Tag Archives: Elena

Tackling The Hunger Games Film – A Review With Illustrations

Elena-

I have to start this discussion by donning my hipster glasses and saying, “I liked The Hunger Games back when it was called Battle Royale.” Because seriously, after watching this movie I am embarrassed for Collins at how similar her first book is to the Japanese original. I mean, I thought the story sounded similar before I saw the movie (no, I have not read the books), but I figured the execution would make it obvious the similar premises were coincidental…holy crap, no. So many details were the same, just shifted to a different world. It really was like she just re-told the story in a different context. If the similarity between the stories was truly convergent creativity, someone at her publisher needs to be fired for not knowing the market of dystopian gladiatorial games better and asking her to make it less similar in edits.

More specifically than the idea of the government forcing teenagers to fight to the death as a display of state power and a punishment for rebellious violence, we have:

-The opening scenario with weapons and supplies in the middle to either be fought over or abandoned to the player’s disadvantage

-The protagonists’ strategy of run to the fringes and let the bulk of the competitors kill each other off

-The manipulation of the game environment by the gamemaster in order to herd the players who run to the fringes back to the others

-The clear announcement of who has died so the competitors know who is left to kill

-The gang mentality where some of the players group together to kill everyone else off first

-The super crazy psycho killers who are masterful players—in BR they were past winners, here they are the District 1 and 2 kids who train for the games their whole lives

-The two protagonists who manage to remain morally superior, only killing those who attack them, shielding the weaker as they can, and relying on their trust in one another to make it through the game

-The ending where the two lovers won’t kill each other and defy the gamemaster and survive…and the gamemaster does not.

There is just no way this is anything except an American re-envisioning of the original. The parallels are too pervasive and consistent. We live in an age of remakes, so I wouldn’t even care that it’s a remake—hell, as remakes go this is an impressive and exceptionally creative one, and if they were all like this I wouldn’t mind them so much—except for the disavowal of a connection. I think it’s publisher-driven, because they didn’t want to get sued or have to pay rights. Fine. Keep your plausible deniability…but the rest of us know better.

Removes decorative spectacles.

So, now that my bit of truth-telling is out of my system, what did I think about the movie?

I liked it more than I expected to. While it was worse than I expected in terms of seeming like a rip-off of another book/movie (BR was also both), it was better than I expected in terms of immersion and character engagement. I could see what makes the story and the setting so intriguing and why so many people are obsessed with the series. It had that crack-like quality of plausible WTF that is so fun and enticing and contagious.

Rachel-

What I liked:

Jennifer Lawrence. I like her for lots of reasons. That she has a normal body, an expressive face and a killer sense of humor is a given. All pros. She also IS Katniss. She’s got that whole stoic, tortured survivor-girl thing DOWN. I loved her. I’m not convinced her acting was the product of Director Gary Ross’ actual direction or if this girl just has incredible instincts. She was wonderful in Winter’s Bone. I’m tending to give her all of the credit. She even made all those stupid costumes look great.

Elena-

Absolutely agree that credit goes to Lawrence and not Ross here.

Rachel-

The rest of the cast was pretty solid. I wasn’t convinced of Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch but he sold it. Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta was perfect (if a little TOO enthusiastic about conjuring paint and brushes, plus his “confused” face pretty much made me laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME), but every time he did his shit eater grin during the interviews I thought, “damn you, Peeta!” It’s hard to judge Liam Hemsworth’s Gale, since he only had about five lines, but he seemed capable of killing many squirrels.

Elena-

Gale was a total Spiller! Ergo…husband material?

Rachel-

Exactly! TOTAL Spiller! Even if the actorkid is dating Miley Cyrus. We can forgive him youthful indiscretions. Anyways, where was I?

I thought Elizabeth Banks’ Effie was perfect. Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman was delightfully manic while Lenny Kravitz’ Cinna was…well he was really bad. The only stinky acting in the entire flick. Whenever he was on screen I could hear the rest of the crew wandering around the set in my head because it was always so jarring.

Elena-

Banks was one of the stand-outs for me, too. I forgot she was in it, and it took most of the train ride for me to figure out that she was Effie. I didn’t find Cinna that bad, but perhaps not as charismatic as he should have been to gain Katniss’s immediate and absolute trust in his vision as a designer?

Rachel-

Whatever. He came off as a creepy weirdo.

I also liked that they chose to do so much of the filming on location. Mostly because the stuff they didn’t do on location looked like crap.

Elena-

I was so underwhelmed by the capital city and the buildings in it (did the night shot of the city look like New York to anyone else?). I mean, maybe Katniss and Peeta don’t know any better, but we do. That shit was not impressive. And the sets around President Sutherland looked so…fake! The capital is made out of plastic. How has the revolution not happened already?

The fashionistas of the capital were right up my alley, though—my lavender Marie Antoinette Mardi Gras wig would work perfectly at a sponsors party, for example—and I thought the costume and make-up design were off the charts for the city folk, even if the in-games costumes were l-a-m-e.

Rachel-

The in game costumes were whatever. The Chariot costumes? YOU GUYS… is that what you envisioned when you read the description of the flaming cape/unitard thing? IS IT? Complete with terrible TERRIBLE CGI? And she’s got her hands above her head the whole time, even when the chariots park themselves in front of President Snow (TEAM SNOW!) she’s still got her hands above her head and Snow is starting to talk and she’s STILL GOT HER HANDS ABOVE HER HEAD… .
What else did I like?

The adaptation: Look, we all know it’s fucking hard to adapt a book into a film. It’s a lot of story to fit into two hours. Characters and side stories will be cut. Scenes will be streamlined. These things are a given. The Hunger Games manages to feel like it’s a page by page recreation even when it is not, and that is awesome.

I also liked that extra scenes were added that covered the things happening during the arena time. Adding in the riot in District 11 was really smart. Totally sets us up for the next books.

Things I didn’t like so much:

The Pacing. If there is one fundamental flaw in the entire film, it is that there wasn’t enough time spent in creating relationships between Katniss and the other characters. It’s REALLY important that Katniss have emotional connections to people. But even though Gary Ross sent us through all of the preparations before The Hunger Games begin, there just wasn’t any connection between Katniss and the other characters. It was a problem that kept coming up whenever a scene occurred in which the audience was supposed to be emotionally moved. I had a really hard time with this. When people died, I didn’t care. I was more interested in seeing Katniss survive whatever the next crisis would be. I regarded other characters as nuisances. This was especially true with Peeta and Rue.

I KNOW!

Stop screaming at me and let me explain.

Peeta is awesome. He’s a natural actor, a charismatic boy with a sympathetic heart. Strong on the inside and fluffy on the outside. The exact opposite of Katniss. I get it. But in the film he barely has any skills at all. He’s basically dead weight. Sure he can smile and interview well but once he gets in the games it was all “I’m just going to wander around and then lay in this mud and be useless”. When it comes time for Katniss and Peeta to join back up, that pivotal scene in which Katniss screams out Peeta’s name never happened. Peeta’s injuries were also not as terrible in the film as they were in the novel. We end up with this weirdly awkward scene in which Katniss takes care of a fellow District 12 tribute with weird stalker tendencies and an inability to respect Katniss’s boundaries. Then they kiss, and it’s like…huh? She likes him? WHY?

And I’ve read (and love) the novels. What the hell must this film be like for someone who hasn’t read the books? Is there any emotional connection at all?

Elena-

Ha, ha, ha, let me jump in and give you my take on these issues.

In terms of connections to characters other than Peeta—Rue was the only other character it seemed like Katniss was meant to have a connection with. And I felt like her reaction to Rue’s death was a projection. I didn’t think there was much of a connection between them except that she saw Rue as an analog for Prim, and what might have happened to Prim if Katniss hadn’t taken her place, so when Rue died Katniss had this weird translation of having failed to protect her sister, because Rue was like her sister. It wasn’t about Rue; it was about Katniss.

Now, when it comes to her and Peeta…I literally did not know (and still do not, not having read the books) if Katniss was in the cave nursing Peeta and going to get medicine for him because she actually gave a shit about him or if it was because she’s the protector type and could not have lived with herself for not saving him, the same way she could not have lived with herself for not saving her sister. Did she mean the kiss, or had she finally grasped that maybe they should play to the cameras? So as to there being a connection between them…on his part, absolutely. On hers…I still don’t know.

