I am a nerd. This is not news.

So I have been embracing my nerdiness recently. I’m in a Doctor Who phase, for one thing. This is mostly sparked by Christmas and the Christmas special being so well-done. Also, when my boyfriend and I went Christmas shopping, we saw a figurine collection of all eleven doctors, with their signature accessories (usually the sonic screwdriver), and it was actually well-done. Not all eleven doctors looked like their portrayer, but let’s say 8 out of 11 did. Which is pretty good for plastic. I’ve also been listening to the audio plays from Big Finish. I also blame Christmas for this: they’re kind of perfect for long flights when there’s nothing good being shown on the actual airline TVs. I read a lot of the time as well, of course, but would turn on the Big Finish when I just wanted to phase out. Also, Tor.com did “The Twelve Days of the Doctor” over the Christmas season, which just fed the obsession.

The other day, while I was home alone (since my actual Full-Time Job didn’t start until today), I extended the obsession. I watched all of the regeneration scenes, for each of the Doctors. And after each regeneration scene, I watched the first scene or two (or three) with the new Doctor – enough to see him reintroduce himself to the companion(s) and the situation and establish himself as a personality. The only one I didn’t watch this time was Four into Five, because I’ve seen Castrovalva a few times, and the last time was just a couple of months ago. Oh, and I limited myself to the “classic” Doctors, because obviously I’ve seen the new regenerations and establishing scenes more than a few times. They’ve kind of imprinted on me.

It was really interesting to see how the actors, writers, and directors established the departure of each Doctor and the arrival of each new Doctor. There were a few similarities, but mostly they were individual. One into Two is, sadly, lost as a video. There are reconstructions (which I watched) but the quality was so bad, and my understanding of the plot was so bad, that I didn’t really get a lot of it. I would wish, if it were any use, that there were more Troughton bits available – I think I would like him as a Doctor. I’ll watch what I can, when I can, though.

Two into Three was the forced regeneration. It was interesting that the Time Lords gave the Doctor a choice of face for this one – even though Pertwee wasn’t one of the choices. I wonder, had Pertwee been cast at this point? Or did they just want to surprise people at the start of the next episode? Pertwee started off as you would expect a disgraced, exiled, regenerated Time Lord to act: secretive, angry, upset and disappointed. It didn’t help that the Brigadier didn’t recognize him, and then he almost got kidnapped and had to escape in a wheelchair with masking tape over his mouth. There was a touch of “crazy man” about him, but not as much as the next one.

Three into Four was tricky. Sarah Jane had no idea what to expect, the Brigadier was surprised but quickly resigned himself to it, and a helper from, I assume, previous episodes had to come and speed things along a bit. And then Tom Baker appeared and “crazy man” absolutely took over. He is so….I’m not sure what the right word is. It’s not manic, because he’s more laid back than that. It’s not “crazy” with the negative connotations. But he’s kind of amnesiac at first, and then he absolutely refuses anyone’s assistance, advice, or presence. He disappears into the Tardis, apparently about to abandon Sarah Jane and the Brigadier, when it’s like something clicks back into place. That smile appears, his eyes go happily wide instead of the alert and wary wide they’ve been so far, and he snaps into place. In one episode – not even one episode – you know exactly what his Doctor is going to be like, and the key word is going to be “unpredictable”. He won’t hesitate to tie someone up in a closet by his bootlaces; he also won’t hear of anyone putting themselves in danger for him. You’ll think he’s placid until he explodes into a fury of activity.

Four into Five is different again. As he regenerates, Four sees visions of all of his previous enemies and companions. He’s also been warned by the Watcher (a white-wrapped figure, theoretically the Doctor’s potential next self, I think?) that a regeneration is coming, so it’s not as violent a “death” as some of the others (Three was attacked by mutant spiders, if I recall…). And then Five comes along and takes over the role. There’s a touch of amnesia, as is becoming usual, but it’s more that Five doesn’t know who Five is rather than he doesn’t know who the Doctor is. He progresses through each of his previous personalities – and is spot-on in doing so – before establishing himself. It’s a nice touch of continuity in a show that is notoriously – and necessarily – bad with continuity.

And it couldn’t be more different than Five into Six. The regeneration itself is fairly standard – it helped that both Peter Davison and Colin Baker had blond hair – but the establishing scenes make a very definite statement: this is not the same Doctor. After watching that bit, I can absolutely see why Colin Baker had trouble in the role. I can absolutely see why many fans didn’t like him, and why the ratings dropped so precipitously. He comes in to this established and loved series and says, paraphrasing only slightly, “I am not the Doctor that you have known and loved. I reject everything that has come before me, and if you don’t like it, too bad.” He dismisses Peri’s affection for the Doctor, he literally rejects every costume that his predecessors wore and chooses something (a garish coat-of-many-colours) that they themselves would have rejected.

