male? She has two sons who are insufferable asses, aside from being misogynistic, a self-centered daughter, and only one child who is delightful and his only crime is curiosity. I honestly do not get how people not only liked this show but loved it. I could barely get through it. There are literally only two episodes I can think on fondly, all the rest I want to pretend I never saw. Each and every single episode created a new aspect of these characters for me to despite. Let's take Leslie played by Callum Woodhouse who went on to play a slightly tamer version of the same character on All Creatures Great and Small. So his girlfriend gets pregnant and he fully gaslights her. It's not his, she couldn't be pregnant, is she sure she's pregnant, oh, it's totally not his. And the story is framed in such a way that we are to find it humorous and to side with Leslie. A man during this time could walk away from his responsibilities and just pick up his life elsewhere, whereas a woman would be destroyed. And yet we are to side with the man!?! The more I watched this show the more I thought that Simon Nye himself has to be sexist because how could you even write this if you didn't believe it? I just, ugh, I can't with this show. I am an anglophile and this was just too in your face about the greatness of England. I mean, they are on Corfu, maybe celebrate Corfu a little!?! Don't always deride it. But then, if this show was boiled down to one concept it is derision. Derision of women, derision of others, and, even derision of the audience because they don't give a shit about wasting your time.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Derision, Exceptionalism, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Gerald Durrell, Imelda Staunton, Jingoism, Keeley Hawes, Lawrence Durrell, Misogynistic, My Family and Other Animals, Racism, Sexism, Simon Nye, The Durrells in Corfu

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, this is the second Lord Peter Wimsey post in a week. I made a vow to myself to not repeat shows for Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, much as I did for its predecessor, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, but sometimes it's unavoidable, especially as later seasons of Masterpiece Theatre have fewer shows and one season had only a single show. Yes, I'm looking at you season thirty-seven. If it had been I good show I might have forgiven you, but The Amazing Mrs Pritchard is not good. Over thirty years earlier season three of Masterpiece Theatre had six shows while season four had five. With my self-imposed vow to not repeat a review that omitted Country Matters, The Edwardians, and Upstairs, Downstairs from consideration. Which left Lord Peter Wimsey, The Man Who Was Hunting Himself, and Vienna 1900. Thanks to YouTube I have actually found a lot of supposedly lost media this past year but The Man Who Was Hunting Himself and Vienna 1900 weren't among them when I previously checked. So I decided to take a novel approach so you wouldn't get the same post twice in a week. That approach was to watch the two mysteries featured in season three and then write my review before I started the two mysteries featured in season four. And voila! Two entirely new and unique reviews. Of course if I do a celebration for the sixtieth and the two aforementioned shows haven't made an appearance by then I have a feeling I'll be repeating myself... But I do at least try to refresh it and say thankee for indulging me. PS I'm totally planning on doing Sixty Years a Masterpiece. I might already be writing posts for it. So this season adapts Lord Peter's most famous case, "Murder Must Advertise," and I have to say, this is the Dorothy L. Sayers I know and loath. The racial slurs and infodumps are all here. Why no, I do not want to learn every single employee in the advertising agency in the first five minutes while they're all talking over each other simultaneously because I will forget who they all are, oh, and you're now doing it with the bell ringers in "The Nine Tailors?" I do not want to know the name of every single bell ringer, as well as the name, number, and tone of their bell. Because there is no way I will remember this information as they all look like identical old white men. And yes, she did this to me in Gaudy Night too. Which I haven't forgiven her for. I actually started a cast list while reading that book to try to avoid confusion. At least in a visual medium I can remember some of the faces. You know, the one young bell ringer, the one that reminds me of Richard Griffiths, that sort of thing. Because if there's one thing that these adaptations get right about Dorothy L. Sayers, beyond the racial slurs and infodumps, they are confusing as hell. One crime deals with breaking up a drug smuggling ring which I literally couldn't care less about all while Lord Peter is rather annoying darting around town dressed up as a harlequin with a penny whistle while the other is so badly plotted I have no idea when the mystery took place. I think it started right before the outbreak of WWI and then leaped forward to the middle of thirties, but with everyone still oddly talking about the Spanish Flu. Which led me down a rabbit hole about when there were other flu outbreaks, and needless to say, if you're having to do extracurricular research just to enjoy a show perhaps the show should have been giving you more information. I mean, they could have just put the date on the screen! Sigh. That obviously would have been too easy. I just really feel bad for Ian Carmichael. He really is a great Lord Peter. Too bad the source material isn't the greatest. And I know that sounds like blasphemy to some, but it's exactly how I feel.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bell Ringers, Dorothy L. Sayers, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Gaudy Night, Ian Camichael, Infodump, Lord Peter Wimsey, Murder Must Advertise, Racism, Spanish Flu, The Man Who Was Hunting Himself, The Nine Tailors, WWI

Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency by Bea Koch
Published by: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: September 1st, 2020
Format: Paperback, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, urged her niece, Lady Caroline Lamb, to "boldly mould, invent, design." That could be the clarion call for all the women contained in these pages. They formed their own interconnected society of scientists, artists, philanthropists, writers. They gave each other encouragement and support, because they lived in a society where they were viewed as second class citizens. Yet in their spheres they made a mark. What's odd is that all these women, from Anne Lister to Mary Anning, are viewed as exceptions to the rule. They were trailblazers for the female sex. They are the chosen ones remembered by history. To an extent. But with modern historians going back and reevaluating the Regency they are finding more and more woman who lived life on their own terms. Without going back and looking at how these women influenced their time period in their own way we aren't getting a full view of history. We are getting a prejudiced, skewed, masculine view. History is always said to be written by the winners. Well, for thousands of years that was white men. And white men didn't want to think about minorities, or in fact anyone other than themselves. Yet these people existed. There are arguments to be made that Jane Austen herself showed a very white world, but that's because she never got to finish Sanditon. Georgiana Lamb, like the real Dido Belle, was a woman of color. Who knows how she would have fared if the novel had been completed. Thankfully we have the television adaptation showing us a very fierce, independent, and headstrong young lady. And speaking of Austen, have you ever wondered about the women who controlled Almack's? The grand dames who could make or break your season with a single voucher? Well, they weren't at all the elderly dragons you thought they were, they were living breathing women, who made alliances and friendships and decisions based on these aspects of their lives. A few of them were quite notorious for other reasons too. Because what happens when you pull back the curtain is you see so much more than what you ever expected. People in the past almost become ossified by history, especially when told from a certain point of view. It's time to bring them into the light like Mary Anning's findings. It's time for the truth to be told in the hopes that more history will emerge.

