missmediajunkie

The big screen adaptation of "Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" hit the screens last weekend, and has not been well received, but has lead to some interesting discussions about fanfiction and film. Many reviewers have latched on to the factoid that "Mortal Instruments" had its origins in "Harry Potter" fanfiction, back when author Cassandra Clare went by Cassandra Claire, and made Draco Malfoy the hero of her fanfiction stories. Well, whether they were entirely her stories is debatable, but let's save that for another time.

In "Mortal Instruments" Draco became Jace and Hermione became Clary, much in the same way that "Twilight" heroine Bella became Ana and Edward became Christian in "Fifty Shades of Gray." The new characters are distinct, but the echoes of their origins are hard to escape. I've seen some writers use the video game term "expy" to describe them, short for exported character, where the template of a previous character is used in a new scenario with only superficial changes to create a new one, often filling the same role in the new story. Officers Stephens and Ramirez in "The Dark Knight," for example, are slightly altered versions of Batman universe mainstays, Bullock and Montoya. While expys can become full-fledged, independent characters with a little effort, the term is often used negatively, applied to those characters who are easily recognizable as being a rip-off or a reworking of someone familiar. You'll see the more blatant ones used as cameos or homages, which is when they seem to work best.

No surprise that critics are decrying "Mortal Instruments" for being derivative, many taking the time to tie the film's weaknesses to the fact that its source material was fanfiction, and pointing out all the elements that came from "Harry Potter." I find this unfair for a couple of reasons. First, Hollywood movies have long been guilty of turning out derivative films full of derivative characters. Think of the dependence on certain big name actors who keep playing the same roles over and over again. Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington play minor variations on their most usual movie personas in most of their action movies, only breaking out the real acting chops for Oscar season. Think of all the rom-coms with interchangeable plot complications. Think of all the "Twilight" and "Potter" clones that weren't based on fanfiction. The familiarity was probably a big factor in getting the "Mortal Instruments" movie made in the first place. Studio executives love being able to boil down concepts into references to earlier hits, so "Mortal Instruments" being "Harry Potter" crossed with "Twilight" was almost certainly a selling point. And when they get their hands on more off-the-beaten-path source material, like "The Dark is Rising" or "The Golden Compass," they tend to dumb them down do everything possible to make them look more generic and familiar.

Fanfiction and Hollywood would seem to be a match made in heaven, except that's a misunderstanding of what fanfiction is for. Sure, fanfiction is derivative in that it depends on existing characters and concepts for effectiveness, but it's transformative of these elements rather than slavishly repetitive. The whole idea is that fan stories use the existing characters in ways that the original authors can't or won't. The best fanfiction is often the wildest stuff - deconstructions, subversions. parodies, crossovers, alternate universes, genre experiments, and metatextual commentary. Part of the reason romance fanfiction is so prevalent is because many popular characters come from media that isn't inclined to provide much romance to an audience that can't get enough of it. While "Mortal Instruments" may have its roots in fanfiction, it's not fanfiction. It shed the concept of turning a recognizably villainous character into a hero when it became original fiction, and stopped engaging with the original "Harry Potter" text. Instead, "Mortal Instruments" is better described as yet another in a long line of "Potter" clones.

Mainstream movies, dominated by endless franchises that only allow stories to move forward at an incremental pace, that keep remaking the same properties over and over with only minimal differences, are antithetical to the anarchic creative urges responsible for the best fanfiction. Occasionally Hollywood makes movies that do qualify as fanfiction - "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," "Oz the Great and Powerful" - but it's only rarely that you find one that really gets the point, like "Inglorious Basterds" or "Cabin in the Woods." A proper "Harry Potter" fanfiction movie would follow the "Potter" kids twenty years in the future trying to deal with middle age problems, or retell events from Luna Lovegood's point of view as a musical satire, or reveal the secret affair that was going on the whole time between Professor McGonagall and Professor Trelawny, or at the very least add a few sex scenes. If "Mortal Instruments" is to be counted as "Harry Potter" fanfiction, it's the worst kind - a boring, uncreative, unchallenging retread of terribly familiar ground.

And with a Mary Sue heroine too. Tsk, tsk.
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Spoilers ahead for all three seasons.

I wasn't too happy with the second season of "Game of Thrones." There were parts that I enjoyed very much, such as Tyrion's life in King's Landing and Arya's arc in Harrenhal. However, too much of that year felt like filler, dragged down by uninteresting characters playing out uninteresting stories. Even the stronger characters I usually enjoyed like Danaerys and Cersei got blander material that made them seem tedious. I understood that much of the maneuvering was necessary, that the show was playing a long game to set up much bigger events down the road. The third season finally gave us some payoff, and was altogether better paced, easier to watch, and more satisfying all around.

There were some small changes this year that made big differences. One was just a matter of which characters in which storylines were getting the emphasis. Jon Snow's travels were a lot more tolerable when Ygritte became a bigger part of his story. Rob and Talisa got a few romantic moments together, but the POV character in their storyline was Catelyn this year. There were too many characters to follow and too much to keep track of, as usual, but the creators fully embraced the splintered nature of the narrative, and put more faith in the audience to keep up. So segments got shorter, giving us five minutes with one character here, and a brief scene there, which was often all we needed. Some characters disappeared for multiple episodes, something I wish they'd been brave enough to do with Danaerys last year, when there just wasn't enough material for her.