I don’t see this as even mostly Colin Baker’s fault. He’s been wonderful in the audio dramas. His Doctor, when given a chance, is not really that different from the other Doctors – he’s just less gentle on first acquaintance. But first acquaintance is all that some people will give you – and when you reject and abandon the aspects that drew them to you in the first place, they won’t stick around to find out what you’re really like. And, like I say, this isn’t Colin Baker’s fault. He didn’t write the lines – he just delivered them. And I would imagine that he was given some input on how to deliver them. It can’t have been entirely his idea to make the first appearance of the Doctor so inherently unlikable.

With all that, and the behind-the-scenes BBC drama, it’s no wonder that Colin Baker, the public face of the Doctor, was fired – or that he refused to film a regeneration scene. So Six to Seven is a bit different again. The regeneration happens fairly quickly – I don’t even know how much lead-up to it there was in the previous episode – and then Seven is thrown straight into the new situation. No amnesia, no character-establishing scenes where he’s picking out a costume or looking at his new face. He wakes up, he’s face to face with the Rani, and he’s just there, dealing with it, the end.

I’ll stop there for now. There’s still the movie and New Who to get through, plus reactions to the Christmas special and excitement about the new season, and the audio plays, and I’ve read a couple of the novelizations (and got one for Christmas, yay)… plus there’s the additional geekery of getting into World of Warcraft for the first time (hey, it gives me contact time with the boy) and Eternal Sonata and a couple of anime shows….

Media Roundup, Part 1

I have been in a "long-form" video mood lately. Actually, I've been in a long-form everything mood: instead of single tracks, I've been listening to whole albums (Ocean Eyes, by Owl City, mostly, although I also finished the Ring last night) and instead of random TV episodes, I've been watching movies or whole series. (There is one tiny exception to this, which is Doctor Who, which is possibly self-explanatory.)

It started with Casualty 1900s, which I wrote about before and have watched all of about five more times since my birthday. But even I can't watch a series incessantly. I needed a break, something new and stimulating. But I was still in a "historical" mood, so bring on Foyle's War, which my best friend had been recommending for ages.

Foyle's War, if you don't know, is a British TV series set in WW2 Hastings. Each episode is about an hour and a half long (so two hours when it aired on ITV, a commercial network). Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle is a WW1 veteran who (eventually) sees his role in the war effort to be keeping down crime on the homefront - murder doesn't stop being murder just because there's a war on.

Each episode is a discrete story; the story arcs come from the war itself and the main characters. Foyle's sergeant lost a leg in the Norway campaign; Foyle's son is in the RAF; they're in Hastings, on the coastline, so fear of invasion is a running theme for a while. Each episode is incredibly grounded in the real events: Dunkirk, the American presence, the Blitz, the Normandy invasion, etc. It's so well-researched; in addition to being a compelling procedural, it gives such a vivid picture of life on the coast and the homefront during the war. I learned about things that I'd never known existed (like Exercise Tiger) and got a sense for things that I couldn't possibly experience. And I can't say enough good things about the actors. I fell in love with them all. (However, as a warning: the murder in the first episode is the most vivid and quite horrific.)

Next on the list was Life on Mars, which keeps on with the historical police drama theme. It's so different from Foyle's War, though: in Life on Mars, the main character is in a car accident in 2006 and wakes up in 1973. Is he mad? in a coma-induced hallucination? or actually a time-traveller? It's never made 100% clear, although the last episode leans greatly toward the coma-induced hallucination with a touch of near-death time-travelling.

This is another series where the actors and the characters totally make the series. The stories themselves aren't anything too special and unique; it's the characters, especially John Simm as Sam Tyler, that make them shine. The final episode in particular was stunning. I had tears in my eyes at the end. It was heartbreakingly sad and inevitably right at the same time.

Next on the list was the BBC miniseries of Casanova. David Tennant and Peter O'Toole. *sigh* It was incredibly funny. I don't know why I didn't expect it to be funny, given that it was written by Russell T. Davies... There were some absolute laugh-out-loud moments. David Tennant overcomes many different levels of bad hair and just leaps off the screen. I may be biased here, but he was just fantastic. And Peter O'Toole as the aged Casanova exuded faded sexuality - he's always been wonderful and I'm so glad he's still acting. I completely believed the love between Casanova and Henriette (even though it's probably not historically accurate....and why isn't Laura Fraser better known?) and now I want to read Casanova's memoirs. Just skimming the Wikipedia article made me realize that his romantic reputation is only a small part of who he was. (Well, not small. That enduring legend couldn't be founded on anything .... small.)