Also, Team Peeta! I liked him so much better than Gale! JV Hemsworth might be more objectively hot, but I find Hutcherson cute as hell, so that’s a wash…but I liked Peeta’s character better.

True, Gale didn’t get to do much but be the strong silent sulking type, and Peeta was not exactly heroic—at least, not at first. But he exhibited a level of self-awareness and insight that I gravitated to almost immediately. Peeta recognizes that he doesn’t have the skills to survive a death-match, and he can admit that he never went out of his way to be kind even to the girl he had a crush on. The best he could manage was a careless act of charity that rated Katniss only minutely higher than the family’s pig. In the games he certainly doesn’t kick ass and take names (and that is even with the fact that his part apparently got butched up somewhat from his role in the book…or at least that’s the impression some of my book-reading friends have given me).

But Peeta is one of the supporting players who set up Katniss for the big win, which she could not have done completely on her own.

See, here’s the thing—and book people may disagree with this, and that’s fine, but this is how this played out in the movie, and so we will just have to agree to disagree—Katniss is surrounded by people who play the part of the game that she refuses to play, for her, and she survives because they did.

Her producers (whatever the hell Effie and Haymitch and Cinna were called…they seemed like producers to me so that is what I’m calling them) were obviously the most creative in the group. The other producers should all have been operating on Cinna’s philosophy of “I want to make them NOTICE you,” instead of paying homage to what had been done before.

Haymitch gives Katniss and Peeta the advice of “make them like you,” which Katniss basically disregards and which Peeta grabs like a lifeline. He is hamming it up to the crowds from the beginning, while she sits there all better than that and disgusted; he grabs her hand as they roll around on fire so everyone can see that they consider themselves a team, and then he jokes with the interviewer and admits that his special girl is in fact one of his competitors. (Hell, he’s smart enough to manipulate her into holding his hand on the chariot in the first place, which I don’t think was a move calculated to the crowd, just a desire for comfort and contact until she rejected it, at which point he was like, “how can I convince her to touch me?”) His admission of his crush was true, but his decision to admit it was a conscious spin on his character as a competitor, and it paid off. It made Katniss part of a larger story that made her seem human and relatable, when on her own she was perhaps too strong and intimidating. Everyone wants to root for an underdog, and the doomed love angle made Katniss and Peeta as a pair underdogs; when on her own she was a favorite. Would she have gotten the sponsor who saved her leg without the producers who made everyone notice her and Peeta’s actions to make them feel sorry for her?

My take-away was that Katniss is basically Harry Potter. Sure, no one but her could have won the games if they were dealt the hand she was…but she couldn’t have, either, without the help of the people around her. Peeta is basically Hermione, is what I’m saying. And I do love me some brains over brawn…

…Which is why, TEAM PEETA!

Ahem. The uncertainty of Katniss’s motives also made the ending more poignant, because he’s still standing their declaring his love, and I still don’t know what she thinks about the kid.

So maybe that’s a fail. There were others.

Rachel-

One other thing I hated: THE CAMERA WORK. WHAT. THE. FUCK. It was like watching Cloverfield. The shaky cam with the extreme close ups. I became intimately connected with all the hairs on Jennifer’s Lawrence’s face. That’s how close the camera was all the damn time. And whenever there was a fight it was all, “KIDS ARE KILLING KIDS BUT WE CAN’T SHOW YOU BECAUSE WE’LL LOSE OUR RATING SO PLEASE ENJOY GRUNTING AND BLURRY SHOTS OF TREES. AND BLONDE KIDS, ANY OF WHOM COULD BE PEETA BUT ARE NOT.”

Ya know what doesn’t work when you have super HD close up shots framing the entire movie? Shitty effects. Especially any time at all when there was fire (srsly, the fire outfits for the chariot parade? WTH? It looked like a homemade music video from 1998). And the muttations. CGI disasters. Totally a product of the film being written, cast, filmed, edited and marketing in a six-month period. Good shit needs TIME. Unfortunately, the film is hobbled by having to rush things.

Elena-

Oh, yeah. The cinematic filming itself was competent but not special, if excessively soap-operatic, but the effects were obviously a rush job. And the fires? I thought it was a joke when she said, “oh, yeah, it’s real,” because to me they looked so fake. Like anyone was fooled!

What bothered me most, though, was the dearth of good violence. The fact that it was PG-13 really limited the brutality of the games, and that works in opposition to what Rachel has expressed as one of the key themes of the book—our culture’s use of violence as entertainment. By virtue of maintaining an all-ages rating, this movie could not be so brutally violent that we the audience could question the film as entertainment; we became the people of the capital, watching the games and the deaths for fun.

Aside from the fact that the action sequences are hardly comprehensible because the cameras and edits move so quickly, the violence was disappointing in its utter lack of creativity. Not a single death in all of the dozen we saw onscreen was memorable? That’s kind of sad. If you’re going to riff off of something else, at least take all the good shit (since BR has a few choice deaths). Or go watch Shoot ʼEm Up and Sukiyaki Western Django a few times to get some good demises to steal from them.

Rachel-

In the end, and I have seen this film twice now, I would look around the theater thinking that I had not drunk the kool-aid that made many of the people around me deliriously happy with the film. While I think the movie is good and happily saw it again, I found it to be anemic. Without the guts that make a film actually emotionally connect with the audience. I feel that if you do not step into the theater with the knowledge that reading the books give you, that you’ve got no chance of really feeling anything while watching the movie.

Elena-

I think the experience of the film for those who haven’t read the books is much more about what you project onto the characters than about what the film directly makes you feel. There are moments where the emotions swamp you, but in general it’s you consciously projecting yourself into that situation and that environment. The movie entertains, but it’s not a masterpiece. I’d watch it again, but it didn’t make me want to run out and read the book. Perhaps that is the most scathing indictment I could offer.

Rachel-

All that being said…I’m really excited that a science fiction film with a young girl as the protagonist has done so amazingly well at the box office. It makes me excited for the future of this franchise and the future of other unmade films.

WAR IS COMING – The Ladies of Ice and Fire Anticipate The Upcoming Season of Game of Thrones

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Game of Thrones will begin its second season on April 1^st. Rachel and Elena are super-excited to be back in their respective courts of fire and ice. Below they discuss their anticipations about the upcoming season. This particular post is relatively spoiler-free (character names are used, but nothing else). Be warned – episode-by-episode discussions will not be spoiler free through the currently aired episode, and Rachel’s reactions will not be spoiler-free through A Dance with Dragons.

Elena will be watching with the fresh eyes of a summer child, while you may regard Rachel’s viewpoint as that of the grizzled veteran with missing limbs.

Elena-

So I guess Game of Thrones is about to start back up on HBO, huh? I…think I’m ready for that. I gotta be honest, last year I suffered from ATF (Acute Throne Fatigue) what with having spent over a year reading the damn first book, writing up a chapter by chapter reaction, and having my opinions of it vivisected…and then podcasting about every episode…and then jumping into the fandom mash-ups. Fun as all of that was, it was exhausting, and I really just hit a wall—The Wall, if you will—with the series.

About the time comments on the first trailer for the new season hit my Facebook wall, though, and I was reminded that April wasn’t all that far off, I thought…hey, maybe I should go finish the first book. (For the record: I have not acted on this thought. I am not sure where my copy is. Buried under mastiff direwolf hair on the back floorboard of my car, perhaps? But I thought it, and as we all know it is the thought that counts, right? RIGHT?!?)

And I also thought…I’m kind of excited about new episodes of this series. I’ve actually re-watched a few episodes of Season 1 since then, if I happened to turn on the TV and one of my favorite episodes—or just scenes, in some cases—was on.

I have not watched any trailers for the new season. I don’t know if I want to. I have managed pretty well to avoid spoilers so far, and while I’m sure HBO is careful not to spoil any real plot points, I’m afraid of seeing something that I might be able to pair with some other not-on-its-own-a-spoiler information I have and put two and two together. And the thing is, I don’t need to see the trailers to know I’m going to keep watching the show. I’m excited about it based on the fact that I loved the first season. The production was quality, and the story and characters hooked me, so really I’m just ready to keep rolling down the midnight highway that is ASOIF without any LED-billboards up ahead breaking up the darkness.