We got another round of new characters, but as the show has become more popular, the actors playing minor roles and guest stars have gotten more high profile, making it easier to pick them out. There's Diana Rigg playing Olenna Redwyne, the delightfully non-nonsense grandmother to Margaery and Loras. There's Ciaran Hinds as the wildling leader Mance Rayder, with Mackenzie Crook as his follower, Orell. There's Thomas Brodie-Sangster, as Jojen Reed, who with his sister Meera, played by Ellie Kendrick, join up with Bran's band of fugitives heading toward the Wall. There's Noah Taylor as the sadistic Locke, a soldier loyal to the Boltons who intercepts Jamie and Brienne. And then there's relative newcomer Iwan Rheon playing Ramsay Snow, who spends the entire season torturing Theon, and making the kind of bad impression no one will soon forget.

On the production side, the show looks more gorgeous and expensive every year. Danaerys's scenes in Essos are particularly stunning, making great use of locations and talent in Morocco. You can tell that there's a higher comfort level with the use of CGI, because we get more wolves and more dragons than ever before, along with eight thousand CGI soldiers and seeing the Wall up close and personal. It feels like more large scale action is happening more often, even if that's not actually the case. The writing and the pacing are tighter, and there's little that feels like filler. I can't think of a single episode this season where something didn't pay off, though some of those payoffs were bigger than others. I was also happy that the content generally felt less gratuitous than it had in the past. Sure, there's still a lot of sex and nudity and big, bloody massacre, but it's all better integrated into the stories and and feels less obtrusive.

What I think really makes this season so much more solid and engaging is that "Game of Thrones" has its sense of epic scope back, and the storylines feel properly connected to each other again. You have characters swapping in and out of different threads of the plot more frequently, so now Margaery and Tywin are in King's Landing, while the Hound crosses paths with Arya, Gendry briefly becomes central to Stannis's story, and Bran's group eventually meets members of the Night's Watch. The fall of Winterfell is shown to seriously affect things going on in other places on the map, and there are several small but pointed discussions to show that various characters in Westeros know that danger is coming from the North and from Danaerys in the East. And speaking of Danaerys, she's still largely disconnected from everyone else, but her story has ramped up into a massive enterprise, full of armies and conquests and ever-growing CGI dragons. She takes back her place as one of the most fearsome contenders for the Iron Throne, and gives the show one of its best moments in the fourth episode of the season.

And character arcs! We had real, full, complete character arcs for some of the minor players who had been trooping along on the sidelines since the first season. Jamie Lannister gets the prize for most improved characterization, after bonding with Brienne during their ordeal with Locke. Sam got to be a hero, and Davros got to be a badass, and Varys is more fascinating every time we see him. My new favorite character may be Margaery, whose desire for power and machinating mind are a match for anyone else on the board, but hidden beneath a disarmingly sunny disposition. I love that some of the year's biggest developments turned out to be typical soap opera fodder, like who was getting married to who, and who was sleeping with who, but in "Game of Thrones" if you make the wrong match, you end up with a Red Wedding situation on your hands.

Speaking of which, the events of "Rains of Castamere" were pretty thoroughly spoiled for me, so it didn't have nearly the impact that it had one other viewers. Frankly, I didn't find it as nearly as shocking as I've heard described. Were Robb and Catelyn really anyone's favorite characters? I was honestly a little relieved to see Robb gone, as the show did a pretty poor job of making him into a sympathetic figure. However, I did find Stannis and Melisandre much improved, Jon Snow and Ygritte were more than tolerable, and Bran has quietly emerged as an intriguing major protagonist. My favorite storyline this year, however, was Tyrion and Sansa's union, and I found their deeply uncomfortable nuptials much more fun than the more famous Red Wedding.

There were rougher spots, of course. I'm not sure what to make of the Theon scenes, and don't feel they did much to further either his story or Ramsay Bolton's. The Reed kids are in desperate need of a few monologues to flesh them out. And was that really all we get of Mance Rayder? And Thoros and Beric? And is Lancel Lannister dead in a ditch somewhere? Still, there's always next season, and "Game of Thrones" has been good about building its characters up slowly. And with the story back on track and many more seasons ahead, I definitely plan to be around for the long haul.
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Three years ago, I wrote up this post, Nine Fairy Tale Films I Want to See, speculating that fairy tales might become the next big trend in Hollywood. That turned out to be true. The "edgy" Brett Ratner "Snow White" project that inspired the post went through several wild convolutions, and ended up at Disney as "Mirror, Mirror." Oh, the irony. Three of the other fairy tales I wanted to see movies for also did make it to the screen: "Hansel and Gretel," "Jack and the Beanstalk," and "The Snow Queen," which became "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," "Jack the Giant Slayer," and the upcoming "Frozen," which is the "Snow Queen" project that Disney had previously cancelled. Plus "Beauty and the Beast" and "Arabian Nights" projects are knocking around in development.

And then we've also had "Snow White and the Huntsman," "Tangled," "Beastly," "Red Riding Hood," "Hoodwinked Too," "Puss in Boots," and a couple of disturbing art house takes on "Sleeping Beauty." If you're feeling generous, you can add movies with related themes like "Oz the Great and Powerful" and "Hanna" to the pile. Disney has "Maleficent," "Cinderella," and "Into the Woods" pretty far along in the production pipeline at the moment. Also, it would be remiss not to mention "One Upon a Time" and "Grimm" on television, or that Warner Brothers is taking another stab turning "Fables" into a movie. Though there have been underperformers and outright failures, others have been substantial hits. It doesn't seem like we'll be seeing the end of the fairy tale trend at the movies any time soon. The question is, have these films been any good? Have they brought more creative and more diverse offerings to theaters, the way many of us were hoping for?