The last series I want to mention is Lost in Austen. It was quite cute, and I enjoyed some of the liberties they took with Pride and Prejudice (especially Wickham. I unashamedly loved Wickham in this version. They made him believably redeemable). It did fall into the Darcy trap but not for long, and it was quite amusing to watch Amanda panic and try to "fix" everything. Causes and consequences were kind of hand-waved away, but it's a charming enough series.

Next time: films.

My mind is confusing sometimes.

Oh, man, I miss football. I miss football so much. The Patriots and Bucs played at Wembley today and I so want tickets to next year’s London game and I want a friend to come with me so that I can talk about the game, both during and after. I am disappointed that the Vikings lost, but they kind of gave it away (TWO turnovers returned for touchdowns? Seriously?), it’s not good for teams to go undefeated too long because it creates way too much pressure, and if they had to lose I’m glad it was to the Steelers so that I could see Stefan (and kind of laugh at how upset he seemed that he only got to about the 30 on one return, instead of running it all the way back) because he is awesome. Oh, and speaking of undefeated teams? STEP IT UP SAINTS.

It is still weird for me to think of Brett Favre with the Vikings. He was such an iconic Packers quarterback, and the rivalry between the Packers and the Vikings is so, so, so strong, that it’s so hard to see his playing for the Vikings as much beyond a slap in the face to Green Bay. It shouldn’t bother me this much, but it does. (And next week is the rematch! Yay!) Other player transfers don’t bother me this much. When Terrell Owens left the 49ers, I didn’t care. (Although I don’t care about TO much anyway, except to wish that he’d shut up, go away, and get over himself.) Ricky Williams, one of the highest-profile signings the Saints ever had, is playing for the Dolphins now and currently against the Saints, and this does not bother me at all.

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Today I went to the Robin Hood Pageant. It is essentially a Renaissance Fair that is pretending to be in the 13th century. It was awesome. Re-enactment festivals like this are places where, in order to get any kind of enjoyment out of it, you can’t take it or yourself too seriously. Also, it’s nice to see things marginally connected to the things I’ve studied, and think “Right, maybe all my education and knowledge isn’t TOTALLY useless.”

All the performances were, of course, Robin Hood based. The jousting performances were Robin and the band against the Sheriff and Guy (who did not look like Richard Armitage, but was blond like the guy from the 1980s series and not unattractive). The ‘medieval sports’ for kids purported to be recruitment for Robin’s gang. There was a no-strings puppet show of Robin and the Potter and Robin and the Monk. There was a storyteller, a book-binder, an alchemist, a juggler/fire-eater (who I wasn’t sure about from the description but who turned out to be quite funny). There was also falconry – for performances they use Harris hawks now, and the guy gave some interesting information about how to train birds, and what the different levels of birds were (peasants could fly kestrels, kings could fly goshawks, and everything in between), and the Harris hawks run to flush out the prey and it’s fun(ny) to watch. Wilf, one of the Harris hawks, ate things he wasn’t supposed to eat (such as a bit of a hamburger and chips) and then didn’t catch the ‘rabbit’ that was a demonstration of his hunting abilities. The falconer was kind of worried about him. He (the falconer) also demonstrated a barn owl, which is beautiful with such a big wingspan…..

The jousting was also incredible – it was actual jousting, with horses and blunted lances and a quintain and all. Robin won, of course (the jousting may have been real, but the battles were choreographed, of course), and it was cool to see. I had a bit of a bad moment when the Sheriff was a bit slow (for my taste) getting up afterwards [I …. really don’t like it when they don’t get up] but he did eventually get up and seemed fine.

One of the things that going to this did for me – besides updating my medievalist geek credentials, as if they needed it – was to kind of reassure me that there is a place for me and my interests in the world, even outside of academia. Don’t get me wrong: I still want to do a PhD and do feel like academia/education is the place where I am supposed to be, but it’s nice to know that I am not completely alone in these obsessions, and that there is a place for them, even in an entertainment/niche type venue. (Not that there’s anything wrong with entertainment as a niche. Far from it.)

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Speaking of my medieval geek interests, and entertainment, after writing this the other day, I started a list of medieval poems that I could adapt for television/movie/modern literary versions. I figured that I can’t justifiably complain about them not being there if I’m not willing to at least attempt to do something about it. I’m not going to say ‘it’ll be easy!’ because a) I’m not stupid, b) I’ve never written a screenplay before, but I know how difficult even a bad 30-day novel is, and c) I’m not stupid. But it’s something I think I should try. I watch a lot of TV and movies, and read a lot about the writing process in those media, so I have a basic understanding of how it works. And I know some of these poems almost by heart, so I have more than a basic understanding of the source material to know what can and should be included or not. I think I can do it, or, at least, I think I can try.