Also, I heart Bronn and Lancel. The scenes I re-watched made me realize they are my favorite minor (?) characters from Season 1. TEAM BADASS FTW! And also yay whatever team Lancel plays on. Team More Wine, Sir?, perhaps? YES. As a resident of New Orleans, I can get behind that team!

Rachel:

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I am READY for Season 2. I’M SO READY, YOU GUYS! Every time a cab passes me with a “War is Coming” ad on it I think to myself, “Self, you should get in that cab because that cab is as excited about Game of Thrones as you are.” I know this isn’t true, but I’m particularly vulnerable to fandom-based marketing.

Despite the fact that there hasn’t been a lot of physical marketing for Season 2 (no food trucks! A constant source of depression for my friends and I), I think HBO has firmly cast its lot with the Game of Thrones fans (seriously, I am not calling myself a “Thronie,” wtf is that?) The “fan” t-shirts and posters are great (the new design for the Stark t-shirt, THANK YOU!) and the “The King can do as he likes” poster and booth that they debuted at Wondercon…that right there is proof that if you market to fans in a non douchebag corporate way – you win!

The character featurettes that have been posting all on HBO.com are wonderful! They introduce lots of new characters without spoiling any of the incredible storyline that is coming at us come April 1^st.Plus I get to enjoy all the manips and gifs hitting Tumblr, and that just makes me even MORE excited (warning, the Game of Thrones tag on Tumblr is probably not safe for those wishing to remain unspoiled). I’m not sure if the digital media only advertising track is going to bring in new viewers, but at this point word of mouth might just be HBO’s greatest hope on that front. Even if the “War is Coming” fist poster looks more like “Angry Jesus is Coming” than “Baratheon Boys gonna FIGHT”. It does. Don’t even bother getting grumpy about it. It could easily be mistaken for an evangelical billboard of doom.

Also, judging from those character featurettes, not only will we be enjoying some awesome new characters (Lobsterking! Delicious Knight! Weirdly evangelical sexy lady! Lady Knight! The Brother Taunter! The Girl Who Knows Everything!) We’ll be getting expanded content of some already established characters. (I’m looking at you, people of Highgarden!)

Whose storyline are you most excited to pick up again?

Elena-

Hm. Tough one here. Probably Arya’s, just because hers has the most likely chance of immediate resolution. I mean, she is currently on her way to The Wall to be reunited with her bestest brother evah, Jon Snow, Who Knows Where To Put It (that is officially his name now. Does it make an easy acronym the way ASOIF does? JSWKWTPI. No. FAIL. Oh well, I’ll just type it out every time then). So, either she gets there and goes on ice as a character the way Jon has (heh, on ice…at The Wall made of…ice. Yeesssssssssss), or she doesn’t get there. Either way I think it will wrap up quickly? Or she’ll spend the entirety of Season 2 traveling, in which case her story will be almost as boring as Dany’s was last season!

This is not to say I am a Dany-hater—the horse-heart-chomping convinced me on her—but her story? Way too drawn-out, at least in the books…it might have played better on screen, but after 8 months I am conflating my multi-media experience of Season 1. Also I am getting off topic. So, yeah, Arya’s whom I want to pick up with the most.

I am also excited to see more of Rob King In The North Stark but that’s really more because he makes my eyeballs steam. More of that please!

Rachel-

In an attempt to keep at this anticipatory post as spoiler-free as possible I will say that I am excited to see Jon Snow’s story-line for obvious reasons if you have read A Clash of Kings and if you haven’t well…stuff. Reasons.

I’m also excited for the Blackwater and for Baratheon against Baratheon shenanigans. Also Robb Stark and King in the North stuff!

Character you are most excited about in Season 2?

Elena-

For me I’m actually going to go Dany. She ended last season in a literal conflagration of all that her life had been. And she walked out of the ashes with dragons. DRAGONS, you guys! That’s a pretty blank canvas for her to repaint herself and her life with. Rachel has laughed wickedly at me for intimating I thought her book/season 1 arc was slow-paced, so I am not sure I have huge expectations for her…but I am really excited to see where she, in particular goes, because I think right now she is the most dynamic character—the one who is in a state of change.

If I knew nothing of the books I would say Sansa as well, but the Sansa I know from the first book is functionally retarded, and so I have no hope of her ever doing anything except sucking more than she did before. So instead I’m going to say TYWIN LANNISTER as my #2. This guy has three extremely interesting (and possibly FUBAR) kids; he is obviously a politicker par excellence, and kind of a badass. I want to see more of him.

Rachel-

Probably Jon. But I’m also excited to rejoin the Lannisters and Renly and all that. It’s hard to say, “I am most excited about this character” without telling you why and spoiling everything. I’ll spoil everything in the episode recaps under giant SPOILER WARNINGS. Promise.

Character you most want to see die in Season 2?

Elena-

JOFFREY. Oh my god, Joffrey’s sanctimonious little tyrant ass would be such a sweet assassination. I do not expect this to happen—mostly because Martin killed of Viserys in the first book, and you can only kill off the single most obnoxious character in the book once before it becomes a pattern—but I would LOVE to see it!

And I would be hella impressed, if he does die, if it’s in such a way that I feel sympathy for the little shit.

Rachel-

Everybody wants Joffrey to die, Elena! Jack Gleeson has done such an amazing job of providing us with a truly evil character to hate in a cast of characters neither good nor evil. It’s Joffrey who is our shining white knight of douchebaggery! HUZZAH! Long live the king, and stuff!

And boy is going to be even more douchey! Get ready!

This question relates to my ongoing attempts to create a Game of Thrones drinking game with my friends. We’ve pretty much settled on shots every time someone dies, but perhaps certain characters should get different drinks. Suggestions?

Elena-

If a major character dies drain your whole glass/bottle/can? If Joffrey dies drain two?

Is there a new character you are particularly excited about?

Elena-

Not exactly…I mean, for one thing I don’t KNOW any characters to come other than those mentioned off-screen last season, like Stannis Baratheon. But I have seen from casting announcements and Rachel’s FB/Twitter that we’re getting some new females who at least some in the fandom love, so I’m excited about that. I don’t know who any of them are except Asha-Not-Yarra Greyjoy. I’ve seen other names but couldn’t place them in a context. Let’s just call it as “New Women of Westeros.”

Rachel-

Hmmm, I don’t know if it is a good idea to skip all of the featurettes. There are a whole lot of new characters coming at us in the new seasons. The story lines will be effectively doubled, and sometimes the connections between characters gets muddled. I think it was smart of HBO to release these little featurettes to help fans who have not read the books keep everyone straight. Not that I don’t have complete faith that all the new people will be effectively introduced to the audience. I just know that I watched the show with people who had not read the books last season and I often had to answer “who is that again?” questions.

Saying that:

Melisandra, Jaqen H’ghar, Asha-not-Yarra, Margaery Tyrell, Ygritte, Brienne, Stannis and Davos, Roose Bolton. So many crafty people coming at us you guys! SO MANY CRAFTY BITCHES! (I’m looking at you, Stannis.)

Any fandom you’re particularly excited for?

Elena-

Well, of the GOT Tumblrs my favorite is probably Arrested Westeros, simply because I love Arrested Development so much. But in this case, the fandom I’m most excited about is my work family! I have changed jobs since Season 1 was on air. At my old job, no one watched the show, and if I brought it up they gave me the skank eye for being so weird and nerdy. At my new job, EVERYBODY watches GOT! Fuck yeah Monday morning dissections! Also this will obviously force me to watch it every Sunday regardless of what else is going on in my life, else risk having the episode completely spoilered for me at work. The good news is, none of the coworkers read the books, so I can have my fellow newbie/TV-only reactions and speculation with them, and then my evil laughter/cryptic remark-dropping dissections here with Rachel. Win-win!

Also, if you did not catch the “here” part of that, Rachel and I will be discussing every episode here at Optionated!

Rachel-

I feel like the fandom is super healthy. It’s always nice when you’ve got new things to anticipate, but Game of Thrones fans have been keeping a hilarity-driven fandom going through the long waits between books for years now. (For example, there is an 8-second video on YouTube that has been around for a long time that shows a wine glass and a golden hand knocking over the wine glass that pretty much puts me into hysterics.) The show has just given us pretty pictures to manipulate. Which I’m going to say, does have its advantages. I have even done my share of stupid mspaintery.

Behold:

I thought that Roose needed a little help. So I helped him.