Yes and no. What you notice very quickly about most of these fairy tale films, is that they're either traditional family pictures like Disney's "Mirror, Mirror" and "Tangled," or they've been forced to conform to the template of your typical action movie. Hansel and Gretel were aged up into adults, given medieval weaponry, and let loose on witches and trolls in a gory, R-rated horrorshow. Snow White, as played by Kristin Stewart, faced a parade of monsters in a dark and gritty fantasyland. She also had to share billing with Chris Hemsworth's hunky Huntsman, who handled most of the combat. Sure, there are more prominent female characters in these fairy-tale movies than your average blockbuster, particularly in the villain department, but at the same time you see a strong desire to stay male-friendly. This means more male characters, less emphasis on romance, and a starker (and more boring) visual aesthetic. Even Disney, with their brightly colored musical Rapunzel story, was careful to feature the male hero in all the ads and changed the title to "Tangled."

It's interesting that only the little-seen "Red Riding Hood" and "Beastly" can really be considered part of the recent crop of "Twilight" influenced supernatural romances aimed at teenagers. You'd think there would be much more crossover, considering how many fairy-tales have young heroines and love connections at their center. This year we've had a flood of "Twilight" clones involving witches and werewolves and mystical creatures, but they're all very contemporary stories about modern day girls. Meanwhile, the fairy tale action moves are mostly done in period settings, their fantasy creatures and concepts exploited for spectacle. Compare this year's "Warm Bodies" and "Jack the Giant Slayer," both starring Nicholas Hoult. "Warm Bodies" had plenty of CGI zombies, but the driving force of the movie was the interspecies romance between Zombie!Nicholas Hoult and a cute blonde. "Jack the Giant Slayer," by comparison, did have a love story in it, but it was perfunctory stuff. Far more time was spent frantically running around fighting giants and foiling a dastardly plot to take over a kingdom. And Hoult was more fleshed out as a zombie than as Jack.

I see no reason not to feel optimistic about the future films, though. "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "Hansel and Gretel" are both getting sequels, and we can expect more of Grimm's grimmest from them, but Disney's betting pretty heavily on the family-friendly approach. They have the bulk of the more visible and ambitious fairy-tale projects on the way. I doubt we'll see too many action scenes crammed into "Cinderella" or "Into the Woods" (not that they won't try), of course. Plus, there are others interesting projects in development that seem to be striking out in different, less obvious directions. If you've wondered where the revisionist and satirical takes on the fairy tale genre have been, producer Neal Moritz is working on a comedy version of "Sleeping Beauty." There's reportedly also feminist retelling in the works, with Hailee Steinfeld attached, that takes place entirely within her dream world.

In a couple of years, I suspect there are going to be a few more titles I can check off my list.
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The opening monologue of HBO's "Carnivàle" promises the tale of a clash between two men wielding the powers of good and evil, the latest incarnations of forces that have been battling each other since time immemorial. However, during the entirety of the first twelve-episode season, we don't get to see that clash, though the two men from the story are eventually identified. "Carnivàle" was famously cancelled after two seasons, so I wouldn't be surprised if the pair never get to face off onscreen at all. Instead, it's better to think of "Carnivàle" as the story of two men struggling to survive during the Great Depression, and to understand the influence of supernatural powers on their lives . Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl) is a young fugitive with strange healing powers who joins up with a travelling carnival, the Carnivàle of the title. Brother Justin (Clancy Brown) is a minister who is guided by strange visions and a strong desire to eradicate sin in the world.

The show primarily stays focused on the carnival storyline, which features the the bulk of the series' regular cast. Samson (Michael J. Anderson) the dwarf runs the show, relaying orders from the unseen owner of Carnivàle, known only as "Management." Jonesy (Tim DeKay) is his right hand man, the chief roustabout with a bum leg. Performers include the blind mentalist Lodz (Patrick Bauchau), Lila the bearded lady (Debra Christofferson), Ruthie the snake charmer (Adrienne Barbeau), Gecko the Lizard man (John Fleck), a pair of conjoined twins (Karyne and Sarah Steben), and the "cootch show" striptease troupe, the Dreifuss family, comprised of father Stumpy (Toby Huss), mother Rita Sue (Cynthia Ettinger), an daughters Libby (Carla Gallo) and Dora Mae (Amanda Aday). Finally, there's Sofie (Clea DuVall), a young tarot card reader, who partners with her mother Apollonia (Diane Salinger) to read people's futures. Apollonia is catatonic and bedridden, but has strong telekinetic and psychic powers, and can speak to Sofie mentally. In Brother Justin's storyline, we also meet his sister Iris (Amy Madigan), and his mentor, Reverend Norman Balthus (Ralph Waite).

"Carnivàle" is a slower paced show, more concerned with building up characters and atmosphere than it is about building up any kind of narrative momentum. There are several very strong self-contained episodes, but largely the series is built on incidental moments and small encounters. It's not until toward the end of the season that the viewer can really appreciate the cumulative weight of all these little moments, and come to realize that all these strange carnival folk are now familiar faces in world that seems to be going terribly wrong. The show's greatest achievement is the recreation of the 1930s, the era of the Dust Bowl and Depression, when an apocalyptic mood hung over America. A feeling of encroaching dread also hangs over Carnivàle, as they're plagued by one calamity after another. It's fitting for a show where our main protagonists, Ben and Brother Justin, are constantly fighting their doubts and fearful of the consequences of taking action.