To say that this book is just about the Regency is stretching things. As Bea Koch admits in her introduction the women that came before and the women that came after are just as important to an understanding of the time period, and I get that, I do. But a cynic would say, maybe it's just because there really weren't that many badass women in the Regency itself, while an optimist would say that she just wanted to find a way to include Anne Lister in her book. Because who wouldn't want Anne Lister in their book? Though the Anne Lister section is rather slight and Bea directs you more to the television show Gentleman Jack than bothers to spend too much time on Anne. And that is one of the flaws of this book, we have women of society, of royalty, of arts, oddly not of letters, of science, of lovers of women, of minorities, and of religion, and yet each section just feels a little too short, like a blurb in Who's Who. In all seriousness I almost expected to find "Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791." There isn't much depth here, but it's a good place to start. It's almost like CliffNotes. If you've read Austen and want a little bit more history, here's as good a place as any to get just that little bit more, especially in regard to Almack's and the female royalty of the time. Personally I found the later chapters about "The Fairer Sex" and "Historical Accuracy and Regency England" the most interesting. Mainly because I find it fascinating when people's prejudices show, in particular with the casting of Bridgerton, that they never realized that queer people and people of color actually existed back then. Just because the world you've allowed yourself to be exposed to is so narrow that doesn't mean otherness doesn't exist. As for those women I found most mad and bad? The sculptor Anne Damer is top of the list, the exquiste way she trolled her detractors with The Three Witches of Macbeth painting is chef's kiss perfection, I also really loved seeing Mary Seacole in these pages and not just on the recent season of Doctor Who. Though I do wonder why Bea Koch didn't mention the Princess Caraboo film...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anne Damer, Anne Lister, Bea Koch, Dido Belle, Doctor Who, Gentleman Jack, Georgiana Lamb, History, Jane Austen, Mad and Bad, Mary Anning, Persuasion, Prejudice, Princess Caraboo, Racism, Regency Romp, Sanditon

Lakewood by Megan Giddings
Published by: Amistad
Publication Date: March 24th, 2020
Format: Kindle, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lena doesn't know what to do. Her grandmother was barely keeping things together before her passing. Now that she's gone Lena has to be the head of the family. Her mother has been ill for years. $80,000 worth of tests proved that she's sick but they still don't know with what. She has headaches and seizures, and her brain sometime just doesn't want to work right. In order for her to get the care she needs they need money. So Lena makes a decision. Her degree in art history can wait. It's not like school is going anywhere. She will become the breadwinner in the family. The problem is the only real job offer she's had is to be a sexy mascot at a taco restaurant opening up, and that isn't exactly going to pay much. But then she gets an invitation in the mail to join a medical study supposedly on memory. She'd have to sign an NDA and understand no one would be allowed to know what she is really doing. They'd set it up to make it look like she is just doing normal office work and all her and her mother's medical bills would be covered. Plus, Lena could start building a nest egg for herself and her mother. First she has to complete a week long series of tests. They are harrowing. Lena doesn't remember much except lots of doctors and needles and talking. But at the end of the week she's a few thousand dollars richer and realizes that because of her position, if she's lucky enough to be offered a place in the study, she will take it with no hesitation. Which is how Lena ends up in the town of Lakewood. There she reports everyday to a normal office and is handed a sheet of paper that tells her what her day consisted of. This is a well fabricated lie about dirty microwaves and stolen yogurt. In reality she and her colleagues undergo various tests. At first they seem benign. But then the "secretary's" teeth all fall out and Lena is locked in a cabin for she doesn't know how long. And then it gets worse. Also, why are there no white participants? And what is happening on other floors? And what will happen to Lena's mother if she leaves? Or worse, if Lena doesn't survive the study? Only time will tell if the mysteries of Lakewood get revealed.

The thing I love about my book club is that we all have such drastically different tastes that I read books I would never pick up on my own. And no, we never read books that the internet would designate as "perfect for your book club." Have you ever noticed those books are just... well, I could see the older women in my mom's old book club reading them, but never me. We read speculative science fiction, biographies, mysteries, YA, we are all over the place. I have to admit that the last few picks prior to Lakewood were not my cup of tea. So I was hesitant going in but also hopeful that it would break the cycle of, what I deemed, schlock. Lakewood delivered. The book was sold as "part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." While I get the whole reason for comparing books to other books to get people to pick them up, it sometimes annoys me, and in this instance I think they sold Lakewood short, because this is The Circle meets Get Out with a dash of The Office and a final helping of Annihilation and Stranger Things. It's got EVERYTHING! There's this day to day grind of what horrors will happen to Lena today. What will happen while she plays at having an office job? There's this veneer of normalcy that made me think of The Circle. The fact that this could be all above board except for this feeling that something is lurking beneath the surface. And while Lakewood would have been good at anytime, I think that when it was released led people to appreciate it all the more because it resonated with what was happening in the world, from the pandemic to BLM. This country has a horrible history of how it has treated people of color, and specifically in regard to medical trials, seeing them as nothing more than lab rats. Just look to the television commercials targeting people of color to get vaccinated featuring Spike Lee and the Obamas. The reason these ads are even necessary is because they have EVERY REASON not to trust. Years and years of medical experimentation have made them rightly wary. This book shines a light right on that and on the fact that people will only pay attention once white people start getting hurt. Things need to change and I hope this book, besides being entertaining, will get people to actually think.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Annihilation, BLM, Book Club, Get Out, Going Gothic, Lakewood, Medical Trials, Megan Giddings, Racism, Stranger Things, The Circle, The Handmaid's Tale, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Office, Vaccine