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I was going to write a bit about a ‘discussion’ I had with a friend last night about religion that started and ended with him telling me I was going to hell, but almost 1000 words is enough for one night, yes? (If only I could write this much on my fiction! Oh, well….)

Soap Operas

Guiding Light, the longest running entertainment program in the US, ended last week after 72 years on radio and TV. I find this kind of sad. I understand that the TV industry is just that, an industry, and it’s driven by costs and ratings, but soap operas and Guiding Light in particular seemed like stalwarts, like they’d never end. Even if other soaps failed (Sunset Beach, Loving/The City, etc.), soaps in general would go on, and Guiding Light would always be there.

I used to be a huge soap opera fan. My mom watched Days of Our Lives and Another World when I was very young – to the point where, when SoapNet started showing old episodes of Another World, things were familiar. My own personal fandom started one vacation, probably summer vacation, when I was in middle school with The Young and the Restless. After a year or so of that, I moved on to Days of Our Lives (I am slightly embarrassed to admit that the possession storyline drew me in, although it’s not what kept me) and Another World for the last year or so of its existence. Then I found out that an elementary school classmate of mine was occasionally an extra on Guiding Light, so I watched that in the hopes of glimpsing her. My roommate sophomore year of college taped Passions and would watch it every evening, and it was a small room so I watched too. Then, the year after I graduated from college, when I had nothing to do in the afternoons, I turned on the TV. I don’t remember what got me hooked on them, but somehow I ended up hooked on All My Children and One Life to Live, with General Hospital thrown in by the end of the year, partially because I was too lazy/distracted to change the channel. Thanks to SoapNet, I rewatched early-to-mid-80s Another World and kept up on all of the above. When I got my computer for Slovakia, my second year, and was investigating the wonderful world of free podcasts, I rediscovered Guiding Light and newly discovered As the World Turns, both of which had audio podcasts of their episodes. If I’m in a TV-watching mood in the US, I still will happily turn on SoapNet. Soaps are the television equivalent of Harlequin romance novels (which I also enjoy, probably more than I ‘should’). They’re formulaic, they’re repetitive, they require attention but not a lot of thought to consume, and every once in a while there’s something that stands out as beautiful or genius or true.

The thing about soaps – and fiction in general – is the story. That’s why I watched, anyway. (That and the hot guys.) Humans are a story-telling animal. That’s why even non-fiction books have to have some kind of narrative structure to them and some kind of character to identify with and care about. If they don’t, it’s like reading the dictionary: informative, but not something that (most) people do cover-to-cover or for fun. I watched (or, that year in Slovakia, listened) because of the story, because of the characters. I wanted to know what happened to these people, and I wanted to know how and why it happened. (And if the story didn’t turn out the way I wanted, John and Natalie on OLTL, then I often drifted away if there wasn’t any other story keeping me hooked.)

The other thing that soaps can provide is history. Guiding Light was on the air for 72 years, and one of the reasons that it survived so long is because of its slow transitions through its history. That’s how most of the soaps that are still on survive. They started with a core group of people – usually a family – and introduced new characters in connection with that family, not in isolation. As the new characters became established, then perhaps the original group would fade out, but not until then. This is one of the problems with soaps today. In a desperate attempt to attract new viewers – especially in the summer when teenagers are out of school – producers throw new, usually teenaged characters at the show in a usually-futile attempt to make something stick. If these newcomers have a connection with established characters, it’s tenuous or very limited – in a new group of five ’16-year-old’ characters, one may be the child of a supercouple, usually a child that we haven’t seen for a while who has now undergone SORAS [Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome] and should really only be about 8 years old if we’re going by real time. (This is also one of the reasons that soap opera mothers can steal their daughters’ boyfriends – at a certain point every character over the age of 21 is portrayed as within about fifteen years in age of each other, unless they are in ‘grandparent’ character in which case they’re allowed to have grey hair but not usually a social life except in certain circumstances.) The year that I lived at home and was watching four or five soaps a day, minimum, I stopped watching consistently during the summer because I was so annoyed by the new teenaged characters that I didn’t know and didn’t care about. (I learned how to use the DVR so that I could fast-forward through storylines like that that I didn’t like.) Most viewers want the consistency of the history of the soap - an acknowledgment of characters and storylines past - and shows ignore that history at their peril.