But I think my favorite little fandom nugget is the following, which I am using because I actually know the person who made this but I only found this out recently. That’s how the Internet works sometimes:

BECAUSE ONIONS! LoL This never fails to make me laugh hysterically.

This person that I know is known as SwordintheDarkness on Tumblr. But be warned – she is super spoilery, and her GoT knowledge is incredible. She can remember the PAGES that shit happens on. So if you have read through A Dance with Dragons I recommend her Tumblr.

I also can’t promise that my own twitter (@DarthRachel) will be spoiler free. Sorry. There’s nothing I can do about that. In fact, as I am the spoilery side of these Episode discussions you should just beware me all together.

I’m the Shaggydog of Optionated.

No, I’m not. I’m not that cool.

Elena-

Well, if you’re Shaggydog then I’m Rickon. Always in the background, never in the know. I am the sweet summer child slowly losing my innocence under the shadow of war.

WAR IS COMING, Y’ALL!

Fuck yeah.

Finding John Carter On Mars Is A Win – A Review

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Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Elena-

Mostly because it’s a sci-fi movie, and I do try to watch most of them. To be honest there’s not a whole lot of a deeper or more compelling reason than that. Nothing in the trailer excites me, and if there were more going on at the movies this weekend John Carter probably loses me. But when my other options are The Lorax or Good Deeds, you know, Mars starts sounding like a fine destination. Fine.

Rachel-

So, I secretly hope that this movie is amazing. How could I not want to see this? Published in 1917, A Princess of Mars, on which John Carter is largely based, is the first of a long series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Tarzan guy). We can arguably connect most of the planetary science-fantasy stories of the last 100 years to this book. Conan, He-man, Dune, Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast, Star Wars…the list is endless. Sure, it’s outdated and weird, and the science isn’t even close, and they were inspired by those old theories that you could see evidence of ancient civilizations on the Martian surface (Google the canals of Mars), but this is science fiction HISTORY. Crazy stuff, sure, but mostly awesome.

And come on… THAAARKS! Plus, Michael Chabon wrote the script, and it’s being directed by Andrew Stanton. There’s a part of me that thinks this just might be great.

What would make it awesome?

Elena-

Um…can I be real here and say that, given the amount of CG I saw in that trailer, that I don’t think there’s anything this film can do to be excellent? If I have to pick a path for it, how about some just ridiculous popcorn B-movie fun? There’s a place for that, and maybe this movie could be it.

Rachel-

Despite the sexist overtones, I REALLY want it to look like the artwork I’ve associated with the stories. They just come hand in hand. I find it impossible to disconnect the story itself from the Frazetta naked asses and most especially the super lush, beautiful old-style illustrations of Frank E. Schoonover (who very graciously put some clothes on the princess for us.)

From what I’ve seen of the trailer everything looks nice and red. They’ve kept the barbarian-style clothes, and I’m REALLY impressed with the Barsoonian ships. They look awesome.

I guess what I’m saying is, I want the damn movie to be pretty. That would be awesome.

What would make it suck?

Elena

If it takes itself really seriously and is half-CG (as its trailer makes it look). Basically…if this shit is like Avatard, Mars Edition it is going to suuuuck asssssssssssssssss.

Rachel-

I don’t really care of there’s a lot of CGI as long as it looks good and it’s not a half hour of blurriness like Transformers.

It will suck if the story is a disaster. This is an adaptation of a pretty sprawling novel that has its own problems with pacing, so this could all go horribly wrong. It could be full of confusing lore and never explain anything about why this culture as at war or how anything works. I’m a little worried about the super-powers. The telepathy and the super-strength. The science behind it is pretty silly now; I hope it’s not something the entire audience laughs at every time it happens. I’m pretty worried about it. I think Chabon can handle it, but it’s all the executive driven decisions I’m scared of.

This whole movie could be a hammy, horrible, convoluted mess.

Any additional thoughts on production/trailer?

Elena-

Why is this movie 2 hours and 10 minutes? I may not have read the book it’s based on, but I know this much about Edgar Rice Burroughs: he wasn’t writing fucking Dune. You don’t need a mini-series to tell that story. What the hell? I better come out feeling like it was shorter than it was…and I especially better not feel like it was LONGER than it was!

Rachel-

Yea, I agree. More than two hours? Is this Lord of the Rings? This is a movie based on the king of all pulp novels. Yes, there are going to be large-scale battles in this movie but they don’t need to be Helm’s Deep!

In general I’ve been enjoying the trailers coming out. The Tharks look great, everything looks pretty damn epic. I just don’t know how sincere it’s going to be. Will this be the podraces on Tattooine horrible or will I be enamored of the cinematography? Will I want to be Princess Dejah for Halloween, or will I want to kill her and all the girls I see dressed as her on Halloween? I’ve been hearing via word of mouth that the film isn’t that great, so that isn’t encouraging. But I might like it, I mean… I still watch Conan marathons. This might be a matter of preference.

Reaction to Film:

Elena-

That…that wasn’t NEARLY as bad as I thought it was going to be! In fact, dare I say it was actually kind of good? I mean, it wasn’t like top 10 SF films of the decade material, but it was eminently watchable. And here’s the thing, and why I never take for granted that a film which I expect to be bad can’t possibly be as bad as I’m expecting: Avatar was WORSE than I expected, and I expected that James Cameron self-indulgent-whack-fest to be bad (for me as an audience), so I am by no means damning John Carter with faint praise when I say it was better than I expected.

That is not to say there were not…flaws. There is still a visual divide between characters that are live-action and characters that are animated. The gulf is not as wide as it once was, and the animation looked good, but it still looked like animation. Until it doesn’t I am going to point it out as a flaw. I expect to go to my grave still complaining about this issue.

John Carter’s jumps were also problematic. They looked like someone in Earth-gravity being hoisted aloft or an animated object being zoomed along a CG trajectory. The bounces lacked the true buoyancy that happens in lower gravity. Actually those scenes reminded me of the jumping about in Gentleman Broncos, which is very much an ode to this type of pulp SF story (and, by the by, well worth the watch)…but to extend my point, the rendition of the SF storyline in that movie is very much meant to be comedic. It’s okay if the jumping doesn’t look real because that’s not really the point (in fact looking too real might undermine the point in that movie), but since John Carter was actually taking itself mostly seriously, the silly-looking jumping was an issue.

Now let’s talk about some good things. I loved the casting for John Carter and the Princess (seriously…why bother calling her anything else, especially her goofy-ass Never-Ending Story sounding name?). The rest of the casting didn’t bother me or excite me, and Mark Strong got to add yet another villain to his villainous credits list. Also the Princess had amazing eyes, and while I am fairly sure it was contacts/CG I’m not totally sure, so they sold it better than the Dune movies have so far.

The dog? Was fucking awesommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme. Best part of the movie! And proof that whatever form life takes, the human-dog bond is universal. (Okay, at least galactic.)

However.

Doggie? With his super-fast zoom run, utter fearlessness, and absolute loyalty? Brought up a pretty damn huge problem with the military strategies of the various peoples of Mars: WHY. THE. FUCK. DIDN’T ANYONE HAVE A MARS-DOG ARMY?! That made no sense. How could they miss the usefulness of that kind of animal in attacks? So that was bit of a plot hole.

Another was John Carter’s Superman status. So, I get that his magical physical abilities happen because he’s used to Earth-gravity. Fine. But…what happens in a year after he’s been living on Mars? I mean, best case for him is that he’s equalized to everyone who is from Mars and built for it. More realistically is that his bones start disintegrating and his muscles atrophy and he goes from being the secret weapon to the same as any other Mars-man/useless. That’s not such a happy ending, is it?

Finally I want to give some props to the framing device. Because it was ace. At first when the movie started with the whole random nephew reading his uncle’s diary, I thought, Jesus Harold Christ, not another stupid framing device that I was tired of after one 19th-century lit class. But the frame turned out to be actually relevant to the story and took the ending up a notch, from bittersweet to kick-ass. So that was good and worth mentioning. Don’t roll your eyes at the frame until you get to the end!

Yeah. In all it was a good two hours at the movies, and I’ll go see any sequels. It might not be profound or profoundly memorable B-movie crazysauce, but it was fun enough and good enough that I don’t feel cheated out of 130 minutes of my life. So I’m going to file John Carter (Of Mars) in the Win column and call it a night.