Firstly, a shout-out to the Fanibals who got #HannibalDeservesMore trending every Thursday when Clarice aired because this is a statement which I will never disagree with. But, the good news for Fanibals is that Clarice would in no way contradict or conflict with the continuation of Hannibal because this show doesn't take place in the present, like Hannibal, but right after the events of The Silence of the Lambs film, placing it firmly in 1992. So now that I've gotten those concerns addressed, lets talk Starling! From beginning to end this show had me on a roller coaster of emotions. There was a lot of bait and switch going on. You kind of expect a show following on the heels of The Silence of the Lambs to be about serial killers, and when at the end of the first episode they pull the rug out and are like, nope, it's about whistleblowers, it took me a few more episodes to lean into this new arc. Because this show doesn't really do "monster of the week." Each episode ties into the greater arc of what is going on with VICAP's investigation into Alastor Pharmaceuticals. So I had to embrace the whistleblowers and I heartily did. Because this isn't just relevant to now, but relevant to then. This was when Erin Brockovich was raising the alarm! And seriously, why have we stopped talking about Flint, Michigan, it's not like that magically got fixed? But Clarice also does an excellent job of discussing other issues of import that still matter, from sexism, to racism, to trauma, to transphobia. And what it did was eloquently handle transphobia. If you think about it, the original movie did a lot to make a monster out of Buffalo Bill because he was trans and as the trans character Julia Lawson played by Jen Richards puts it, this did a lot to hurt the trans community. Not just in the world of the show but in the real world. Her character arc over the three episodes she's on felt like an apology that we've been waiting a long time for and I applaud the show for leaning into the problematic source material versus just pretending it didn't exist. I do hope that this show is somehow able to continue because it is continually breaking down preconceptions and that makes it unique. Though I have to say circling back round to a serial killer by the end felt a little messy. If it wasn't for the amazing acting of Douglas Smith, previously killing it as Marcus Isaacson on The Alienist, it just wouldn't have worked.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Big Pharma, Clarice, Clarice Starling, Douglas Smith, Erin Brockovich, Fanibals, Hannibal, Racism, Sexism, The Alienist, The Silence of the Lambs, Transphobia, VICAP, Whistleblowers

Arthur and George
Based on the book by Julian Barnes
Release Date: March 16th, 2015
Starring: Martin Clunes, Arsher Ali, Charles Edwards, Art Malik, Emma Fielding, Pearl Chanda, Hattie Morahan, Timothy Watson, Hilary Maclean, Matthew Marsh, Ciarán Owens, Michael Hadley, Sandra Voe, and Geraldine Alexander
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Arthur Conan Doyle has just buried his wife. Yet he feels he is unworthy of the outpouring of condolence letters and sympathy because while he loved Louisa as best as he could, his heart for sometime has belonged to another. He is mired in guilt and can not seem to put pen to paper. In his copious correspondence his secretary, Woodie, finds a letter that might just invigorate him. People are always writing him assuming that he is equally adept at crime solving as his greatest creation, Sherlock Holmes, is. But this letter from George Edalji is different. Here is a true miscarriage of justice brought about by small town bigotry. If the evidence alone didn't speak for itself, meeting George and seeing this innocent man suffer is enough to make Sir Arthur swing into action. Surprisingly there is much push-back against his investigation. Many shadowy figures don't want the Edalji case brought up. They all site that it was a clear case. George is a degenerate who is out of place and maimed livestock and sent horrific letters to his family and threatened little girls because that's what he is. Arthur sees none of this, while Woodie is a little more skeptical. Yet once they arrive at the scene of the crimes in Wyrley, they start to realize that it's not just about proving George innocent, it's about finding the guilty party. The guilty party who might still be in Wyrley and might take against the great Sir Arthur trying to root him out. Yet the bluff and brash author won't back down from idle threats. For the first time in a long time he has a purpose and the vigor has returned to his life. Woodie sees this, and if it wasn't for Sir Arthur's well-being, he'd view the risks as too parlous. Because there is no doubt that in investigating George's case they are putting their very lives on the line.

If you are looking for a straight up adaptation of Julian Barnes's novel this is thankfully not it. That flawed self-indulgent pseudo-biography has been plundered for it's successful core and made into a story that is more akin to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. While loosely based on true events this adaptation isn't a slave to them. Unlike it's source material, this miniseries understands that adapting truth into fiction should also be fun and entertaining. It should be about Conan Doyle racing through the woods in the pursuit of a killer, not his premature ejaculations. There is fun to be had in taking the truth and spinning it into a fiction that makes good viewing for a Sunday night in. The biggest shift from book to miniseries is that we are given closure. The crimes perpetrated and attributed to George Edalji aren't solved by Conan Doyle in reality, but what kind of mystery is that I ask you? We viewers want some finality, some closure, some feeling of an ending; which we are given here. But oddly, despite how much I disliked the book I wonder if giving this adventure a "satisfying" ending is maybe doing the truth a disservice. The ending makes the whole story lose something of it's reality. Yes, it's more enjoyable, but perhaps they had a duty to make it more believable. There could have still been a more concrete ending while sticking closer to the truth. The diversions they made were occasionally so over-the-top that I found them to rank among the less believable of Conan Doyle's stories. This also did a disservice to how much work Conan Doyle actually put into George's exoneration. He used the tools available to him, mainly the press, but here he used the tools of Holmes and in that regard was more bumbling, less productive. But then again, since his death Arthur Conan Doyle has become a larger than life character, so why not just go with it?