Another thing that I find wonderful about soaps is the sheer volume. Almost every daytime soap in the US right now is an hour-long daily. There are no repeats. There are times during the year when they don’t air – major sporting tournaments, especially tennis in the summer, for example – but there is no ‘hiatus’ like primetime shows get. A primetime season of 22 episodes is just over a month in daytime soaps. The sheer volume of work that goes on with soaps is absolutely incredible.

There’s a good mental_floss article about soaps and the ending of GL (I figured since I commented about a bad mental_floss article a while ago I should link to one that I enjoyed). I particularly like the slightly snarky comments that undercut the actual good work that soaps do to highlight social and global issues.

Goodbye, Guiding Light. I'll miss you.

What if.....

The greatest stories come out of “what if” questions. Personally, I really like speculative fiction, especially parallel universe and time travel stories. They usually come out of the biggest “what if” questions. What if the Axis powers had won World War 2, or the Confederacy had won the Civil War? What if JFK were never assassinated? How would the world be different?

“What if” questions are also why I write romance, when I write anything non-academic (an increasingly rare occurrence). Since most of my what-ifs revolve around my love life (or lack thereof), my story writing is a way for me to come to terms with my own what-ifs. The biggest one is, of course, the summer before I went to Slovakia. What if I’d stayed in the US instead? My life would be incredibly different right now.*

What-ifs often present themselves right away. You walk away from a situation thinking, “Oh, I should have done x or said y”. You torture yourself for minutes, hours, or days with different variants of what you could have done or said to make things turn out differently. But the thing about what-ifs is that you can’t really evaluate them until time has passed, until your life has progressed beyond that turning point. I don’t want to get all fatalistic about stuff, but if things are meant to happen, they will happen. What-ifs suck at the time – and for years afterward in some cases – but in the end you may end up where you are supposed to be, even if it’s not where you planned and imagined.

And that’s why I write romances based (loosely) around my what-ifs. I love my life right here, right now, but I need to explore my what-ifs, and give myself a chance – even if it’s a fictional chance – to live out the life I am not leading.

*Of course, the what-if in that case has nothing to do with my actually going to Slovakia, since that was all in place before the what-if moment. But it’s complicated to explain without going into details, so it’s easier just to blame the what-if on Slovakia.

Is “instant communication” destroying literature?

There was a column on the Huffington Post today, referring back to a column in the New York Times, about that very question. I went back and read the NYT article and it struck me as kind of whiny. “Poor me, I can’t use my contrived plot device in the cellphone era.” The basic argument is that many moments in great literature are born out of misunderstanding and miscommunication, and these moments can no longer happen in the technologically advanced world that we live in today.

I call foul on this argument. It assumes is that the communication medium is the communication, and that is simply not true. Just because it is easy (well, easier) to get in touch with someone doesn’t mean that you will.

Let’s take the examples that the writers give, one by one. Casablanca – Ilsa could have sent Rick a message (presumably either text or voicemail) explaining why she stood him up at the train station. OK, fine. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Casablanca, so someone will have to remind me. Did Victor Lazlo come to Paris to find her, or did she just find out that he was alive? If he came to Paris to find her, when exactly would she have left Rick the message? “Sorry, honey, glad you’re not dead, but give me just a second to finish texting my new boyfriend.” If she was going to do that, she might as well have just gone to the train station and explained to Rick in person. [Actually, the same argument applies if someone else told her that he’s still alive.]

Misunderstanding in Shakespeare’s comedies could be cleared up with an IM – are you a boy or a girl. Again, if that is a possibility, what is stopping the character from asking straight out? Besides, in most of the cross-dressing comedies that I can think of, it doesn’t even occur to anyone that cross-dressing is happening until it is revealed at the end.

Romeo and Juliet could have texted each other about the faking-the-death plan. That one is a little bit trickier to get around, but just as technology could “solve” the problem, technology could make it continue. Juliet’s mother could have confiscated her phone. Romeo was in exile and “out of service area”. The phone had run out of battery (it’s not like they had any time to charge their devices in the three days they spent together).

And the one that is so clearly not a technological communication issue: Pride and Prejudice. If only Lizzie had been able to get in touch with Mr. Darcy! But to do what, exactly? “Sorry I turned down your proposal…now that I’ve seen your house I’ve changed my mind?” Clearly Pride and Prejudice would never work in the modern world. It’s not a story that has been redone over and over and over again, including 21st century versions at all.(/sarcasm)

I suppose my point is that good literature is character-based, not technology-based. Even in this world of almost instant and constant communication, misunderstandings and miscommunications are going to happen. Phones die, or get stolen, or run out of credit. Calls are dropped as you travel through a tunnel or through an old stone building. You travel out of the country without international service. You don’t have access to a computer to check your email or facebook or other messages. You don’t pick up on the emotional nuances of an email or a text. Voicemails are delayed. But what the story comes down to is character. If the character wants to get in touch with someone, they will find a way, whether it’s 2009 or 1809 or 509. Complaining that today’s technology makes writing good literature impossible just shows a lack of creativity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12richtel.html?_r=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-stolz/is-the-internet-ruining-e_b_186041.html

The Flanders Panel

I just finished reading The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte. It was pretty good, right up until the end. It wasn’t exceptional, and if I’d had anything waiting that I was anxious to read, I doubt I would have finished it, but I did enjoy it – right up to the end.

