Tag Archives: fantasy

Death of a Unicorn

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Last night, I saw a sneak preview for Death of a Unicorn[1] at the Alamo Drafthouse[2], which comes out today or Friday and so I must quickly review, lest it all have been in vain. Unfortunately, despite the straightforward spoiler of the title, it is somewhat difficult to describe.

Okay. You know Mary Poppins? I’m sure there’s a better example, but I cannot think of one. Anyway, if you leave Mary Poppins out of the movie, it’s fundamentally a movie about a dad[3] who spends too much time at work focused on his career, when really all his kids want is more time with him, not the things he provides for them by working so much? Paul Rudd plays about as far against type as I can imagine in the role of that dad, and his nebbishy helplessness really makes it hard to believe, even though the character is written in a way where it could still work. It’s not to say he was bad in the role, just that I think the casting was too far of a stretch.

Anyway, he and his thankfully college-aged daughter Jenna Ortega are travelling to a corporate retreat where Rudd is hoping to get the promotion that will, after a few years, have them set up for life where she’ll never want for anything ever again, and it’s clear Ortega has heard this song and dance before, because she could not be more done with it. And this “will he or won’t he” family drama schtick might easily have been the entire movie, except that while driving through the nature preserve toward their destination, distracted by a fight and allergies, he plows into a little white horse crossing the road.

Well, okay, it’s not a horse.

A handful of other events ensue, and also the remainder of the cast is introduced, and now the movie is instead (also? probably also) about what the several characters will do with the situation that has fallen into their laps. Have they a panacea? A miracle that will change the world? A way to get rich beyond any dream of avarice? Or, based on Ortega’s research into a pretty cool series of real life tapestries, do they simply have a problem?

One of the genres into which this movie falls should provide a hint.

[1] Eagle-eyed subscribers to this site will note that I did not see Captain America 4, about which fact I have a pretty complicated set of emotions. But it’s probably indicative of something. Especially since the odds of another date night before it leaves theaters is…. low.
[2] Side note from the half hour of cool random film geekery: did you know that the Three Stooges made a movie (well, probably a short, but I don’t know for sure) about traveling to Venus to meet a unicorn, and also it was a musical, and also it was in 1959??? I knew Moe lived into the 1970s, but I had no idea they were still working that late! …and still in black and white that late, though if it were made for TV I guess that would not be weird after all.
[3] I wonder if they’ve ever made this movie about a mom. I think they have not.

Körkarlen

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And then there are some nights when you sit down to watch a silent Swedish film that is spiritually ripping off A Christmas Carol, but if the Ghost of Christmas Future is the only one who showed up to berate Scrooge, and if Tiny Tim were a consumptive self-deluded Salvation Army worker.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and Sister Edit is dying, while David Holm is getting drunk in a cemetery. What do these scenes and people have in common? This informs the entire plot of The Phantom Carriage, except for the part about the carriage itself, which we are notified in Act I is driven around all year helping Death to reap souls, by whoever died closest to midnight the previous year. (If nobody dies on New Year’s Eve, I think the previous person keeps the job? This doesn’t seem a likely scenario, however.)

At first, as per my cheeky but fair summary above, I did not consider this to be a horror movie. Just because there’s a horse ghost and a guy in a hood with a sickle, it was still mostly a drama about bad decisions. But somewhere in the second half, it goes dark, and it goes hard, and I gotta say, in the end I was impressed. Between the depth of darkness and the (for 1921) technical prowess of the special effects, I can understand how this has turned into a classic’s classic. (You know, people in the industry love it, people outside the industry never heard of it. Like the anecdote about how only 300 people heard The Velvet Underground’s first album, but every one of those people went on to form a successful band.)

Wicked: Part 1

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The disclaimer is this: I saw Wicked (the stage musical) at Fair Park in Dallas some years ago. There was this amazing moment when the power went out due to a spectacular thunderclap, and whoever was playing Elphaba made a perfect in-character joke that I can only remember the feeling of, but not the content. It is a tragedy. But the point is, I know this story, and normally would not do a review.

However, it is the case that Wicked is a story that has substantially built upon the musical’s foundations. Due to pulling more material from the book? I cannot remember it well enough to say, sadly. But all the same, there are things worth talking about between them. And I’m qualified to do it!, since we watched a bootleg copy of a show from the original run, after we got home from the theater last night.