But I don't think that the changes to the truth were intended to undermine it, but just to make it more in line with what mystery aficionados of today expect. The diversions made seemed to serve one goal, to pump up the mystery. We viewers have become very demanding in our blackguards. We want them to have an apparent purpose, to be relentlessly evil, and to have just that edge of crazy that makes hunting them down dangerous. In other words, a creep factor. Oh, and extra points if their lair is full of "otherworldly" symbols and dead bodies, or to be more accurate, parts of dead bodies. This production did all this. You get a hint that the creep factor is rising when the killer is found in a picture the family took outside the vicarage, if you look in an upstairs window. Almost like the ghosts that Conan Doyle believed in so fervently appearing after film is developed. The killer had left their mark indelibly on what should have been a happy and joyful family snapshot. But the scene that really left an impression on me was when Conan Doyle was racing through the woods and stumbled on what could be called a demonic fairy ring, with candles all in a circle and George's sister's doll taking pride of place in the center. This shows us that our perpetrator is truly unhinged. The mounting crimes, dead animals, and progression to actual murder don't actually need the final reveal of the shed of death later to confirm what we already know, Conan Doyle has found a villain worthy of his efforts. He has found Wyrley's own Jack the Ripper.

The creepiness of the culprit wasn't the only thing upped in the production, so were the conspiracies. In actuality Conan Doyle faced bigots and bureaucracy. Here the bureaucracy is more faceless. Nameless men trying to warn him away. Police giving ominous warnings. You get the idea, the standard trope to outsiders when visiting a closed community. While this fed into the mystery this is one clear cut instance that I think they should have stuck closer to the truth. Just look at the world today. Seriously, look at it. The bigots, the hatred, the anger spewing forth not just from the random crazies on the street but from our elected or hope to be elected officials. This is the world we live in and it was like that over a hundred years ago as well! To try to downplay this hatred as organized yet mysterious versus the systematic hatred of the "other" is like trying to deny the truth. It is far more terrifying to live in a world with this directed and specific hatred than a nebulous hatred of this other. In the book, despite George repeatedly saying that this isn't about race, it so clearly is. Or, in this interpretation, it is to an extent... because in the end they make it clear that George was right. The initial attacks against him before the corrupt system became involved were a specific hatred of him for being such a good and favored student. While there is something satisfying in the personal vendetta, here, well, it downplays the real evil. As is oft quoted the idea that all it takes for evil to survive is for one good man to do nothing, well, there's a lot of people doing nothing here, and that is more terrifying than one lunatic with a grudge.

Yet I am very grateful for one change. The downplaying of personal guilt. They quickly get Arthur's guilt over his wife dying and his loving another quite quickly with a few lines of dialogue and a few insights, and that's that. While yes, guilt and his need for diversion did lead Conan Doyle to take on George's case in the first place, it really bogged down the book. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of it. There's only so much self-flagellation you can endure before you grow to hate a character as much as they apparently hate themselves. While this might be the spark, the impetus, by concentrating on the crime we are given a more balanced narrative. I know I didn't sign up for a treatise on self-denial and self-loathing, did you? Some people might like that in their books and movies, I do not. See, I view my reading and watching as something to entertain me. It's escapism, not torturous inner soul-searching. A mystery should be a mystery first and foremost, and the miniseries of Arthur and George is exactly that. A mystery. So if you're looking for something more, something deeper, perhaps the book might be for you? Personally I don't see how the book could be for anyone really, but then again, best sellers lists and must read books often baffle me as to how they ever became as such.

This review of this dramatization wouldn't be complete if I didn't touch just a little on the acting. Oh poor Charles Edwards, always the Watson, never the Holmes. Charles Edwards is probably best known now as Edith's ill-fated beau on Downton Abbey, but to me he is the true Arthur Conan Doyle from his portrayal of him in Murder Rooms. While being the creator of Sherlock Holmes, he played Watson to Joseph Bell's Holmes. Skip forward fifteen years and here he is playing Watson to Conan Doyle's Holmes, in the form Woodie, Conan Doyle's personal secretary. I can't help but feel a little sad at this. He's such a fabulous actor and here he is playing second fiddle again. Not to mention that I read in an interview that Martin Clunes thought that this format of Conan Doyle solving crimes could really work... aw Martin, do you not know of Murder Rooms? Or are you just trying to break Charles Edwards's heart? But even if I do love me my Charles Edwards, there can be no denying that Martin Clunes is the perfect actor to play Conan Doyle later in life. He has that bluff athleticism and bluntness that makes Conan Doyle a more socially acceptable Doc Martin. And was I the only one inwardly giggling and kind of cheering for joy just to hear him talk about the death of his wife Louisa? Yes, I know it's not the Louisa I hate... but still, I have to take my fun where I can find it. As for George, Arsher Ali was well cast, because there is no getting around the fact in print or in film, I can't stand George. And as luck would have it, I really can't stand Arsher Ali. He is SO GOOD at playing someone unlikeable and a bit of a stuck up prick, seriously, watch The Missing and him chain smoking near his child with cystic fibrosis and you'll get where I'm coming from. But these three did not the miniseries make. Filling out the cast with other top notch actors from Art Malik to Emma Fielding to Hattie Morahan made this an enjoyable little mystery that while not overly memorable, will give you something else to think about for a few hours, and thankfully none of that time will be spent thinking about Arthur Conan Doyle's dick. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arthur and George, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Edwards, Doc Martin, Downton Abbey, George Edalji, Jack the Ripper, Julian Barnes, Martin Clunes, Murder Rooms, Mystery, Racism, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, Watson