See, here’s the thing. You can’t do something “for” somebody when the somebody DOESN’T WANT YOU TO DO IT. And most of the time, when someone uses the excuse “I did it for you!” they’ve done something either illegal or really, really ill-advised that they knew (or at least suspected) you wouldn’t like. In the book, it’s killing people. In real life, it’s often breaking up with someone else, or moving, or something slightly less extreme but still life-changing.

Rule of thumb: unless the person says the words “do this for me,” you are not doing it “for” them. You may do it in the hopes that the person will like it, but you are not doing it “for” them.

Every time I have had someone tell me that they’ve done something “for” me, it has been something that I don’t want. Earrings, plans, breaking up with their girlfriend….it’s become kind of a peeve of mine, which is why I think I hated the ending of The Flanders Panel so much. Granted, killing people is a little bit more extreme than any of my stuff, but still – if the person doesn’t want you to do it, you are not doing it for them. You are doing it for yourself. Just admit it already.

The excuse wasn’t the only bad thing about the ending of the book, though – it kind of didn’t really make sense at all. But it’s the part that bugged me the most about it.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Thursday afternoon I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If you don’t want to know about it, STOP READING NOW.

Seriously. I’m going to talk about the movie in moderate detail. Not great detail because I’ve only seen it once so far, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wants to be surprised.

So if you’re still reading at this point, I can only assume that you want to know about the movie.

Here goes.

It’s definitely better than Temple of Doom. Of course, I haven’t watched Temple of Doom in several years, because it annoys me so greatly and I have to watch much of it on mute so that I can enjoy ogling Harrison Ford without having to hear Kate Capshaw. But Crystal Skull was better than I remember Temple of Doom being.

However, it was not as good as either Raiders or Last Crusade. Those are two very different movies, I’ll admit, that bear very little resemblance to each other besides having several of the same characters and the same basic premise. Raiders is much more action/shoot-em-up while Last Crusade is more comic and almost slapstick. Raiders is quite serious; Last Crusade is much, much lighter.

The thing that Raiders and Last Crusade do have in common that Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull don’t is a Judeo-Christian quest. I’m not trying to be racist or anything like that, and I sincerely apologize if I come across that way. I don’t think the quests in Raiders and Last Crusade are the only reason that they are better movies than Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull, but I do think they are a part of it, for two reasons. First, the predominant culture in the US/UK has a Judeo-Christian background, so the quests are already at least slightly familiar to at least some of the movie-going audience. Second, setting the quests in the context of the predominant culture limits the stereotyping that unfortunately affects both Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull. For example, Temple of Doom is set in India and the things that people remember (other than the annoyingness of Kate Capshaw and the kid who plays Short Round)? Eating monkey brains and pulling out people’s hearts. And in Crystal Skull, technically it takes place in South America, and has to do with ancient Mesoamerican culture. Apart from pictographs, the only representations of that culture are loincloth-clad people who blend in with the wall, move like monkeys, and shoot poison darts.

Crystal Skull is not a bad movie, though. There are a few inside jokes and references, but not so many that it overwhelms the story. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, since I am a long-time Indy fan. Karen Allen is more than welcome – she’s always been my favourite of the Indy girls. Not that there’s a lot of competition: Kate Capshaw is, as previously stated, annoying, and Alison Doody’s character turned out to be evil. But Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood is more of a partner – she shrieks, sure, but she also attempts to think and fight her way out of situations by herself. And I appreciate the tributes to Denholm Elliott (who played Marcus Brody – he gets referenced and a statue) and Sean Connery (who turned down the film because he’s retired; get over it already online reviewers).

However, it’s not a great movie. Normally I like Cate Blanchett, but she is so ridiculous in this. Her obvious wig and totally fake accent do not help things. And there are oh-so-many “Yeah right” or “You’ve got to be kidding me” moments ranging from Shia LeBeouf sliding his motorcycle along a library floor and getting out from under it without so much as a limp to Ray Winstone’s character’s true allegiances, whatever they might be, to, well, the whole crystal skull reveal. (Aliens? Really? Whose “treasure is knowledge”? Um…..okay.)