Rachel-

I LIKED IT!!! I really did!

I mean yeah, it had its issues. It was too long. It had a couple of slow bits; that I didn’t mind so much on the first watch, but I suspect I would if I saw it several times. It glossed RIGHT ON OVER all those issues of racism and classicism and the critique of the industrialized world beating out the “cultured imperialists”. Just RIGHT ON BY. Whatever. I understand why Disney did not want to deal with all the baggage a hundred-year-old novel that started a genre might come with.

They changed quite a lot to make it a tighter story, and to make it more appealing to a modern audience. Some of it I am quite grateful for. Princess Dejah, for instance, was intelligent, capable and did not spend the entire movie being repeatedly kidnapped and sexed. Good job, Disney. They left out the telepathic stuff. Probably a solid choice. That could have been hokey. They handled the super strength really well and quickly, and, yes…it IS funny to watch a guy moon leap everywhere he goes, and they acknowledged that.

The bit at the beginning with the Apaches and the Colonel…kind of clumsy. I think it was much longer and had to be edited, because seriously where is the MARS in this movie? I did absolutely LOVE the flashback to John burying his wife and child when he was fighting that one Thark army. It was actually really well done and does a great job highlighting the fact that when we romanticize violence, we forget that war is terrible and leaves innocent people dead. I think that might have been one of the best scenes in the film. The editing choice there was really spot-on.

Elena-

TOTALLY agree. That flashback sequence gave me chills.

Rachel-

They changed some details with the Tharks, as well. For example, it was Tars Tarkas that was aware that Sola was his daughter in the film rather than the other way around, and they completely cut out the deal with Kantos Kan being an arena prisoner that escapes with John Carter to Helium. Totally understandable, as they decided to expand Dejah to be far more involved in the plot than she originally was. I’m really grateful for that. They did that in a really clever way. She still needs John’s help, otherwise what is the point? But she isn’t just this naked (seriously, in the books she doesn’t wear any clothes. The comment she makes about her outfit being vulgar is pretty hilarious in that light) princess who needs to be CONSTANTLY rescued by the big, strong white man from Earth. They really did that right. All credit to Michael Chabon for that. He did a great job with all this material.

I also thought they did a great job with the CGI. Sure, Woola never looked like he was REAL, but the CGI wasn’t distracting. The ships and the cities and the vistas in general (love the use of tilt-shift for several of the big wide shots) were all really enhanced by effects. Some of the battle scenes got a little CGI heavy. Maybe it was the 3D making the film a little dark, but I didn’t really detect that hated shininess that CGI can cast.

Speaking of Woola. WOOLA IS THE SHIT. Calots are awesome. I love that they made it sooooo ugly. They could have gone with a more lizard-like dog, but no. They went with a weird geko-turd. Love it. Ugly things make me happy. He basically stole every shot he was in. Woola appreciation society. I am in it.

Elena-

ME TOO!!!

Rachel-

Lookit that ugly, runty horrible scrotum-looking thing! We love him so!

That might sum up how I feel about this movie in general. It’s kind of a weird movie in that it’s an adaptation of a book that is now so dated as to almost appear as a farce, or at least an uncreative rip-off of everything produced in the genre for the last 50 years. Except it’s not. It’s the original weird, epic, pseudo-science-fantasy planetary adventure story. Everyone is naked! Everyone seems not to be choking or freezing to death! It’s a crazy world! Just remember to call it Barsoom!

Discover The (Gorgeous) Secret World of Arrietty – A Review

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Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Elena-

The real question is why would I NOT be interested in this movie?

I love animated films. And by animated I mean cartoons. Anime is one of the few remaining sources for old-school animation, and it’s also essentially the only place you find animation for adults that is therefore moving the techniques and aesthetics of the medium forward still.

I also enjoy anime as a genre, although I never really go out of my way to find it…but when it comes to me, I see it and enjoy.

To the final relevant point in this discussion, I enjoy fairy tale/folk tale type stories, especially new ones (either new to me or original stories in that vein), and the idea of a world of little people who live in a small corner of our world is right along the traditional folk lines.

Rachel-

Sure, I read the plethora of novels about small things when I was a kid (The Borrowers, Indian in the Cupboard, etc.) but I’m in this for Studio Ghibli. I pretty much love Every. Single. Thing. Ghibli has ever produced. (Except Tales from Earthsea, but we can talk about that later…)

They’re just sooo friggin beautiful! And there are lots of girl heroes! The stories are also much more varied than the Disney offerings of the last 15 years, and I really appreciate that. I didn’t discover Ghibli until college, but I was an instant convert.

If you’ve never heard of Studio Ghibli or its founder, Hayao Miyazaki, you probably remember Spirited Away winning an Oscar about 10 years ago, or you’ve seen the Ghibli character of Totoro making cameos in a few Pixar films. Suffice it to say, Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli are extremely influential, and to call him the Japanese Disney is at once accurate and entirely misleading.

And yes, my favorite is Nausicaa. People are never surprised by this.

Elena-

I would like to point out another instance of my growing up under a rock: I had no idea what The Borrowers book series was until after I had seen this movie when I was recommending it to a friend and she was all, “Oh, I wonder if it was based on The Borrowers books?”

And for the record Howl’s Moving Castle is probably my personal favorite Ghibli film, but that’s probably just because it’s so abstract and weird, especially in the middle.

What would make it awesome?

Rachel-

I don’t really know what to expect. I’ve purposefully only seen the teaser trailer. I know it’s beautiful already, and I won’t be disappointed there. I also know it won’t follow The Borrowers‘ plot even though some of the names are the same. The teaser trailer doesn’t really let you know any plot details, so I can’t point to any specifics. I assume the Borrowers will be discovered, and there will be an escape of some kind.

I’m also looking forward to the soundtrack and even the sound editing, which in Ghibli films is always excellent. Judging from the teaser trailer and posters this is going to be a nature-heavy film (most of them are, but I’m thinking of My Neighbor Totoro especially), and I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of the extensive research Miyazaki and his team have obviously done.

Elena-

I am going to take this question as, what would make it not just good but FUCKING GOOD. To that end…if the animation is really creative and proves why this has to be a 2-d animation movie. What I mean by this…there were scenes in some of the Cowboy Bebop episodes that literally could not be filmed in live action. The angles and perspectives were just too extreme. That is pushing animation as a film technique forward. If this movie has that kind of A-game animation, and a really good and original story, then it will be off the chain.

At this point with the track record Rachel and I have had on watching movies together, I’ll settle for just a really good and slightly original story!

What would make it suck?

Elena-

I don’t really think there’s a lot of feasible ways to make this film terrible. Maybe if they just rewrote the story of the original and were working with either a spliced version of the visuals or trying to fit a new story onto the original animation.

But if they’re working with the original movie (which is highly acclaimed and would not be chosen for export if it were not solid), just dubbed in English, there’s nothing that will make this awful short of using Gilbert Gottfried and Fran Drescher as the voice talent.

Rachel-

Before I had seen Tales from Earthsea, I would have said with great confidence that no Studio Ghibli film could ever disappoint me, but Miyazaki’s son definitely did that with Earthsea. There’s some drama behind that film (it led to a feud between father and son because Hayao didn’t think his son Goro was ready to direct, and the film was based upon not just Ursula Le Guin’s novels but also Hayao’s manga. You can see how things got touchy). While Tales from Earthsea had the quality animation we’ve all come to expect from Studio Ghibli, it was a rambling, incoherent mess. It suffered from too much going on, the type of interrupted plot lines you get when you watch condensed film versions of really long anime series.

I hope the story is simple. That’s what Studio Ghibli excels at.

Thoughts on casting/production?

Rachel-

While Hayao Miyazaki’s name is attached to Arrietty, he is not directing it. He did write the screenplay and is involved in production, so I am confident that this won’t be another Tales from Earthsea.

I am disappointed in the fact that I’ll be watching a US-specific dubbing when I see it in the theater. In general, I find the Disney-lead American dubs to be more about using famous voices to get American parents to see a film with their children than picking good voice actors. In fact, they generally don’t even use professional voice actors at all, which is really disappointing! The US dub features Amy Poehler, Will Arnett, and Carol Burnett. A more inspired casting than, say…Christian Bale in Howl’s Moving Castle…but I’ll bet the UK version will be better. (Although…Christian Bale could technically be the UK dub of that one, except I don’t believe they did region specific dubbing on that film, just Japanese and English)

Elena-

I…didn’t even bother to watch the trailer. I read the synopsis and country of origin and knew I wanted to see it. I actually don’t want to go into the film with any expectations—I think in this case a blank slate might be better for me—so, long story short, no, I have no additional thoughts about this production before I see it.