The 13th Warrior
Based on the book Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Vladimir Kulich, Dennis Storhøi, Omar Sharif, Clive Russell, Richard Bremmer, Tony Curran, Eric Avari, Sven Wollter, Asbjorn Riis, and Maria Bonnevie
Release Date: August 27th, 1999
Rating: ★
To Buy

Ahmad ibn Fadlan is a successful court poet in Baghdad. But his poetic sensibilities lead him to love unwisely and he is banished far to the north to act as an ambassador to those tribes of Barbarians. The arrival of Vikings save Ahmad ibn Fadlan and his party great distress from Turkic Raiders. The Northmen are celebrating the death of their chieftain and the ascension of their new leader, Buliwyf. A young emissary arrives to ask Buliwyf if he will come to his father's kingdom and save them from an evil which cannot be named. The Viking's wisewoman comes to throw the bones and tells Buliwfy that the thirteenth warrior must not be a Norseman, and so Ahmad, called Ibn by his new travelling companions, unwillingly heads out to do battle with an evil he doesn't know with warriors who don't even speak his language. When they arrive at King Hrothgar's village the warriors see that the situation is more dire then they feared. The town is almost indefensible, and the mist is coming, and with that, the danger of the Wendol.

It makes sense that the oddest book in Crichton's oeuvre would make the oddest film. But still, I question this adaptation's purpose because whatever the book's failings there was at least a glimmer of something interesting, a little Viking culture, a little mystery in the mist, which has been entirely stripped away to be nothing more then over ninety minutes of battle. There is so little plot that I wouldn't even deign to call it a plot, something other critics and moviegoers apparently agreed with as the movie quickly flopped at the box office. The movie should have just been called "Buliwyf Does Battle." At least re-naming the story for release as The 13th Warrior versus Eaters of the Dead helped to highlight this lack of depth. The simple truth about this film is I struggled with it. This is a nothing film. Watching the movie I kept thinking to myself, how can I even write a review about a movie that is so lacking of anything that it is slipping out or my mind as unforgettable as I'm viewing it? This is just a bad movie, plain and simple, and this is after extensive re-shoots. The curious side of me wonders how bad the film was before the re-shoots. The fact that Crichton had to swoop in to try to save it makes me contemplative. If Crichton didn't step into the breech for the laugh riot that Congo became and the horror show The Lost World turned into, just exactly how horrible was this movie?

Even in this "polished" and "fixed" format it's a weird movie. Antonio Banderas is nothing so much as comic relief and nowhere approaching a romantic hero. Also, the film doesn't feel of it's time. Now I'm not talking about the tenth century when it's supposed to take place, I'm talking about the turn of the last century. This doesn't feel like a film from 1999, it feels like a film from the mid 80s. In fact it feels as if this film is the kindred spirit to Ladyhawke and Masters of the Universe with a little Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom thrown in for the Wendol. Because the Wendol sure as hell don't look like they belong in Scandinavia! India, maybe. If that India came out of the fevered dreams of Lucas and Spielberg. If only we could get this Jerry Goldsmith score, which is laughably bad and uneven, replaced with a score by Tangerine Dream, a la Legend, I think, aside from Antonio Banderas being on screen, no one watching it would think it was made later then 1987. Just look to that 80s hair band appearance of all the vikings, and I think my point has been made.

In a film of weird and awkward scenes strung together with no regard to plot or pace there is one scene that sticks out. I really can't tell if it was really cool or really lame. In the beginning of the film it's a big deal that Ibn can't speak the language and therefore needs not one by two translators. This not only makes the movie hard to get into, but with Omar Sharif re-telling the events happening in the film I felt as if I was watching this documentary I saw years ago on the IMAX about the Nile that he narrated. But these clunky opening scenes are nothing to the scene where Ibn "learns" the language of the Northmen. Over the course of what we presume is many weeks we just see Ibn staring at the mouths of the Vikings around the fire. The first time it is all gibberish, but slowly, through rain and snow, words are decipherable until finally he understands everything they say, being able to then speak to them and also scaring them with the rapidity of his learning. While I like that it had a realism with him slowly learning, like everything in this film, it was handled in such a cheesy and heavy-handed manner that I'm not sure if I liked it or if it was groan worthy. I tend to lean toward groan worthy, just because of the rest of the movie.

The depiction of the Wendol was also just odd. As previously mentioned, they obviously are inspired by the evil death cult in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, what with their sartorial choices as well as taking off their victims heads and gnawing on their bodies. This is also where the movie diverged most radically from the book. The book clearly proposed the theory that the Wendol where really Neanderthals. There is nothing Neanderthal here, as Ibn screams "they are just men!" All their danger lies in the trappings of their appearance, not in their mysticism. The bone shirts and the bear headdresses are the signifiers that these people are evil and mean business. I'm sorry, but no. Looking a little different and killing people isn't enough for what is supposed to be the epicness of Beowulf! Plus, the Vikings kill each other all the time for dominance, land, and fun, so how are the Wendol different? The only real atrocity these people have committed, as far as I've seen, is that they must singlehandedly be responsible for Scandinavia having a depleted bear population because each and every one of their thousands of warriors has a bear headdress. Crimes against nature, yes, crimes against man, debatable.  