They also drop so many things. Like I said, it’s supposed to be based around this Mesoamerican culture, but the poison-dart-blowing representatives of that culture only show up, like three times, never speak, and even though there’s this myth about the crystal skull being guarded by the living dead or something like that, they’re never explained. And, the thing that distracted me the most, during the big chase scene where the evil Soviets are chasing Our Heroes, Marion just…..disappears. She’s driving one of the jungle tanks and I guess she falls behind or something, but she’s off-screen so long that I wondered if they’d forgotten that she was in that scene, or if I’d missed the part where she gets kicked out of the car.

But I liked it, and I would go see it again. I still love Harrison Ford, I enjoy Karen Allen and the relationship between Marion and Indy, and I have a good time watching the fight scenes and archaeology (yeah right) stuff. Everything else, I can ignore.

Fairy Tales

How do you define a fairy tale? The Webster’s Dictionary I have defines a fairy tale as either a story about fairies or an unbelievable/unreal story. The Macmillan Student’s Dictionary adds “a traditional children’s story in which magical things happen.”

So how do you define a fairy tale? My students tend to define it as any work of fiction, especially if it has been made into a movie or, especially, a cartoon. Common answers when I ask about their favourite fairy tales are “Tom and Jerry” and “Harry Potter.” When I ask about Slovak fairy tales, I get romance novelists and whatever they’re studying in literature class.

Some people use Disney movies as the go-to example of fairy tales, and many Disney movies are fairy tales. But I don’t think they all are, and the problem that I run into is that my students – not having the cultural brainwashing of the difference between movie studios – go from “Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are fairy tales” to “Cartoon movies are fairy tales” to “Anything animated is a fairy tale.” Hence Tom and Jerry.

But where is the line? Why is Sleeping Beauty, with its fairy godmothers, a fairy tale but Mulan, with the talking dragon, not? Would you call Aladdin a fairy tale? Or The Lion King? Is Shrek a fairy tale? What about something like The Princess Diaries?

Personally I think of a fairy tale as a story, primarily but not exclusively for children, that has a lesson or moral, a happy ending or at least something that can be spun into a happy ending, and an unreal or magical element. Cinderella is a fairy tale. Harry Potter can be argued to be a fairy tale. Tom and Jerry – I don’t think so.

In my view of fairy tales, there are two reasons that Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale and Mulan is not. First, Mulan is based on a (probably) true story and real events in a way that Sleeping Beauty is not. Second, the events of Mulan are not reliant on the magic element, whereas the story of Sleeping Beauty is completely dependent on unreal elements. Yes, Mulan has a talking dragon, but Mushu does not either start or resolve the plot. It is Mulan’s actions and Mulan’s ingenuity that defeat the Huns. Sleeping Beauty, on the other hand, doesn’t exist without magic. The main conflict and its resolution are both magically based.

Where I run into problems is with Harry Potter. I think I’m going to have to say that Harry Potter is not a fairy tale, at least not in the traditional sense. You can argue that it is, but right now I’m arguing that it’s not. For one thing, it’s complex. It’s an epic fantasy, not as simple as the fairy tales. For another thing, while there is magic, in Harry Potter, the magic is an integral part of the world. It’s not extra or special; it’s a talent like being a musician is a talent or athleticism is a talent. It’s a part of the construct, not a part of the plot. I will accept it when students name Harry Potter as their favourite fairy tale, but personally, I don’t think it is.

(Do we even need to discuss why Tom and Jerry is not a fairy tale? I didn’t think so.)

How I Met Your Mother

I have become addicted to the show "How I Met Your Mother." I blame iTunes. They had the "Sandcastles in the Sand" video for free. I also blame MySpace for having the first Robin Sparkles episode for free. Oh, who am I kidding. I'm a TV junkie.

But just because I live my life through popular entertainment doesn't mean that it's not a good show. It's a great show. In case you haven't heard of it, it's theoretically one character telling his kids how he met their mother - the very long version. It's just finishing the third season on CBS and, thanks to the magic of online viewing, I have now seen every episode.

There are two writing things that really make this show impressive for me. First is the realism. Characters tell jokes, but they're the types of jokes that normal people tell and they acknowledge that they're making jokes, or at least trying to. And there are conversations that aren't particularly jokey or witty, but are very real: either television real where they explicitly lay out their emotions, or real-real like when they get excited about going to Red Lobster or whatever. When I watch the show, I can see my own friends in these characters.

