Thorne Smith on the Silver Screen

Thorne Smith wrote a slew of light fantasy novels in the 1920s and 1930s.  Topper with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as an irreverent ghostly couple is the most famous adaptation of his novels.

Other adaptations are a TV series called Turnabout – an early body-swapping comedy; Passionate Witch – prototype for Bewitched ; the Stray Lamb – a man named Lamb transforms into different animals; Skin and Bones – a man and his dog turn into walking skeletons frightening all but those who truly see them; and the Glorious Pool – a fountain of youth in a swimming pool.

And then Night Life of the Gods in which a man can make stone into living creatures and heads off the the Metropolitan Museum of Art to turn the Greek Gods alive. They wreck funny havoc.

But coming soon is a fantasy movie, Gods Behaving Badly with Alicia Silverstone. It doesn’t say so but you bet your boots it’s inspired by Thorne Smith.

So many of our light fantasy films owe him much.

ABC’s Once Upon a Time

Wow.

Once Upon a Time from ABC – this is so entirely perfect.

• noble tragedy
• pretty costumes
• fairy tale setting
• Jennifer Morrison from House acting tough
• Best of all: a Wicked Witch Queen who is so magnificent I can barely stand it

 

Vampire Diaries: The Elena Problem

Image via Wikipedia

I just finished the first season of the TV show Vampire Diaries.  I’m glad I watched it on disk because the pilot was abysmal and I wouldn’t have watched any more if I had watched it on broadcast.

The extras for the TV show were boring but the one of the show-runners commented that Elena wasn’t a nice person in the books.  I began to reread the books and I think she was right.  Elena and her friends are the popular, snooty, mean girls.  Elena is specially arrogant.  It’s a bit weird for them to be the heroines.

OK, so the book Elena is not a good character for the cosiness of TV.  But they managed to make TV Elena completely boring.  It’s amazing how dull she is.  She’s mostly a pivot for the two hot vamps to display their pretty, pouty ways.

I do not hold Nina Dobrev the actress who plays the part responsible.  It’s just that Elena has no agency in season one (in season two, she’s more proactive).  She just reacts limply to the activities of the other characters.

Bonnie (Katerina Graham) the powerful witch and Damon the funny, quirky bad boy vampire (Ian Somerhalder) are far and away my favorite characters on the show.    I think those two should have an affair – I think I’d be glued to the screen if they did.  I also find Caroline (Candice Accola) sympathetic and charming in a hurt-kitten way.

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run of bad movie choices at an end…

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve had a run of bad movie picks.  These three I only watched half or fast-forwarded through to the end:  If a Man Answers (1962-antiquated, trite), Emmanuelle (1974-antiquated, idiotic), Love and Other Drugs (2010-mismarketed, repulsive).

Then I watched The Ugly Truth (2009)  – Passable, though the objections to the withered romantic comedy conventions and the anti-woman themes are valid.

All the characters repeated that the female lead Abby was smart which they had to do because she was the dumbest chick ever.  Worse than Sugar in Some Like it Hot.

How I would have changed it:

#1 Make something about Abby likable.  Something. Even Mike had his relationship with his nephew.

#2  Make her problem with men not that she’s so stupid but that she manipulates them the way she does everyone at work.  Thus, she feels contempt rather than affection for her dates.  Mike comes along and refuses to be manipulated and she likes that.

#3  Mike has to have some reason that he loves her.  Elizabeth didn’t accept Darcy’s “I love you against my will” proposal and neither should Abby.

#4 Make the funny parts funny.  Why couldn’t she have come up with a good pitch while wearing the vibrating panties,  why couldn’t the baseball date been about her faking sports knowledge, why couldn’t she be funnier when stalking her neighbor, why couldn’t she and Mike have better banter (or any banter)???

#5 What on earth was the stupid thing about ponytails being unsexy? There might any number of reasons that men would reject these women but I don’t think it’s their hairstyle.

All in all, a sad waste of Mr. Butler.

But finally, my luck has turned with Pushing Daisies season 2 and Zombieland.

Pushing Daisies was no surprise as I thoroughly enjoyed season one.  This is much the same and just as good.  The dialog is almost too much fun.  The plots are quirky to max, and at the same time poignant and grotesque and very funny.  Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) is probably my favorite character, although I like Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth) a lot too.  It’s a pity most of my favorite shows are so short.