I understand why the show wasn't more popular, because "Carnivàle" isn't nearly as romantic or nostalgic as it sounds from the premise. There's plenty of mysticism and magic, and there are always some good, picturesque visuals to appreciate, but most episodes also spend a significant amount of time showing us the less glamorous side of life on the road and the extreme poverty of the era. The freaks may all be real and the psychics and mystics actually have special powers, but Samson still regularly has to resort to tricks and cheats in order to keep the show in the black and everyone fed. All the characters have their shades of gray and varying codes of morality. On the one extreme you have Brother Justin and his increasingly disturbing sermons, and on the other you have the Dreifuss family and their unorthodox views on sexuality. Perhaps the only real innocent is Sofie, on the verge of growing up, and surrounded by questionable influences.

However, their world is so wonderfully constructed - not just the way it takes care to get the period details right, but the relationships and the intrigues among the carnival workers, and the way that Ben and Brother Justin gradually learn about their powers. For those who are willing to put aside expectations and take "Carnivàle" on its own terms, the show can become engrossing very quickly. I found the storylines with Ben and Brother Justin weren't nearly as interesting as Sofie's growing pains or the Dreifuss's marriage issues or even Samson's peculiar relationship with Management.

After twelve episodes, I'd be happy to see the bigger storylines start ramping up, or if the show just wants to spend another twelve episodes exploring the dusty Midwest, I'm fine with that too. This is one of those media universes where it's gratifying just to be able to spend some time there and consider the possibilities.
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Once upon a time in the 1990s, MTV was the home of some of the most interesting experiments in adult-oriented American animation. "Liquid Television" was their showcase for indie shorts that launched several series, including "Beavis and Butt-head." However, I was more interested in the less conventional titles, particularly two shows that I took the trouble to track down when I was in college: "Æon Flux" and "The Maxx." These days animation aimed at adults isn't a rarity. But as much as I enjoy "Archer" and the recently returned "Venture Brothers," it's still these two MTV shows that serve as my benchmark for what mature, ambitious animation can be.

Let's start with "The Maxx," based on the Sam Kieth comics. Though it looks like a superhero story, featuring a titular hero with superhuman powers and a hidden identity, he's not your standard crime-fighter. The Maxx in the real world is a homeless bum, but he also exists in another world linked to his subconscious mind, and perhaps others, called the Outback. The Outback is full of monsters and fantastic creatures, and the Maxx is charged with protecting the Jungle Queen, who in reality is a social worker named Julie. Most of the too-brief series is spent unraveling the various traumas that brought these characters together, and battling the various evils that the Outback is spilling into the real world.

This is a story that could conceivably be told in live action, but it would be pointless. The joy of "The Maxx" is in its wildly exaggerated characters and its anarchic cartoon violence, paired with some very dark and twisted explorations of the human psyche. I saw most of the show in a single sitting, but I expect the individual episodes must have played just as well in their original eleven-minute installments. Despite the more adult subject matter, they have all the energy and the outsized emotion of a purely comic cartoon shorts like "Tom and Jerry" or "Looney Toons," more than enough to make a big impression on the viewer in only a few minutes. What especially impressed me is that the characters feel like real people, underneath all the layers of comic-book fantasy. Maxx fixates on "Cheers." Julie has a feminist streak. Sarah is too miserable even for the Goth crowd. So at the show's core is some really good, solid character drama that is more than enough to make up for the rougher spots.

Moving on to "Æon Fluxx," which was originally created by Peter Chung as a series of five-minute shorts, and then eventually expanded into half-hour episodes. This one took advantage of cartoon logic to some wild extremes. The series is set in a dystopian future that looks like something out of Moebius comic, where the female rebel freedom fighter Æon, dressed in outfits that tend to resemble leather fetish gear, is perpetually at war with the forces of her arch-nemesis (and occasional lover), the dictator Trevor Goodchild. In the original series of "Æon" shorts, the main character died violently in every episode. In the longer episodes, her survival rate was a little better, though none of the endings could be called happy in any sense. As you might expect, there is no continuity of story from one episode to the next, and really no constants aside from the two main characters and the basic premise. One of the best stories doesn't even feature Æon as the main character.

I find it difficult to describe "Æon Flux." It resembles "Heavy Metal" on a surface level, full of sex and violence, but it's far more intelligent, more bizarre, and more ambitious. Watching it felt akin to reading a really good anthology of science-fiction short stories, full of strange existential conundrums and ironic concepts. It's one of the few shows where I honestly never knew where any of the stories were going, where there didn't seem to be any boundaries at all. Not only could Æon die, but she could be fundamentally changed in different ways, depending on the episode. She could really and truly fall in love with Trevor. She could turn out to be from a different universe or reality, or simply a clever ruse that never actually existed at all. Moreover, some of the concepts are so alien, like mind-warping astral beings and artificial consciences, they can be off-putting to sci-fi novices. The animation is particularly helpful here in giving form to some really wild and avant garde ideas.