The other thing that impresses me is the continuity. It's an ongoing story in a way that shows like Friends were not. And it's the little moments, the little character things, that make it special. For example, there's a third season episode where everyone's complaining about everyone else's annoying habits. And someone mentions Marshall's habit of singing whatever he's doing. And in the first season, there's a scene where Marshall is doing just that - sing-narrating what he's doing. It's the little things like that which make the show wonderful. [Side-note: should it be which there? I was reading something about the difference between that and which the other day and now I'm all paranoid and doubting.]

The actors are good, too. Neil Patrick Harris has this deliciously twisted morality; Alyson Hannigan is quirky (although she's been getting on my nerves a bit in the third season). But I totally adore Josh Radnor as Ted. He looks like John Cusack, acts a little bit like early Zach Braff, and I just want to be his friend.

There are some actors who are so gorgeous and/or talented that you know if you ever met them you would be so completely starstruck that you wouldn't even be able to breathe. Stars that don't seem real. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, etc., fall into this category. But Josh Radnor's Ted and my other TV crush, John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, seem like guys who would actually talk to you. Guys you could be friends with. Guys you would WANT to be friends with. Guys that you wouldn't be intimidated to fall in love with. Not that you necessarily WOULD fall in love with them (although if either one of them wants to give me a call, I'm on the next plane to LA) but guys that you could hang out with without feeling inferior.

I'm really hoping that "How I Met Your Mother" comes back for another season. It's not even that I want Ted to meet "the mother" (even though that's the purpose of the show) but because it's so much fun to hang out with these characters.

The Office: The Chairmodel/Parking

I have other things to post here, too, but before it gets too late (and another episode airs) I just wanted to talk about last week’s episode of The Office. Now I am not going to talk about Michael being an absolute, complete, and total ass who is still living in a dream world – I mean, come on, I’m only in my late 20s and I’ve accepted that the movie/romance novel scenario is not going to play out in real life. Although the bit where he accidentally calls Jan is hilarious and I do think that it was subconsciously deliberate (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) and that they’ll be on again by the end of the season. I am also not going to talk about Dwight being sweet for Michael in a rather creepy, Dwight-like way. Or how awesomely pathetic Kevin is. Aw. I love Kevin.

No, the reason I watch the show – the reason I kept watching the show, rather, after the shuddering cringing horribleness of the first couple of episodes (I hate Diversity Day, I don’t care what people say) – is Jim and Pam. I adore Jim and Pam. I want to be Pam and have a Jim (although, see above about the movie/romance novel scenario).

I read a bit about The Office. Not living in the US, it’s the only way I can legitimately keep up with the show. This week, I read ew.com’s analysis, and the weecap and forums at televisionwithoutpity. Most of the commentators and posters seemed to think that the fact that Jim had bought an engagement ring for Pam a week after they started dating was creepy and spelled DOOM for them. I could not disagree more. (And luckily for me, one of my favourite internet television commentators agrees with me, calling it “legitimately romantic….more romantic than a proposal.” I definitely agree, and swoon.)

Jim has been in love with Pam for ages - not even in love with an idealized Pam although that was certainly a risk, but in love with Pam, herself, even when she was engaged to Roy, even when he tried not to be by dating Karen, even in episodes like "The Fight" or the end of "The Client" when she wasn't speaking to him for a little while. Once they actually went on a couple dates, and he realized that this was not just a case of wanting what he can't have, of COURSE he's going to start planning how to propose. I have absolutely no fear that they will break up, at all, whatsoever. It's just a matter of waiting for Pam herself to be ready - which is the other thing.

Some people commented that her face when Jim "ties his shoe" is terrified, not anticipatory, but I just don't see it. I think it was more of an "I'm not ready for this yet and the cameras are here" not "I don't want him to propose at all." I mean, she was with Roy for so long - and engaged to him for what, almost five years? Just because she wants to take this a little bit slower doesn't mean that she doesn't think that she and Jim are going to get married eventually. I think, if anything, she's not letting herself think that far in advance, BECAUSE of what happened with Roy. She doesn't want to start taking Jim and her relationship with Jim for granted; she wants to enjoy what it is right now before they move on to the next level (which makes relationships sound like a Nintendo game or something, but you know what I mean). It's not that she doubts that they're going to move on to the next level; she just wants to enjoy this one first. And Jim KNOWS that and accepts that, which is why he has the ring already - being prepared for the next level - but hasn't proposed yet - because she's not ready for that yet. But it is important to him and to them as a couple that they both are consciously aware that yes, this is serious, and yes, they will be getting to that point. And that’s what this episode was about, in their relationship – him letting her know that he is in it the whole way, and that when the timing is right – meaning when they are BOTH ready – it will happen.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into fictional characters.