But the worst part of this movie I think falls into the category of racial insensitivity. Ibn is from Baghdad, in Iraq; Antonio Banderas is from Málaga, in Spain. These countries aren't interchangeable. Just because Antonio isn't white doesn't mean he's middle eastern! Besides the atrocities of an obvious spray tan and so much guyliner that it's laughable, his accent is in no way correct. In fact, more then once I noticed that if Ibn said "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die" it would seem logical. Because he is THAT Spanish. His accent is so Spanish it's stereotypical Spanish. It is obvious that Antonio Banderas did nothing to help the box office of this film so why not just hire an Iraqi actor? But time and again this happens in Hollywood. Don't they get it that here's a chance to do something right and then they go and do something wrong, like Rooney Mara playing Tiger Lily! Seriously folks! The reason this pisses me off even more is that Michael Crichton knows better. He has DONE BETTER! Look to Rising Sun! Instead of hiring anyone who looked Asian for the Japanese roles, the movie used all Japanese actors! I know, it's a novel idea, but there it is.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 80s, Antonio Banderas, Beowulf, Congo, Eaters of the Dead, He-Man, Indiana Jones, Inigo Montoya, Legend, Michael Crichton, Racism, Rising Sun, Spain, The 13th Warrior, The Lost World, The Princess Bride, Viking

Rising Sun
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Kevin Anderson, Mako, Ray Wise, Stan Egi, Stan Shaw, Tia Carrere, Steve Buscemi, Tatjana Patitz, and Michele Ruiz
Release Date: July 30th, 1993
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Lieutenant Web Smith is home with his daughter and mother when he gets a call to come to the Nakamoto Corporate Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles because there is a need for a liaison. Web receives a second call on his way to the crime scene to bring along the retired Captain John Connor who is an expert Japanese liaison. Connor explains to Web that they aren't so much going to a crime scene as the scene of a negotiation. Everything Web knows about police procedure will be thrown out the window while dealing with the Japanese. The Japanese want the case resolved swiftly and they see to it that the conclusion they want reached is easily found. A little too easily. Despite the case being swiftly closed Smith and Connor keep digging, thinking that perhaps the truth of the death of Cheryl Lynn Austin is more important then a quickly solved case. The Japanese do not see their continued investigation as beneficial to their interests and will do anything to stop it, even smear Smith and Connor's names in order to silence them. But with more deaths, threats, and the Yakuza, the cops are quickly learning the hard way that business is war.

Rising Sun is easily one of the better Crichton adaptations out there, and this isn't surprising because Crichton was more actively involved, being one of the co-writers of the script. In fact I would say that the only adaptations of his books worth a damn are the ones he sought to have some control on. Unlike other authors, because of his experience in film, Crichton understands the need to make a good movie instead of slavishly sticking to the book and in the process maintains the spirit of the book as well as creates an enjoyable movie. Having not watched Rising Sun in years I spent a good twenty minutes just in awe of the sheer 90s ness of it all until I became fully sucked into the story. I was also a little shocked that my parents let me watch it when it came out on VHS. Despite having lived through the 90s there's a time capsule quality that this movie represents for me. Those shoulder pads in men's suits! Oh, and those overly pleated pants! Seriously, Sean Connery's pants are flowing in the breeze on that golf course! Is Cheryl Lynn wearing a jumpsuit? Yes she is. But the key sign you're watching an early 90s movie? As my brother says, no movie of this era would be complete without a chase scene through a construction site!

While the film does maintain a fair bit of the hardboiled feel of the book, by not being a period piece it loses the timeless vibe of the source material and decides instead to go for something more bankable, aka, a buddy cop movie. You might not realize at first that you are watching a buddy cop movie, but pay close attention to the dialogue and you can be in no doubt, "sempai, apple pie!" They have taken Lieutenant Smith, who in the book is a questioning but indulgent narrator there to learn from Connor's knowledge and turned him into "Web" Smith, the smart-mouthed sidekick to Sean Connery. While this might seem like a ploy to turn the movie into the next Beverly Hills Cop or Lethal Weapon, instead it is just taking the antagonism that is racing through Smith's inner monologue and putting it on the screen in a format movie audiences would recognize versus falling into the trope of using a narrator and then making it cheesier then the theatrical release of Bladerunner. But there is no doubt in this duo that despite the buddy cop trope of the newbie getting the girl that it's really Sean Connery who will have his bed being warmed at the end of the film.

But the change of Smith isn't just about creating a buddy cop dynamic, there's a subtly and cunning in this change. When the book was released the major sticking point for readers was the overtly racist tone of the book. Rising Sun read as an anti-Japanese tract disguised as a thriller. Thankfully it's obvious in this day and age that this would be unacceptable to movie-going audiences. So how do you take source material that is racist and maintain some aspect of this without alienating your audience? You deflect and transform it. Sad as it is to say, but for us Americans we are more familiar with racism when it falls along a strict black and white line. While this is not acceptable, it is more relatable; especially within the buddy cop genre where the dynamic is often to have this pairing of black and white. The black character is more outspoken and not willing to put up with this shit and occasionally uses "massa" ironically or angrily. By having Snipes say such "empowering" things as "No, you get the senator's car! Wrong guy, wrong fucking century!" the movie is putting the "accepted" racism on view for all while casually deflecting the anti-Japanese sentiment of the book.

The biggest example though of making sure this movie wasn't anti-Japanese, besides the fact that they wisely cast Japanese actors, is in the end when the killer is revealed. It comes as no surprise when reading the book that the killer is the representative for the Nakamoto Corporation whom Connor and Smith dealt with the most. But despite keeping this character complicit in the crimes, despite a totally unwarranted name change for the film, he isn't the killer. Instead the killer is a privileged white yuppie. Bob Richmond is the perfect villain. He has aligned himself against his own country and is disgustingly obsequious and rich. Everyone watching the movie can be pleased that this entitled jackass gets what he deserves all while not unnecessarily persecuting the Japanese in a hateful rant like the book. Of course the murderer's actual guilt might be more ambiguous then in the book, but we are still given an ending that won't ruffle any feathers and gives us a satisfying sense of closure.