It's been nearly two decades since these series went off the air, and I've rarely seen anything in American animation that has come close since in terms of sheer daring and maturity. And I find it sad that they've become so obscure now, and that few people remember or reference them when talking about television animation. Sure, "The Simpsons" and "South Park" undeniably had the most impact in the 90s, but they weren't the only trailblazers. And I hope that someday we'll be in a time and place where commercial animation can venture down that path again.
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Well, I've done "Buffy," so it's only fair that her ex should get a list too. A quick disclaimer that I know I've seen every episode, but most of those were at the time of airing over a decade ago and I haven't revisited most of them in a while. Picks are arranged by airdate, and are not ranked. Lots of spoilers ahead:

In the Dark - "Angel" leaned heavily on crossover episodes with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in the early going, when it was still trying to find its footing. Faith was a great recurring villain, and Wesley, Spike and Harmony would join the cast more permanently. The first crossover remains one of my favorites, the one where Spike rolls into town to cause some trouble. The opening scene alone, where Spike offers his own snarky narration to Angel's hero activities, is worth a watch. And there's another fun "Buffy" cameo at the end.

Hero - The character of Doyle the half-demon was a big part of the first season, and his departure was one of the show's first milestones. Though it was sudden, Doyle goes out in a much more satisfying way than most characters in Joss Whedon shows, on his own terms. It was also a good reminder that nobody on the show except the title character was safe. My only quibble isn't with this episode itself, but the lack of impact on subsequent episodes - I think Doyle was only mentioned again once after this.

Darla - The counterpart to one of my favorite "Buffy" episodes, "Fool for Love," which aired the same night and shared several plot points and flashback scenes. The episode covers Angel and Darla's history together as vampires, told through the recently re-ensouled Darla's fever dreams as Angel is trying to rescue her from the clutches of evil law firm of Wolfram and Hart. The jaunts into the past are a lot of fun, especially the appearances by other familiar faces including Spike, Drusilla, and even the Master.

Billy - It took a while for Fred to grow on me, and I think that was helped along by Wesley being so smitten with her. "Billy" marks the first of many missteps in their romance, where a man named Billy who can induce violent misogyny in other men causes Wesley to nearly kill Fred. It's a strong character episode for both of them, and nicely incorporates a real-world fear. Also, this one features one of the better appearances by Wolfram and Hart villain Lilah, who gets to show her more vulnerable side.

Lullaby - Honestly, this one's only on the list for the ending, which is one of the most memorable death scenes I've ever seen on television. It's a pretty chaotic episode, with Darla in labor, Holtz on the warpath, and the gang still grappling with the implications of the prophecy baby. Julie Benz really delivers as Darla, wrapping up the whole Angel-Darla relationship in truly epic fashion. There's also the great use of demon bar host Lorne, who would become a regular in the next season, but was already acting like one here.

A New World - Everybody hated Vincent Kartheiser as Connor, right? Well I didn't, at least not for his first appearance as a teenager, just returned from a hell dimension to confront his father. The episode is a great introduction to the little hellion, especially in the way that it gives us a different perspective on the "Angel" universe from his point of view and sets up all these new quandaries for Angel. At ths point it wasn't clear how Connor was going to fit into the show's existing dynamics, which brings us to -

Shiny Happy People and The Magic Bullet - Yes, I'm cheating, but I think of these two as a single story. I really disliked most of Season Four and where it took Cordelia and Connor. However, the climax of the storyline with Jasmine nearly taking over the world and briefly enslaving the entire cast was a lot of fun. "Buffy" and "Angel" featured several different flavors of apocalypse, but this is one of the most intriguing versions. Also, it gave Fred a chance to be the hero, which never happened enough.

The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco - I know several people who hate this episode, but I can't help lighting up with glee at the thought of it. There's just something so goofy and wonderful about Angel teaming up with a Mexican luchador named Numero Cinco from a family of number themed luchadores to fight evil. I know that Ben Edlund wasn't in any way involved in this episode, but it feels like a live action version of "The Tick" - moreso than the actual live action version of "The Tick"!

Smile Time - I'm a sucker for theme and gimmick episodes, and so we have to have the episode where Angel gets turned into a puppet version of himself while investigating an evil children's show. Season Five is far and away my favorite year of "Angel" because they finally settled into a format that worked, and found a good balance between the genre elements and the soap opera elements. And they started to really embrace the ridiculous. Like puppet Angel's hysterical brawl with Spike.

Not Fade Away - The finale episode frustrated me to no end when I first saw it, because it ended on a cliffhanger and they killed off my favorite character to boot. However, there's so much good stuff here, so many good character moments and resolutions and callbacks that acknowledged how much the show had changed over the years. I don't think there was a better way for "Angel" to go out, with everyone still fighting the good fight, even though I'm still disppointed that it didn't get to continue.
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YAM Magazine, an online publication about cultural media, came up with this interesting little prompt: The Movie Gender Switch Project. Simply take a movie with prominent male and female leads, swap their roles, and see how the story would play out as a result. I'm doing "The Princess Bride," which I guess becomes "The Prince Groom." Spoilers everywhere!

First off, the rules of the challenge specify changing the genders of the lead characters only, so the big stumbling block right off the bat is the original story would have Westley marrying Prince Humperdinck. I know society is more progressive in this area than it used to be, but this just isn't going to happen when you take into account that royal marriages are all about the procreation. However, Humperdinck could still appear to ally himself with Westley without the whole marriage thing, and then set him up to be killed off to start that war with Guilder.

Oh, I've got it. You can have the old king adopt Westley into the royal family as a prince for, let's say, saving his life. That keeps the title intact, puts the people on his side, and gives Humperdinck a reason to want to get rid of him. Of course he has to appear to play nice with Westley in order to respect his father's wishes, but truthfully he doesn't want any competition around even if he's next in line for the throne anyway. So Humperdinck has Westley kidnapped and has to make a big show of getting his new brother back. And you could switch out the wedding for a big coronation ceremony for the climax scenes.