Reaction to film:

Rachel-

AHHH. IT WAS SO GOOOD!!!

Legit. Look at this. LOOK AT IT.

The dubbing was fine; there really wasn’t all that much dialogue to begin with. I was having little artgasms examining all the scenes filled with random bits of stuff and trash that the Borrowers had converted into useful objects. Just looking in the corners of their home was worth the ungodly price of NYC admission. It really was.

I loved how ridiculously brave Arrietty was. It was a wonderful counter to the careful details that really made the audience FEEL how being that small must feel. Simple human movements became lumbering, clumsy and ominous. And yet when confronted by cats, insects, chasms and heart stopping realizations, Arrietty just stood and faced it. NO. FEAR. It was just amazing. The boy that the lonely Arrietty befriends, Shaun in the American dub (Sho in the Japanese version), was kind of horribly creepy. But I liked that. He wasn’t charming or really that endearing. He was almost zombie-like in the way he moved around the house and how he just sat, unmoving. He came across as a very sick and lonely boy with no one to talk to and not very much to say anyways. But his intentions were good, if misguided. But yea, that scene (that I now know is in the official Trailer because I watched it) when Arrietty and her father and taking tissue and she realizes Shaun is just STARING at her…that was terrifying!

I also liked the sad little ending. The two new friends must part, never to meet again, but you know that Arrietty will continue her adventures and you feel happy for her that she is going somewhere where she can make friends (and possibly boyfriend! I laughed when a friend of mine who was seeing it at the same time but in another state texted me “Spiller is totally husband material. He grunts, he flies, and he can steer a kettle down a river!”). I’m not sure what happens in the Japanese version as I haven’t gotten my hands on a subbed version yet, but in the American dub Shaun doesn’t die like I was CONVINCED he would. I know in the Borrower novels the boy is the one telling the stories, and you don’t really know if everything he writes about happened or if he is just making it all up. So I assume that Shaun surviving is a nod to those novels. I don’t know why I was so morbid about him. He seemed pretty lackluster as a character. Arrietty definitely stole the show. Hell, Spiller was more interesting than creepy Shaun.

Favorite Scene: When Arrietty is sitting in the crawl space and the roly-poly bug comes up and she uses it as a ball. I don’t know why but I was SO HAPPY when that happened.

Least favorite scene: The freaking CROW in the screen of the window! HOLY CRAP. I mean, hilarious, especially when Haru came in and solved the issue by beating it on the head with her shoe. That scene had me laughing, but I also felt like it was kind of intensely crazy? I dunno. It was like meditating in the glow of a warm and happy film full of quilts and cookie flour and then CROW IN YOUR FACE AND IT WON’T STOP SQUAWKING. Mostly it was jarring.

Ha…jarring. Poor Homily. Haru is a sadist. At least she poked holes in the plastic wrap? I had visions of poor Homily suffocating as soon as she shoved her in that mason jar. Tsk tsk!

Actually let’s take that back. My least favorite scene was the opening scene (even though it was awesome) when I had to listen to that ridiculous song about coming into a garden and the trees and she used to spend her childhood. WHAT. IS. THAT? WHAT IS THAT SONG? IT’S HORRIFIC. It inspired my boyfriend to rewrite the song with dirty lyrics, and he sang it all weekend. That song has to go. It’s even in the Japanese version with the English lyrics. GET IT OUT. IT’S AWFUL. Arrietty’s song at the end was fine, though. Just the coming into the garden song…ugh.

And the cat! We love the cat! I love that cats are looked upon fondly in Japanese culture. Too many Americans are all “I’m a dog person!” and…proud of that. For some reason.

Cats forever.

Except when they eat little people. They shouldn’t do that. Don’t let your cat eat any borrowers living in your house. It’s not nice.

Elena –

I have three words to anyone who loves art and is wondering if they should see this film (and for once none of them are f-bombs): moving Impressionist garden.

That’s what this movie looked like to me in its animated art direction. There were lots of colors, lots of shades of green, lots of details of leaf shapes, and yet…this was not photo-realism. It wasn’t even pretending to try to be. It was just…blurry and lovely and rustling and alive. It’s worth seeing if you love visual art just for that.

But…the movie on the whole is also pretty much fucking awesome (hey, there’s the drop you knew was coming!). The heroine, Arrietty, is just awesome. She’s the kind of female hero character we need more of—unafraid of the world, curious, determined, and self-sufficient, yet also vulnerable and open and able of accepting help and seeing the good in others. She’s like all the good parts of urban fantasy heroines blended with actually being a whole, healthy person instead of an embittered introvert. I loved especially how willing she was to question the established rules of her life. I know that’s what kids are supposed to do, but…I don’t think I questioned survival issues when I was 14.

Then there is the High Romantic angle of this being like…the most impossible of all impossible love stories. She’s the size of one of his fingers. Even if they were true soul mates they could never have more than companionship. But they can’t even have that! Because her parents live by the rule of “human sees us, we have to leave”—and evil housekeeper Haru proves them right to have that rule. Oh, she’s awful! (There may also have been a strong resemblance to someone I used to know in real life who caused me significant grief, so my reaction to her was perhaps…extreme.) It was hilarious to see her foiled again and again and put herself in an even worse position than she’d been in before, when her employers just thought she lost things left and right.

Anyway, the burgeoning friendship between Shaun and Arrietty is sweet and bittersweet at once, since the closer they become the more certain it is that she will have to leave. Not gonna lie, I teared up at the end. It was so beautiful. And how sad was it that the grandfather and Shaun’s mother had built that lovely dollhouse just for them, and they could never live in it? I totally expected Shaun to relocate them into it and take them home with him, or give them to another house but within the dollhouse.

There were definitely echoes of it being a vaguely romantic interest, at least on Shaun’s part, because both he and Spiller give each other the stink eye, who is THAT asshole?, style. Spiller was hilarious. He was great comic relief, but subtle, and also a point of extreme depth for the film’s world-building because he showed that not only are there other Borrowers but that there are also very different ways of Borrowing. Not all of them live in houses and scaled-down versions of human civilized life.

The movie felt longer than it was—not in a bad way, but it seemed more than 90 minutes. Maybe because it unfolds at a pretty slow pace, and for all that you can guess several directions it might take you’re never sure which it will take, so you can’t guess how far you are in the plot by typical 3-act structure analysis.

One of the things I liked most is the feature this film shared with other Ghibli movies I’ve seen, and that is that it’s a callback to the fairy tales of childhood. Not necessarily specific stories, but the infusion of a sense of wonder into quotidian, mundane life. In an age where Disney has decided they are done with fairy tales (lame), I love that Studio Ghibli proves they can not only be retold but also invented fresh. While this had great reminders of “Thumbelina” or “Tom Thumb” in terms of the relationship between full-size human and little person, and the scale of our world to them, the story and the scenario were totally different. Again, not having read The Borrowers series, I can’t speak as to how close it was to those books, but it was fabulous for an impartial observer.

The Woman In Black: DanRad in Victorian Wear- A Review

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Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Elena-

This movie is kind of a duh for me.

It is Harry Potter. I want to see if he can actually, you know, do something besides wield a wand with great conviction and look by turns sullen and put-upon.

It is a ghost story that looks like it might actually be scary, not just jumpy or gory but actually creep you out scary. Far too many of the horror movies out these days are either not creepy-scary or are so blood-soaked the terror is split between fear and disgust, which generally lessens the degree to which you feel either emotion.

Also it is a Victorian ghost story so…COSTUMES!
Rachel-

Harry Potter influence disclosure!!! Plus I really like ghost movies (The Others, anyone?). The film is based on a book of the same name by Susan Hill. It has already been adapted into a very successful and long-running play on London’s West End and I’ve heard from friends who have seen the play that it would probably make a better movie, but the play is still pretty good.

That’s… as good a recommendation as any, no?

Ok, so it’s Daniel Radcliffe in period costume. SHUT UP.

What would make it awesome?

Rachel-

This question makes no sense. Daniel Radcliffe in period costume. What the hell else do you want?