Though there was one aspect of the book that was lost in translation. While the movie toned down the anti-Japanese sentiment it virtually eliminated the corruption of political officials. In the book Senator Morton is a Kennedy-esque playboy caught up in the murder. He sleeps around, he drinks too much, his vices bring him down. Here though they justify his affair with Cheryl Lynn because he has an invalid wife, and as for the drinking? It's gone. To me the elimination of governmental corruption wasn't done to streamline the movie or to keep our focus. It felt too much like a purposeful omission and it got me to thinking, while it's not wise to harbor anti-Japanese sentiments, it's the politicians that are the true untouchables. Think about it? Right now even the most corrupt of politicians are being considered as viable candidates for the Presidential election next year! While we can "learn" to become accustomed to certain types of racism that they are allowed into our films as the lesser of two evils, say something against a politician and that's the end of you. The double standards of life are here on full display, and once again, if we look for it, we realize that which isn't shown might be the most important.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 90s, Beverly Hills Cop, Bladerunner, Crichton Celebration, Japanese, Lethal Weapon, Michael Crichton, Politicians, Racism, Ray Wise, Rising Sun, Sean Connery, Steve Buscemi, VHS, Wesley Snipes

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: January 27th, 1992
Format: Paperback, 339 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lieutenant Peter J. Smith left homicide for the more stable hours and better pay of being a Special Services Officer. He's called in when a diplomat gets drunk or there's a translator needed at the scene of a crime. When he gets the call to come to the scene of a murder that occurred during the Nakamoto Corporation's grand opening of their new Los Angeles headquarters Smith's world gets turned upside down. The first thing that happens in this unusual case is that he is requested to bring Captain John Connor with him, who, while in semi retirement, is fluent in Japanese and has a divisive relationship with them. Up on the 46th floor the victim, Cheryl Lynn Austin, seems to be nothing more then an inconvenience. But as the two cops dig deeper Cheryl had strong ties to the Japanese community and quite probably was a pawn in their business. The one clear thing is that the Japanese will do anything to delay and obfuscate the investigation so that the police reach the decision that is most convenient to them. This is business and to them business is war; casualties are to be expected and they are willing to exert pressure where it is needed, even on the police.  

Rising Sun has the unique distinction of being the first Michael Crichton book I read under my own steam. This wasn't homework. No matter how great Jurassic Park is it still was for school not for me. Therefore reading Rising Sun was something to luxuriate in, so obviously I took it on vacation with me. Though me and reading on vacation oddly don't go together very well. I have several books that have taken long journeys with me but were never picked up once on that trip. Pride and Prejudice went to D.C. and New York, Soul Music went to Ontario, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy went to San Francisco, Thyme in a Flask went to Arkansas, and I never read a page of any of them while on vacation. There's just too much else to do. But there's something about the driving force of the narrative in Rising Sun that made it different then all these other books.

Despite being set during a chilly February in Los Angeles, I will always associate Rising Sun with the heat and humidity of a Wisconsin summer in Door County. We had a three bedroom suite at the Pheasant Park Resort in Sister Bay. I had the dubious honor of having the room with the whirlpool tub. Which was right next to the bed. In a room that didn't have air conditioning. And yes, everyone insisted on using the tub. Let it be known this is a mistake I never repeated. Even if the room hadn't conspired against me to keep me awake all night the book would have anyway. I lay up all night sweating through what little sleepwear I had on being just absorbed by the story. While yes, I had read quite a fair amount of The Cat Who... mysteries by Lillian Jackson Braun at this time in my young life, there's nothing like the first time you read a well plotted mystery, and that is exactly what Rising Sun is. Re-reading it all these years later I again devoured it in only two days. But it's amazing how much more insight I have over twenty years later.    

What sets Rising Sun apart from almost every other book Crichton wrote under his own name is that it doesn't hinge on his two most used tropes, advanced technology going awry or medicine. This book can in no way be classified as science fiction and this makes it unique in his canon. In fact it almost feels as if Crichton felt the need to show that he could write a solid mystery without any gimmicks. He wrote a straight up first person narrative that has this noir vibe that I didn't pick up on back in high school. In fact, having recently read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest you can see the similarities and how Rising Sun would fit perfectly in this hardboiled genre. There's organized forces working against the protagonists, there's the cynical attitude of both Connor and Smith to the Japanese, by the Japanese running a slander campaign against Smith you question his reliability, turning him into an anti-hero. Plus, hardboiled fiction is known for it's unlikable characters, even the murder victim is unsympathetic in this case. Crichton excels at this genre and it's no wonder that Hard Case Crime jumped at the chance to publish his John Lange back catalog. I should probably get to reading those.

Though despite all the good there is about this book with it's mystery and driving narrative there is some severe xenophobia going on here. The xenophobia I think is oddly why the book correlates well with hardboiled fiction because writing of that era wasn't culturally sensitive. So yes, while this book entertains me, an older, wiser me is sitting back and going, damn, that's a little racist don't you think Michael? How about we tone it down a bit, make it less of a one sided argument? And saying the Japanese are more racist then Americans doesn't really help your cause, it just makes it seem even more vindictive. With the rants against the Japanese, as well as a few aimed at the Germans, I felt like I was having a dinner conversation with an embittered elderly relative who survived WWII and was going to take their hatred to the grave. Side note, my great aunt did take her hatred to the grave. So, all in all, I can see why this book got mixed reviews. It's a good story, just maybe a little too polarizing and vindictive.