On Buttercup's side of the equation, she probably wouldn't be going out into the world to make her fortune if Westley was a landowner with his own farm in the beginning. So she's traveling to visit relatives, her ship is boarded by the Dread Pirate Roberts, and she is presumed to have been killed. This gets a little tricky because Roberts is still a man, but Buttercup could feasibly find a way to disguise herself and replace him. There are always girls passing themselves off as boys in pirate stories, and of course there were real life women pirates. The disguise just wouldn't be as convincing to the audience, but we all knew that the Man in Black was really Westley from the beginning anyway, right?

So Buttercup follows the kidnappers, beats Inigo Montoya at swordfighting, Vizzini at the game of wits, and Fezzik - oh dear. Is it plausible for Buttercup to beat Fezzik at wrestling? Well, maybe it is. I mean, Westley was completely physically outmatched by Fezzik in the first place, and the tactics he used probably could be used by Buttercup effectively. Yeah, let's go with that. Buttercup beats Fezzik at wrestling, reunites with Westley, and they almost escape until Prince Humperdinck intervenes. Buttercup ends up with the albino and Count Rugen in the torture chamber, and Westley is back at the castle with time running out before he has to be... coronated. Oh, that doesn't sound right, does it?

What do we replace Buttercup's anxieties about getting married to Humperdinck with? A big part of her character arc was rejecting the prince and deciding not to go through with the wedding. No matter how you cut it, becoming royalty doesn't have the same amount of emotional heft as deciding whether or not to marry somebody. Well, we can turn a negative decision into a positive one. Westley can turn down the prince gig because he decides he wants to marry Buttercup, and he can't do that if he's royalty. And Humperdinck's plotting by that point would be too far along to allow Westley to decline the honor, so he tricks him into it. We can leave out the suicide business, I think.

Then the rest of the story plays out as usual. Storm the castle, rescue the new prince, Inigo Montoya gets that awesome revenge scene, and happy ending.

It's interesting how putting Buttercup into the typically male storyline, with the adventuring and the physical feats isn't nearly as hard as trying to work Westley into the typically female one, where the conflict is mostly about relationships and emotions. And it feels very strange to have Buttercup doing so much action-wise, while Westley doesn't get to do anything rougher than name-calling. The most affirmative thing he does is to save the king, which I invented to make the plot work. Buttercup was originally chosen by Humperdinck for being the fairest in the land.

Buttercup being an action heroine works pretty well, but I think some of the later scenes with Count Rugen in the torture chamber, and being dragged around as a corpse, end up with some additional naughty connotations that may raise some eyebrows. Miracle Max would likely be suspicious of Inigo and Fezzik for entirely different reasons and the tone of the comedy would be very different.

As for all the emphasis on true love, you end up with a very forceful Buttercup who may be coming on too strong, and a Westley who is very passive, and not too smart. More than anything else, I was surprised at how the characterizations that seemed so classical and sweet one way, play very, very differently when they're switched.
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"Oz, The Great and Powerful" is the first big hit of 2013, grossing over $80 million at the American box office over the weekend. Disney has indicated that they're working on sequel plans already, so it looks like we have a real Oz film franchise on our hands at last. On the other hand, as a fan of the Oz books and the earlier Oz films, this isn't quite what I had in mind. Up front, I want to be clear that I haven't seen the new movie yet, but I've been reading copious spoilers and taking notes. This is one of those cases where I don't think knowing how it ends is going to impact the viewing experience much, and I've got a lot of concerns to address. Minor spoilers ahead.

L. Frank Baum's Oz books were fantasy stories written for children, and their main characters were children, usually girls like Dorothy and Ozma, but not exclusively. What Disney has done is to make an action-adventure film centered on a grown-up male protagonist, the Wonderful Wizard, played by James Franco. "Oz: The Great and Powerful" is positioned as a prequel to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," detailing how the Wizard first came to Oz and became its ruler. Assuming Disney plans to continue in the same vein in future movies, this changes the dynamics of Oz stories considerably. An adult hero means an adult POV, different goals and a different approach to the fantasy world. You lose the child's-eye view, and a lot of the sense of danger and wonder that go with it. Many of the fantasy elements and characters originally created to appeal to children have to be adjusted for the sensibilities of adults. For instance, the Wizard gets a winged monkey sidekick in the new movie who is not scary at all. He can talk, and is voiced by Zach Braff. Meanwhile, Glinda and the other witches are set up as potential love interests for the Wizard as well as antagonists.

Looking ahead, even with the Wizard as the lead character, Disney wouldn't have to depart too far from the books for future installments. The plots are simple enough that you could substitute the Wizard without much trouble. As we all know, the Wizard was eventually revealed as a humbug and departed from Oz, ceding leadership to the Scarecrow. However, in the books he found his way back to the Emerald City eventually and decided to stay, becoming a recurring character for the rest of the series who often came along on various adventures. You could transplant many of these stories to the period of time when the Wizard ruled Oz.. Also, while there was no mention of Glinda and the Wizard being romantically involved, they were good friends, and it's not out of the question that a deeper relationship could have grown out of that.