I’m going to assume that this is going to be a little old fashioned, British scary movie. Meaning that it isn’t gory as much as it is classically scary.

Elena-

If it’s scary and smart, with good acting, some artsy directing, and a nice ambiguous ending like the best ghost stories all have. Oh, and if Dan wears a waistcoat with distinction!

Rachel-

I just want to say that whenever I hear the term “waistcoat” my brain always says, “Why don’t people just say VESTS?” I mean really… what do old timey people have against vests?

Elena-

But—but—but—it was an underCOAT! Worn to cover a man’s WAIST. It makes PERFECT SENSE. What is a vest? It’s a shortening of vestment, I think? So…a really short priest’s robe? That’s even worse.

What would make it suck?

Rachel-

If the story is easily figured out, if DanRad is awful, if no one is wearing period costumes.

Elena-

If Daniel Radcliffe proves he has no acting abilities whatsoever.

If it goes stupid the way so many haunted house stories go stupid…I guess by that I mean if it’s totally predictable and full of people running up the stairs when they should be running out of the fucking house, etc.

If the theater is full of stupid tween DR fans who scream every time he shows up on screen. This happened to one of my friends opening night. It convinced me to wait to see the film a bit later on its theatrical run.

Thoughts on casting/production?

Rachel-

I have no idea who else is in this film. I think from the trailer that I’m supposed to accept that DanRad is a family man. That…is kind of dumb. He’s what? 18? (I know he’s older than that but give me a break, he’s not a FATHERLY person.)

Now I’m thinking about the HP epilogue, and it’s making me upset!

Elena-

Right? That epilogue was just…sad. Also I know Victorian gents of good morals probably married early (I mean how long is he gonna wait to dip the wick, amiright?), but I don’t think “early” meant…16.

Anyway, I’m excited to see what Harry can do out of Hogwarts. I know this isn’t his first role in a non-HP film or anything, but it’s the first movie I’ve been interested in as a film to go see him in. The other(s) he’s done just didn’t have an independent appeal, and while I like DR and wish him well and am curious about his career prospects, I just don’t feel any of those things strongly enough to go to a movie solely because he is in it.

Otherwise, I…really don’t know much about this movie. I know it’s based on a book that was written in 1983, so not an ACTUAL Victorian ghost story (which might have been cooler, to be honest), just one set then. I also don’t know much about the director or the studio even though everyone is talking about Hammer rising from the grave to make this film. Um…okay. This is where growing up under that rock becomes obvious, because…what’s Hammer studios? Why do I care? Right. Where’s Harry Potter?

Reaction to film:

Rachel-

Delightfully old fashioned scary movie! It reminded me a lot of House on Haunted Hill (the old one) because it relied on suspense mixed with scary noises and the imagination of the audience to generate the majority of the scares.

It was definitely far stronger in the beginning than it was in the ending (the motivation of the Woman in Black wasn’t very satisfying for example) especially the 20-minute scene when DanRad spends the night for the first time in Eel Marsh House. I found myself jumping at every noise, peering into every shadow. It’s in the interaction with the inhabitants of the village and the ending that force me to give this one a B- rather than an A. The rich couple with the lost child confused me, I was convinced they were the sister and brother-in-law of the Woman in Black until I got home and looked it up on Wikipedia. They weren’t, which kind of pissed me off because I just couldn’t figure out the whole “NEVER FORGIVE” twist of the film without it being a vengeance gig against at least ONE of the onscreen characters.

Stupid.

Poor DanRad, he worked so hard to “solve the mystery” and then just got smacked in the end. WRONG. Thanks for helping me out in the only way you could but I’m going to kill you anyways! “Never Forgive” except DanRad never did ANYTHING to you stupid dead cow! LEAVE DANRAD ALONE!!!!

Besides the ending, which is pretty much what happens in the book, I had a few other beefs with the film. Namely that DanRad’s character was kind of dumb. Really dumb. Like, take me to the lonely decaying mansion that is only accessible during low tide in this creepy village where all the children kill themselves, and I’ll just wander around said decaying mansion thinking I can see my dead wife and generally going INTO rooms where creepy noises come from, with a culmination of jumping into a gross marsh bog to retrieve a mummified corpse.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU DANRAD? JUST ALOHAMORA YOU’RE FUCKING WAY OUT OF THERE! RUN! GET OUT!

Is it that you can’t use the Internet yet in Ye Olde England or Scotland or wherever the fuck you are?

I CAN FIX THAT.

Here’s a telegram I could have sent you near the beginning of the film:

Here is one I could have sent after I peeled my hands off of my face and summoned up the courage to look at more of the screen than the bottom right corner while my boyfriend made fun of me – only to see you carry about a tar-covered child-mummy for a while which totally freaked me out and you should not have done that, but then it only got worse:

Here is the telegram I would have sent after the fiftieth time DanRad assured everyone that despite the hangings, and the possessed ladies, and the poisonings and the fires and the jumping to their deaths out of windows incidents involving the children of this town – that you are still having your toddler son come to visit you:

And finally, here is the telegram I would have sent to you at the end of the film, when that stupid whore of a ghost lady decided that despite all your hard work and effort and jumping into bogs that she in fact, did NOT appreciate you or feel at ease or placated or whatever it is that makes ghosts not stupid whores…and you wouldn’t have received it, but maybe that nice nanny who didn’t ask to be dragged to the evil possessed town and I hope she gets back to London OK, could read it for you:

Elena-

This turned out to be one of those movies that you like well enough when you first come out, but there’s a bit of confusion so you start talking about it with your friends, and the more you talk about it the more you realize the story is full of holes and doesn’t quite take you to where it was probably trying to. And then come the inevitable comparisons to how the book set up the scenario, so why did they change this or that because it didn’t just make things more dramatic, it changed the whole implications of that part of the story, etc.

I mean, on the whole the movie wasn’t bad. I enjoyed the very gothic feel of its visuals a lot. The house was fucking perfect. Daniel looked good in the waistcoat, and suitably gaunt and haunted in the way only a melancholic Victorian gentleman could. I will go see him in more movies. He still might not be enough of a lure on his own, but he will still be one point in a film’s favor if I am undecided.

There were parts of the movie that creeped me the fuck out. I just…wish it had all been a little bit tighter in the motivations. What I mean by this more than anything, I think, is that I had to suspend disbelief in a few too many places for the whole thing to seem credible.

I mean, I really wanted to send this telegram to the villagers:

This is the telegram I wanted to send to DanRad Kipps when he saw his dead wife for the twentieth time:

And why would the woman in black still go after Harry when he did his best to lay her ghost and give her back her child? And how did she even know he had a kid to begin with to come after him away from the house? It made more sense in the book, when he didn’t try to do anything for her, that she might come after him again later. Here it was like…well, damn, you’re just the cuntiest ghost in Christendom, ain’t ya?

All of this detracted from the chills and fuck-me jumps experienced during the actual viewing experience.

Rachel-

Here is where I think I’ll blame the stage production rather than the book. Because, honestly, if the kid had been mown down by a carriage and DanRad had lived to be a cranky old ghost-hunter in a VEST…well actually that would have been a good movie.

Nevermind.

A Shakespearean Night With One For The Money

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Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Elena-

Pick the reason I am interested:

(1) Katherine Heigl is my favorite actress and I watch everything she does;

(2) The Stephanie Plum series is one of my favorites so OF COURSE I’m going to see the first movie even if it’s totally different from the book;

(3) I was overdue for going to a bad movie with the intention of drunk heckling it.

If you guessed (3)…you are one for the money! And if you guessed either (1) or (2) then you haven’t read one of our columns before, have you? Oh, honey, you are in for a treat!

Also I should add that I am going with a friend who has read the series and enjoys it for the fun, ridiculous Jersey fist-pump of chick-lit that it is, and while KH is not a favorite I actually don’t mind her the way a lot of people do. So there’s that.

Rachel-

THE SCENE: It is nighttime in Brooklyn. The buses are making their endless journeys, the bums are settling in for a nap in my garbage and my hipster neighbors have finally stopped their band practice. There are a few drunken couples coming home from an evening out at the bar and their screaming match is fading into the distance of horns and the occasional police siren. If I try really hard, I can almost imagine the sound of chirping crickets (who am I kidding, I mean the droning of cicadas) on this unseasonably warm winter evening.