But there is an ironic truth nestled in the vitriol against the Japanese. Their "Saturday Meetings" in the book where they are deciding what to do about America, well, if the meetings were real or just the imaginings of Crichton, they have turned out to be oddly prescient. Basically Crichton states that the Japanese could see us going to hell in a hand basket, and really, look at the world around us? Unemployment, unrest, looting, riots, protests, murders! I mean, what if there was a time that we could have changed the course of our country and turned a blind eye instead? What if there was something we could have done to not get where we are? As usual, after reading some Crichton you are left with more to think about then when you started and also wondering if perhaps he was some kind of precog...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cat Who, Crichton Celebration, Dashiell Hammett, Hardboiled, Japan, Japanese, John Lange, Jurassic Park, Lilian Jackson Braun, Michael Crichton, Mystery, Noir, Precognition, Racism, Red Harvest, Rising Sun, WWII

Etiquette and Espionage, Finishing School Book the First by Gail Carriger
Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: February 5th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Sophronia isn't exactly like other girls her age. Rather then sitting prettily in a chair and waiting to be wooed, she'd rather be climbing up a tree. Her mother therefore has decided she needs to go to finishing school... yet the finishing school that takes her isn't what it seems. While they will make a lady out of her, they aren't interested in quelling her unusual habits, but in cultivating them for a more open ended meaning of finishing. A school devoted to the arts of espionage will obviously have a few evil villains and traitors in the mix. Sophronia and her posse of friends soon stumble on a plot to leak information for an astonishing new invention to the evil Picklemen, who have already attacked the school once. It is up to them to stop this from happening, this is what they are being schooled in after all...

I wanted to like this book, I really really did. Thankfully, now that more reviews are coming out it seems to be just me, which I hoped was the case, because I love Gail's writing but I just didn't love this. While reading this book I did something I rarely ever do, and that's set the book aside for awhile. Usually when a book isn't working for me I try to push on through till I reach a point where either I grudgingly find something to like and my opinion is changed or I finish it and can mark it off my list and get it out of my life and onto the next book. But I love Gail so much I thought that everything I was hating about the book was just in my head. So I set it aside and read something else, which I really enjoyed. Feeling hopeful that my joy in books was undiminished, I picked up Etiquette and Espionage again and found that I still could barely stand reading it. The book was indeed a book I had to push through till the end and then I had a hard talking to with myself as to the rating I'd give it... let's put it this way, it was saved from the one star rating just because of Bumbersnoot. Who doesn't love a Steampunk version of K-9 without all the annoying "mistress" stuff?

Dumbing down. That is the flaw that got in my craw. There is nothing I hate more then feeling like an author is talking down to me, which is a fatal flaw of L. Frank Baum, or dumbing down their writing so that little old me can understand it. Oh gosh, I just can't handle the overly big words, it makes my brain hurt. I have noticed that several authors who have written for a predominately adult audience aren't quite able to make this shift into YA. For some reason they treat their audience differently and change their writing stylistically. The thing is, the YA market is a very discerning audience. Gail's previous books have much cross genre appeal and she could have easily just taken out the sexy bits of her previous books and that would have been enough. But instead we get a book that is predominately action which lacked a snap to the language, and it felt flat. The witty repartee seemed pushed aside for plot expedience, making the whole book lackluster. Etiquette and Espionage felt like a wonderful book that had been mercilessly bowdlerized to make it into a blockbuster that was dumbed down for the masses. Gone is the chatter over tea and scones, in is the heroine climbing the side of a dirigible... why? Because obviously that's the easiest way to get to the bowels of the ship? Excuse me what? Action action action to me is dull, please bring back the chats over tea.

Yet it wasn't just the writing that was dull, but the plot and characters. For a heroine, Sophronia was very one dimensional. She was good at physical activities such as climbing... yeah, that's it for Sophronia. Oh, except that she is so obtuse! I mean, it's understandable that at first she didn't get the joke and the true meaning behind a "finishing school" but that she continuously didn't get it just drove me insane. I just wanted anyone at all to pull her aside and go, "Ok, so, Sophronia, we know that in your world getting finished means getting all your accomplishments polished so that you can be married off, but look at the classes we teach here, finishing can also mean killing someone, ok, now stop being so dumb." Add additional characters even dumber than her as sidekicks and a very basic espionage plot, and the book just didn't appeal to me at all. Sorry.

Though there is one aspect of the book that bothered me beyond all the dumbing down and that is Soap. Soap himself doesn't bother me as such, in that he's just a stock minority character to round out Sophronia's team, it's his name. In another instance of Sophronia's stupidity, upon first meeting Soap she doesn't realize that he is black because he is covered in soot from coal. His name comes from the fact that no matter how much he washes, he'll still look like he's covered in soot. Excuse me? Um... this name offends me on so many levels. I don't care if it's irony or self parody on Soap's part, to me it's racist. While the name is countered by his portrayal and the fact that he is a love interest, the name is just so so wrong. Even before this time in England, there where quite wealthy and well respected blacks in the community, thank you Regency House Party. Slavery was first abolished in 1807 with any people slow to the party being taken out with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, while this book is set in 1851. So, while I know racism even lingers to this day, there was so much upheaval and change and so much good being done before the setting of this book that by naming the character Soap, it just feels like two steps backwards.

So, wow, this is turned into a rather wordy review now didn't it? I guess I just really needed to justify those two stars which have been worrying rather a fair few of my friends who are also huge fans of Gail Carriger. In summation, I don't think this book will get Gail many new readers. There is just too much world building that is dependent on having read the previous books, written for a much older audience who will not appreciate the dumbing down of the writing. The only little joy I got from this book, aside from Bumbersnoot, was seeing characters from The Parasol Protectorate at a younger age... though not all cameos are successful. Yet there are ways this series could work. I liked the school and the fixed environment, just flesh it out more, set aside more chapters to fully explore this school. Show us classes. Make it Harry Potter on a damn dirigible not debutantes climbing dirigibles! And please, before anything else, give Soap a real name.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Dirigible, Etiquette and Espionage, Finishing School, Gail Carriger, Harry Potter, Hogwarts, K-9, L. Frank Baum, Racism, Regency House Party, Steampunk, The Parasol Protectorate