First of all… for being Broadway, man, that was a sparse and boring stage the majority of the time. Of course a movie and a special effects budget is going to surpass a stage, for the visual telling of a story. But like, I look at Hamilton and the staging is just so good that effects and period architecture would feel extraneous. Whereas, and okay being a fantasy setting certainly makes a difference, but the staging in the movie outstripped the Broadway version in every way, so extensively that I feel like I’m kicking Kristin Chenoweth in the voice just by saying so. It’s simply not a fair comparison.

Anyway, I was saying it’s longer, and boy is it longer. This Part One is like 15 minutes longer than the entire show, and it only covers Act One. And I’ll be real, yes, they could have trimmed it back some. But lavish pointless dance numbers aside, almost everything they added provided more and better context. Fiyero meeting Elphaba before he met anyone else? Adding the poppies into the Elphaba and Dr. Dillamond scenes? The backstory on the introduction of Elphaba’s hat? All of these were small but mighty improvements to the story, well out of proportion to the effort involved.

Lastly: Ariana Grande does an amazing job of channeling Chenoweth’s bubbly blondeness, while Cynthia Erivo actually surpasses Idina Menzel, I think, perhaps not in the singing[1], but in the acting. Not that Menzel was in any way bad, but she always looked so happy when she was singing, regardless of the context. Erivo’s stone face rarely cracks, and it means a lot when it does. Because, honestly, what would she have had to be happy about for the majority of her life?

To sum up: unless they somehow dramatically foul up Part 2, this will be the definitive version of the story, just as Judy Garland’s 1939 outing will always be the definitive version of the mirror story. And yes, that’s meant to be high praise.

[1] Although I wouldn’t want to judge that contest

Dragon Haven

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Longer ago than I’m happy about[1], I read the first Rain Wilds book, continuing Robin Hobb’s Elderlings Fantasy Universe. At the time, I thought it served mostly as a book-long prelude and character introduction for a forthcoming trilogy, plus maybe the first two chapters of the actual first book. On the one hand, I sort of stand by that. On the other, having read this book, I could easily consider it the concluding chapter of a duology instead.

At the beginning of the book, the dragon keepers[2] are on the move up an acidic river, learning to care for their dragons, hunt for them, and otherwise keep them alive and in good spirits and on the trail of fabled Kelsingra, where everything will finally be okay, both for the dragons and their keepers alike, not to mention for most of the other characters tagging along for the trip.

So I will say I definitely didn’t know particulars. Will all of the characters survive? Will they maintain their relationships and friendships? Will the dragons turn on them? Will the acid get stronger the further you go upriver, and eventually melt the flesh from everyone’s bones? Those answers would be spoilers. As, perhaps, is the certain conclusion that by the end of the book they will reach their destination[3]. But that one is on the author, not on me. After all, I didn’t write a second book in a four book series and name it Dragon Haven.

You know, though. It occurs to me, what with everything being tied up in a neat bow by the end of the book, and yet there are two books left? This is still Robin Hobb. I, uh, I have some real concerns for what might go wrong between where things stand now and wherever they will go next.

[1] This is an indictment of my speed more than of my alternative choices
[2] It is of note to me that the first book is named Dragon Keeper, singular. Are we talking solely about Thymara? She’s the only viewpoint character who is an official keeper of dragons, throughout that book. Or is it just that the other books are all going to be singular as well, so it had to match? (Or is Sintara a dragon, keeping her human? I guess that’s also possible.)
[3] Will it be the same destination they set out for, though?

Lyorn

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After Lyorn, there are two books left in the Vlad Taltos series, and you can really tell. This is a book that is tying up loose ends in an effort to rush headlong toward a finale. But, and here’s the good news: it’s also a book that’s about something besides tying up loose ends.

In the words of General Rieekan, “A death mark’s not an easy thing to live with.” So Vlad has decided to lay low at a theater (because of sorcery-related reasons) to plan his next move. Which quickly turns into a series of musical numbers and side quests, but the former are unobtrusive to the reader (if that’s not your thing) and the latter are quickly rendered apparent to be the actual point of the book. I’ll explain myself below the spoiler cut, not because it is especially a spoiler for more than the book’s themes, but for brevity, because I’m about to overstay my welcome.