And I tell you, dear reader, I would rather run naked out into that endless, terrible night than watch a Katherine Heigl movie.

I blame Elena, she let me believe this was some sort of Urban Fantasy Mystery adaptation. And then I googled it.

What would make it suck?

Rachel-

I REALLY hope this isn’t some weird anti-feminist bullshit like all of KH’s other movies. That one she made with Gerard Butler (Side Note: Have you ever seen Dear Frankie? I actually weep to think Butler used to be that guy, and now he’s a steroid filled mush mouth actor… IT’S TRAGIC) and the entire movie was about him treating her like crap and her learning to find his sexist and disgusting behavior endearing? UGHHHHHHH!!!!

However, I expect a ridiculous train wreck of Jersey Shore stereotypes and cringe-worthy acting in One for the Money. I mean…the title is lame. It sounds like a Sweet Valley High volume. I would label it a trash novel, but I think that would be an insult to Harlequin.

Elena-

If it’s a totally unrealistic “badass yet beautiful and approachable” female role-playing/wish fulfillment fantasy. Also if they treat her possession of and use of firearms either irresponsibly or as a joke. Not because I hate or fear guns but rather because I hate and fear the lobby that would take them away and don’t want to provide them any ammunition—no matter how tongue in cheek it was meant—for that cause.

What would make it awesome?

Elena-

Um…my expectations are kind of starting in the gutters, so I think I will consider it an awesome time at the movies if I walk out with a smile. That can be either because the movie is so patently terrible that my friend and I just MST3K it the whole time, or if it’s better than I expect—you know, actually funny and witty and sexy and adventurous.

Rachel-

Please god let there be some self-aware and hilarious co-star that has decided that in addition to collecting a paycheck they will keep the audience in on the joke that this movie suuuucks.

I mean, I didn’t think I’d like Bridesmaids either (purely on the fact that it had to do with a wedding, and that is always boring and stupid), but I ended up nearly peeing myself with laughter. Maybe Melissa McCarthy can be in this film too?

Additional thoughts on casting or production?

Elena-

Well, I’ve already mentioned that I don’t mind Heigl despite her being a love-to-hate-her actress.

I have been told grandma is the best part of the series, so I am expecting that character to be hilarious and will be disappointed if she is not.

This is set in Jersey, right? Does that mean it’s going to be full of a bunch of Jersey Shore types? If she tries to fall in love with a dude calling himself “The Shenanigan” I am fucking out, y’all.

Rachel-

TOO LATE. Whatever troll-type they’ve got cast as the romantic interest will now forever be dubbed “The Shenanigan.” He can be half Irish, half Italian—all whack.

I don’t know who this grandma is. I only know what Wikipedia tells me and it tells me that Isabelle is a bounty hunter and she sells bras. (Speaking of Isabelle, remember how she ended up marrying that stupid random character they brought on last-minute because Tom Hanks’ nephew quit Roswell but we all knew they were supposed to be together? And Isabelle was the most supremely uninteresting alien posing as a high school student in the history of the genre? (Because bitches aren’t interesting!!!!) And even when they did the whole Bewitched homage she STILL wasn’t interesting and we just wanted Isabelle to maybe die and take stupid Tess with her? DO YOU REMEMBER THAT GUYS?)

I’m going to go watch the movie now. Pause for Effect.

Reaction to Film?

Rachel-

……….

That was… that was…. .

Well that was a Katherine Heigl movie.

One for the Money was everything I feared it would be. A stereotype-laden piece of trash with writing that can only be described as…chewy. So, instead of abusing my brain by trying to digest the word vomit, I mentally replaced the entire film with Shakespeare. It was what kept me sane.

For example, when Stephanie Plum starts her new job as a “bounty hunter” and it just so happens that an early assignment is an old douchey flame, I blocked out the rage-inducing couple talk with hilarious insults from the Bard. (Hey, look, it’s The Shenanigan. He…looks exactly how I pictured he would. How terrifying.)

Or when the bounty hunter mentor guy decided that he was going to break the law and purchase our intrepid heroin her own weapon of destruction I decided maybe everyone in this movie was on drugs.

Or.. mayhaps I was on drugs? Drugs that made everything in the universe not funny.

Nay! This movie was just… horribly unfunny.

Like the whore jokes… whose idea was that?

Yea… let’s laugh at horrible bigoted caricatures of people. HILARIOUS.

Or when Heigl’s character decided that people LOVE funny whores and her bounty-hunting tactics would revolve around double entendres and copious shots of her bra?

I decided maybe I was being tortured for something terrible I had done? Heigl’s career certainly deserves the punishment she’ll get from this latest resume star of a film. She produced this one herself, isn’t that nice? People with money are idiots. Stop paying this woman to do a damn thing. JUST. STOP.

Alas, had this film ended when it should have…we would have been spared rank tripe. Here’s your grade Ms. Heigl. Enjoy as thou wilt.

Elena-

So…that wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, it was not great cinema. It was not profound storytelling or deep characterization. There were a lot of stereotypes, and several really questionable gun scenes. But I kind of enjoyed it. Maybe I was just drunk enough on the cheap corporate-chain-restaurant margaritas I sucked down by the bucketful in advance to appreciate the level of cheapness on display.

Maybe that was why I spent the entire film having flashbacks to that college production of Taming of the Shrew?

Dear readers, I present to you Elena’s Notes for this movie—a handy visual and alternative-textual summation of the film that will tell you everything you need to know about what happened in it with only the cast of Katherine “The Curst” and “The Shenanigan” to tell the tale.

Firstly, the unhappy lovers reunite:

Round one to The Shenanigan.

Katherine the Curst meditates upon scorned women and hell-fury.

The Shenanigan vows he will beat her by hook or by crook.

There are handcuffs and a shower involved, which she doesn’t mind nearly as much as she ought to.

She points out she’ll get further working with him than against him.

He is dumb enough to not realize she said “I” and not “we” when she spoke of winning.

He did not at any point during the final scenes of the movie use the word “shenanigan.” I feel fucking cheated.

The End.

Battle of the Snow Whites: To the Pain!

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For some reason, two studios had the same idea to remake something that doesn’t need to be remade at all, ever again. How very studio-like of them. In the next several months we will be treated to two different versions of Snow White. Elena and I are each championing a different incarnation for this point by point discussion; may the best useless fairytale re-imagining win.

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War Horse – a Lassie Film (Illustrated Edition)

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Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Rachel-

I want to see War Horse because I am a connoisseur of Pony-movies. Yes, I was one of those little girls obsessed with ponies. I took it a few steps further by actually riding ponies through college. Then it all got too expensive (it was always too expensive, I supplemented my habit by mucking stalls), now I just watch pony-movies alone in my living room while crying into my wine glass over my lost youth.

Beauty, The Pie, Denny (!!!) and Thowra vs The Brolga. Give me pony-movies or give me death! (Yes, even The Postman.) Continue reading →

The Hunger Games Anticipation

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Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Rachel-

I am interested in this adaptation because, like everyone else last year, I read the Hunger Games Trilogy over the summer. Initially, I was resistant to reading them because I felt that reading about kids murdering each other would be too stressful, but I gave in. I didn’t have to wait at all to read the complete trilogy because I began the first book only a few months before Mockingjay was published. Good thing, too–I was instantly obsessed. These books are a return to the type of science fiction I read as a child, and thus, I liked them very much. They are a return to the dystopia youth fiction, often shockingly violent and generally interested in psychology and sociology, that forces a young mind to examine its own preconceptions. Books like Ender’s Game, 1984, The Girl Who Owned a City, The Giver (which connects pretty easily to the self-sufficient, nature survival novels like Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain that were also pretty popular with my fellow elementary school attendees). I will say that the first book is far better than its sequels. There are lots of reasons for that, but it is true. Continue reading →

Breaking Dawn Part 1 – Review (With Illustrations!)

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Editors Note: This article is not for the easily offended. But it is hilarious if you aren’t.

Why Are You Interested in This Adaptation?

Rachel-

Oh, man, am I interested in this adaptation? Am I? I’m interested in this for the same reasons I’m interested in the latest Lindsay Lohan drama.

I just want to out myself immediately. I am not a fan of Twilight. I think they’re poorly written, dull manifestations of one woman’s Mary Sue dream that comes right at the END of a decade long vampire obsession in popular culture. Continue reading →