However, the most famous Oz material would be off limits if Disney wanted to stick with prequels. Anything involving Dorothy or Ozma or the characters closely connected to them would require the ousting of the Wizard from power. That's a route I'm not sure Disney is too eager about taking, considering the intellectual property issues with MGM. Then again, since the Wizard's power is based on a lie, according to the usual rules of Disney movie morality he has to come clean eventually. Remaking "The Wizard of Oz" would almost certainly go badly, but I wonder if you couldn't do a sort of "Rosencranz and Guildenstern" version of it, showing what the Wizard was doing behind the scenes during Dorothy's famous adventure. The biggest danger with this approach is that the Wizard might end up usurping Dorothy's place as heroine of her story.

That brings us to the gender problem that "Oz, the Great and Powerful" has created. There's a good article over at Jezebel about why positioning the Wizard as the hero and co-opting what was originally a very female-centric series is highly problematic. There's also been significant criticism about the characterization of the witches, which according to many reviews leaves a lot to be desired. In a prequel situation I think there's some wiggle room, but the Wizard muscling in on Dorothy's turf is definitely not acceptable. At the same time, keep in mind that Disney won't want to decrease the role of James Franco in any way, since he's the big headliner of the new franchise, and the company has a strong interest in brands that would be accessible to teenage boys. The last thing they want is to position the new Oz movies as girls' entertainment. That reduces the chances of getting major female characters with real agency front and center.

However, you could probably sneak in a young heroine or two by just keeping Franco's face on the posters, the same way Disney did with Johnny Depp and "Alice and Wonderland." Going back to a potential "Wizard of Oz" related project, you can't have the Wizard secretly saving the day without marginalizing one of the iconic girl heroes of American literature. But an entirely separate Wizard-centric story that supplements what Dorothy is doing? That could work. Then the following sequel could do an adaptation of "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz," book four of the Oz series, where the Wizard and Dorothy appear as co-leads trying to get back to Oz, and you could delve into the rest of the series from there.

I've been waiting a long time for new Oz films, and I'm not too picky about what we end up with. But Disney has a chance to do something very special here, depending on where they decide to take the series. The Oz universe is a vast one, and I've only touched on a few possible options.

Hoping for the best.
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I went back and forth about whether or not to write these posts this year, but I figured that they do have some value, the same way that my "Least Anticipated" lists do. I like going back at the end of the year and seeing what met expectations and what didn't. And it's always good to take a good, hard look at where my movie-watching priorities are, and what's going into the decision making process when picking and choosing among new titles. The big question I suppose you're asking right now is, why wait until the beginning of March? Why didn't you write these lists two months ago when everyone else did? Well, because January and February are crap for new releases. Sure, I'll probably rent "Warm Bodies" and "Side Effects," but these aren't priorities. Also, the full year's release schedule still isn't close to being finalized - there was another round of date swapping just yesterday, but now everything through the summer is pretty much set, and it's after Sundance, so at least we've got a better picture of what's coming down the pipe.

I'm going to split these up into two posts, one for the big mainstream blockbusters, and one for the more highbrow pictures. Ten entries apiece. Here we go!

"Iron Man 3" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" - So much of my anticipation for these two sequels is pure hype and I know it. "Iron Man 2" was a disappointment, and there's no guarantee that "Iron Man 3" won't be more of the same. However, Shane Black is directing this time and he's got an awfully good track record, going all the way back to "Lethal Weapon." As for the new "Star Trek," there is the distinct possibility that the baddie that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing is actually Khan. Do I really need any other reason to be excited?

"Man of Steel" - I'm rooting for DC to finally get a Superman reboot right. They've got a lot of factors on their side, but a lot of others against them too. Their biggest liability is director Zack Snyder, whose films have been on a definite downward trajectory as of late. However, the cast looks solid, Christopher Nolan is heavily involved, and the trailers suggest that the filmmakers have a good angle on the origin story. The performance of "Man of Steel" is going to decide the fate of "Justice League," so this is a big one, one way or another.

"This is the End" and "The World's End" - The idea of spoofing the apocalypse appeals to me a lot after so many years of self-serious doom and gloom disaster epics. This year we're getting them in two different flavors. First, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco, and their cohorts will be playing themselves getting into celebrity-cameo-studded hijinks during the end times in Los Angeles. Then in the fall, Edgar Wright will reteam with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for "The World's End," described as a pub crawl that coincides with a global apocalypse.

"Pacific Rim" - Guillermo Del Toro's back! And he's brought what looks an awful lot like a Japanese kaiju monster movie with him, involving giant mecha suits. Visions of "Godzilla" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" are dancing through my head after that teaser trailer. There are a lot of potentially interesting science fiction coming out this year, and I'm hoping that this one in particular will do well enough to raise some interest in other thematically related projects. And that it'll give Del Toro enough clout to finally make the projects he actually wants to make.

"Elysium" - Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to "District 9" will star Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in a science-fiction story we don't know very many details about, and hopefully it will stay that way. The preview images that have been released so far suggest another gritty, dystopian world and more pointed social commentary, but beyond that it's hard to say. I've also skimmed a plot synopsis that makes it sound a bit like "Battle Angel Alita," and if that turns out to be true then James Cameron has only himself to blame for dragging his feet on that project.

"Ender's Game" - Another possible disaster in the making. The novel is one of those science-fiction holy cows that was on every nerd's wish list to be turned into a feature film for several decades, and the potential for dashed hopes and major disappointment is considerable. There's already been some griping about how the child soldiers, lead by Asa Butterfield and Hailee Steinfeld, have been aged up significantly to lessen the shock of the combat. However, "Ender's Game" tells one hell of a story, and maybe - just maybe - they'll actually get it right.