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Dagon

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The random qualifiers for this podcast-inspired movie were: a foreign film (I think?) with monsters from under the sea. I have a hard time, though, considering Dagon a foreign film when it is a) directed by Stuart Gordon (of Re-Animator fame, as outlined in the poster) and b) mostly in English, and without subtitles when it is in Spanish. As in, it’s pretty clear that the audience is assumed to speak English and to not understand along with the main character when anyone else isn’t speaking English. All the same, its originating country is Spain, so what do I know?

What’s weird about this movie, though, is I have played it as a game, both video and board. …but I’m probably getting ahead of myself. See, the first act is a bit silly. Dream sequences, mermaids, early ’90s quality CGI (ie, budget quality as of 2001 when the movie came out), and eventually a storm and a shipwreck near an isolated fishing village, and quickly our cast of four is whittled down to one. Which is where the game reference comes in, because there’s your character in a hotel room surrounded by subtly aquatic people with torches and pitchforks or whatever, trying to get away from room to room and then from alley to alley, completely outnumbered and outmatched but maybe able to survive if the shadows can be kind.

I’ve never read The Shadow over Innsmouth, but the scenes people have created in homage to it are so evocative that it must have been pretty chillingly written. Then, eventually there’s an act three where things come together nicely and also horrifically. But then again, Stuart Gordon is known to be able to deliver in this genre, so, hooray!

Gojira · Ebira · Mosura: Nankai no daikettô

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Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, is… on the one hand, it’s a lot less weird than recent Godzilla movies I’ve watched, in that it’s not batshit crazy. But on the other hand, it’s actually weirder in some ways, because it’s heavily James Bond influenced I think? And also, this was probably the moment where Godzilla made the transition from anti-hero to good guy, which… I certainly see how it has affected all the future stories, making this clear delineation that he will never again be an existential threat. But I’m still not convinced in the contexts of these movies that it was a good idea, is all.

So get this. This dude’s brother is lost at sea, so he tries to enter a dance-a-thon to win a yacht, but since it’s already three days in, they won’t let him join. So instead, he and two other failed contestants and a third guy all steal a yacht together, semi-accidentally. Then they see a giant crab thing and shipwreck on an island, which is inhabited by a supervillain lair, except without a specific obvious supervillain. Instead, there’s a scientist (I think?) working on nukes, and an eyepatch guy who leads a group of henchmen with machine guns from place to place all over the island, just randomly firing at our heroes but always missing them. It is also inhabited by slaves from Infant Island (famously the home of Mothra) and by a comatose Godzilla, the latter of which is too coincidental for words, and yet here we are.

So anyway, these guys try to figure out how to escape, and how to free the Infants, and how to deal with the giant crab monster (who I believe is referred to exactly once by name?), and eventually there’s a lot of kaiju-fighting, to dance-a-thon music. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Mothra 2 finally grew up and is no longer a caterpillar.

Dragon Keeper

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It has been a minute since I read a Robin Hobb book in that one series with all the Elderlings. So I’m not sure if she is softening as she ages, or if I’m hardening as I age, or what. But the first volume of The Rain Wilds Chronicles was not what I expected.

Dragon Keeper returns us to the Bingtown and the Rain Wilds Traders, last seen surviving an invasion due to a timely alliance. Now, brief years later, they are chafing under the terms of that alliance, mainly because its principal member got a boyfriend and stopped hanging around. I’d say more about why that’s an added burden, but it would involve pretty big and unexpected spoilers, so I shan’t.

Our main characters are 1) an unexpectedly married scholar of dragons, 2) a not quite Liveship Trader who has engaged himself in a morally troubling endeavor, and 3) a Rain Wilds teen with no real future, until the option to become eponymous is thrust in front of her. Well, and there’s also a fourth main character who is not strictly human at all as such, although she is the subject of scholarly pursuits.

And here’s the thing I was talking about in the first place: it didn’t feel all that miserable to me? I mean, in the sense that the hallmark of these books to date is how unrelentingly dark they can get, with only occasional flashes of hope and/or success. Do all of the characters have pretty huge problems to overcome? Yes, for sure. But it’s weird that it kind of feels like they can, and maybe even will in some cases.