"Frozen" - It's not shaping up to be a very good year for animated films, and the current slate is mostly dominated by spinoffs and sequels (I'm looking at you, PIXAR). The one feature I'm interested in is "Frozen," Disney's "Snow Queen" project that has been in development for decades. They're going to be following the template of "Tangled" and from what I've seen of the marketing materials so far, "Frozen" is going to be a major departure from the original fairy tale. That doesn't mean it can't still be a lot of fun, though, if all those changes work out.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" - Oh yes. I may not have been thrilled with how "An Unexpected Journey" turned out, but I have been waiting to see the dragon Smaug on the big screen for as long as I can remember, as least as far back as when the original "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was in production and Peter Jackson first teased the possibility of doing a "Hobbit" movie. Also, most of the big action set pieces of "The Hobbit" will take place in "Desolation," which hopefully means less of the padding and the call-backs that made "Journey" such a slog.
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Yesterday brought the announcement that Mark Romanek had dropped out of Disney's new "Cinderella" adaptation, the one where Cate Blanchett is playing the evil stepmother. Mark Romanek previously directed "Never Let Me Go" and "One Hour Photo," as well as several well-regarded music videos, and is known for his strong visual style and edgy aesthetic bent. It's no mystery why Disney would want to work with him. However, the director's vision was apparently darker than what Disney had in mind, and the general reaction of most observers has been, well, of course it was. I think I'm in the minority in that I'm genuinely disappointed that Disney and Romanek couldn't come to terms. I wanted to see what that "Cinderella" would have looked like. Pairing up a more artistically daring with director with mainstream material can yield some interesting results. Sure, Tarsem Singh's "Mirror, Mirror" was pretty weightless fluff, but it was more visually interesting and thematically sound than that other Snow White movie that came out last year. And I continue ot defend Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" for the voluptuous art design at least.

Directors have a tendency to be pigeonholed more than anyone likes to admit, and much more in modern times than they were in the old days. It used to be that directors had their specialties, but it wasn't that odd to find John Ford directing a comedy or Howard Hawks directing a musical. I've often wondered what would happen if some of our celebrated directors of action movies and heavy dramas had to work with something a little lighter and frillier and more... Disney. So as the Mouse House searches for someone to replace Romamek, I've been pondering over what "Cinderella" might look like if some more unorthodox names were under consideration:

Wes Anderson's Cinderella - Stars Kara Hayward as Cindy, an awkward preteen with a penchant for David Bowie songs, sweater vests, and philately. In order to spend time with her one true love, Fred Charming, during her spring break, she has to infiltrate his private school in the guise of a French foreign exchange student. One thing leads to another, and Cindy ends up competing in a junior jitterbug dance competition against Fred. Angelica Houston plays the stepmother, a complicated soul, whose meanness is really only a defense mechanism.

Christopher Nolan's Cinderella - Stars Ellen Page as Alice Rendl, a brilliant young software designer caught in a web of corporate espionage and intrigue. Joan Allen plays the stepmother, the icy CFO of a major international conglomerate that is trying to get their hands on a new virtual reality program, "Glass Slipper," that has fallen into Alice's lap. Can she unlock its secrets and uncover the secret identity of the hacker Charming before the police come to arrest her at midnight? Will she finally be able to face reality? What is reality?

David Lynch's Cinderella - Stars Amanda Seyfried as Rella, a sweet girl in a small town yearning to fall in love. Unfortunately she's under the strict employ of her unhappy, repressed stepmother, played by Laura Dern, proprietress of a small nursing home for retired circus performers. Rella's only friends are seven dwarf brothers who used to do a tumbling act. One night she has disturbing dreams of a man with a pumpkin for a head, giant mice acting out scenes of suburban domesticity, and lizards speaking backward. Then the universe collapses in on itself with disturbing elegance.

The Coen Brothers' Cinderella - Stars Hailee Steinfeld as Ellie, a stubborn young woman who decides she's destined to marry the boy next door, and plots to run away with him. Alas, he mysteriously disappears before they can depart. Frances McDormand plays the stepmother, who spends the first act threatening Ellie with bodily harm when she ducks out of helping with the decorations for the annual cotillion. In a twist, she turns up murdered, so Ellie must sets out on a journey into the seedy depths of suburban Ohio to find the killers, encountering one colorful character after another in her search.

Quentin Tarantino's Cinderella - Stars Chloe Moretz as Cinders, a teenage assassin out for revenge. Her mission is to kill the evil stepmother played by – who else? Uma Thurman – the secret leader of an international organization of neo-Nazi supervillains. The ball is merely a set-up, and Cinders is really there to rescue Prince Charming, fulfilling an old promise to her mentor in the killing arts, the Fairy Godmother. This requires dueling her stepmother to the death using shards of the glass slippers, and her mother's heirloom Hattori Hanzo sword.

Michael Bay's Cinderella – Stars Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Cinderella Johnson, personal assistant to a brilliant industrialist named Mr. Charming, who is secretly a government agent. His identity is compromised and terrorists take Cinderella hostage, just as aliens attack the earth and all machines become sentient and turn on humanity. Cinderella and Mr. Charming spend three hours running for their lives, crashing expensive cars, and blowing up anything that moves. Cinderella is in a negligee and glass high heels the entire time, but her lipstick never gets smudged.

Lars von Trier's Cinderella - Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that was "Melancholia."
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