A couple more weird things, rattling around at the bottom of the barrel. One is, okay, yeah this is a four book series instead of a three book series. Even still, it felt like this was 85% setup, and then 15%… not payoff like you’d expect, but rather 15% the start of the next book, because she was told she could not just have a book that was all setup. Whoever told her that was wrong, because the end we got was weirdly forced and artificial, and the ending we’d have gotten with all setup would have made rather a lot of sense, payoff or no. And two is, at the back of this book, I learned that Robin Hobb also has the pen name Megan Lindholm, which is the same person as a Steven Brust co-author on a book I haven’t yet read but am now much more excited to pick up.

But not, y’know, next. Or indeed anytime soon.

San Daikaijû Chikyû Saidai no Kessen

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Okay. I have reached the point where I know what’s up. There are/were only two Godszilla, I have high confidence in this fact. The downside is, now I’m five movies into the series, and I was supposed to watch the first one and the ninth one. So, like… should I just go ahead and power through since I’m already more than halfway there?

There is one compelling factor here: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen, and that is saying a lot.[1] See, there’s this princess of a nearby island nation who is trying to make a peace treaty with Japan, maybe? Or something. but also internal politics means there are people trying to assassinate her, and also sometimes with no explicit explanation provided, she is from Venus and has been on Earth for thousands of years. Also, the Mothra twins are visiting for a TV show appearance. Also, a meteor shower woke up Rodan, who you would have no reason to know (aside from watching a separate movie without a Godzilla) is a giant pterodactyl thing. Also also, there was a meteor shower that had one weird meteor that changes sizes and has sporadic magnetism, and landed in the Japanese Alps, a mountain range with which I was unfamiliar.

My point is, Godzilla doesn’t even show up until 40 minutes into the movie, and okay, it’s not his name on the title card, but King Ghidorah isn’t much sooner (and might be later still, for all I remember). In the meantime, the Venusian princess is warning people that “Rodan will wake up in a second so don’t go get that guy’s hat that blew down the hill”, or “don’t get on that ship because last time we saw Godzilla he was maybe drowned again, and ships go on water”, or “King Ghidorah destroyed all life on Venus and he’s here on Earth now so get your affairs in order.” Luckily, they didn’t write her as Cassandra, so after the first time she’s right, people start listening.

But the best part of the movie is close enough to the end that I’m going to warn of spoilers, even though I’ve been really cavalier up to now.

[1] I mean, it should be the weirdest movie basically anyone has ever seen, averaging out across the populace. But in the nichier markets there are some true unpolished gems. The Baby, anyone?

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Mosura tai Gojira

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When I realized that there was a Mothra movie that predated her interactions with Godzilla, I came very close to falling into the Marvel trap. But since OG Mothra wasn’t available to stream anywhere, I narrowly sidestepped a grim fate. It is important I think to remind myself that I’m only trying to figure out what’s going on with Godzillas, and just how many of them there are. This is not a Toho deep dive.

It’s not, I said!

This brings us to Mothra vs. Godzilla. Last time, Godzilla was left to an uncertain underwater fate. Naturally, therefore, there are zero Godszilla for the entire first third of this movie. Instead, we are treated to a tsunami, and a giant floating egg in the nearby ocean, and tiny twin girls who want the egg back from greedy amusement park developers who bought the egg from local fishermen, and my point is, there’s a lot of things going on which would be familiar to people who watched Mothra and unfamiliar to people who watched Godzilla movies.

Later, it is implied but not outright stated that Godzilla washed ashore and was buried in mud by the same tsunami that brought the egg into the area, and therefore it is implied that this is still Godzilla #2. Which I’m good with. Later, the powers of journalism triumph over the powers of capitalism, and the powers of kaiju silkworms triumph over the powers of kaiju lizards, resulting in approximately the same ending as the last movie, except with more of a Spider-Man webshooters vibe. Also, they made sure to re-use the native villagers set, although then again how do I know the Mothra movie didn’t have it before the Kong movie?

I hope nobody cares how extremely filled with spoilers these reviews are.