Zombieland – I enjoyed this movie.  It wasn’t quite the (Shaun of the Dead) comedy I was expecting – more like a road movie with zombies.  Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg are not my favorite actors but they were perfectly cast for this movie.

quick list of what I liked about it

1. Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine)

2. The List

3.  Columbus’ cowardice in general

4. snoballs

5. Bill Murray

6.  could watch it with friends who don’t like horror movies

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Wrinkle in Time in 90s.

Bookshelves of Doom is my new go-to book blog. Here’s a link to 90 minute second Wrinkle in Time. Much to like in this short, especially all the kid actors.

Premonition (2007)

Cover of Premonition (Widescreen Edition)

So,  I was stuck one evening with nothing to watch.  I was at Wal-Mart to buy a toy for my niece.  That accomplished, I went over to look at their movies.  Other than a few horror movies and a bunch of kid cartoons, I had seen all they had to offer.  I saw this movie, Premonition (2007) and it starred Sandra Bullock as Linda and the guy from Nip/Tuck, Julian McMahon as Jim.  I think I paid $7 for it.

Linda is a housewife who seldom brushes her hair or wears real clothes.  She has two adorable daughters and somewhat distant husband, Jim.  She is doing her household chores one day when a cop knocks on the door and announces that her husband has died in a car accident.  Linda is stricken with grief but her emotional equilibrium is really unbalanced by waking up to find her husband alive and well.

She’s in some kind of time warp or maybe she’s having visions of the future or maybe she broke down mentally when she learned about her husband.  There’s no telling.

The good:  Sandra Bullock is not particularly winsome in this movie which is refreshing.  The premise is intriguing – what if you could know the future? How would that change you and your relationships with others?

The confusing:  the out of sequence story doesn’t make a lot of sense (there was an extra in which the director explains it).  I didn’t watch that because I feel he could have done that within the movie.  Why were there all those horror music and sound cues?  What was the dead bird all about?  Why bother to tell the story in this convoluted way in the first place?  What kind of woman is pleased when her husband buys them a house without even letting her see it?  How did the little girl manage to break that glass?  The only time I saw that happen in real life, the kid got a bump on her head, she didn’t break it.

The bad:  Linda is either crazy and catatonic or crazy and frantic.  She’s also distanced from the audience and she’s hard to sympathize with at the end.  I wish they had just made a drama out of one woman’s emotional journey and let us understand her and come to care for her future.  Or, they could have made a distaff version of Primer.  Then I could have pondered the ethical implications of time slips, etc.

In conclusion, the next time I’m craving light entertainment, I resolve to avoid the offerings at Wal-Mart.

Cenfantastique.  Said it much more eloquently than I.

Moria.  More positive review but dropped an anvil at the end.

Reelviews.  Balanced assessment but reviewer was not satisfied.

Commentary Track.  Positive take on the movie.

Inkheart (2008)

Cover of Inkheart

Story:  A girl and her father go on a quest to save her mother who has vanished by magic.

Director:  Ian Softley  (Hackers, Wings of the Dove)

Author:  It’s based on a trilogy of  fantasies by Cornelia Funke.  They are Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath. I attempted to read the first book this summer but failed.  I might try again now that I’ve seen the movie.

Cast:  Brendan Fraser (Mo); Eliza Bennett (Meggie); Paul Bettany (Dustfingers); Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent

Comments: I enjoyed seeing Brendan Fraser again.  I seem to have lost track of him but maybe he’ll make a few more movies.  I also was happy to see Paul Bettany again since I liked him so much as Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale.

Helen Mirren is a treat in the movie, and lent it an air of authenticity as it grew more fantastical.

The concept of reading stories aloud can make them real is an entertaining one.  However, it begs the question why unscrupulous people wouldn’t read a sci-fi military book and pull out  a bunch of advanced weapons and take over the world.  Apparently, the books on hand were set in historical periods.

Roger Ebert pointed out that it might scare children that if they read aloud, their mothers will disappear.  That’s a good point, although it can’t be much more disturbing than Labyrinth‘s premise.

It takes the movie an extraordinarily long time to reveal why and how the mother went missing.  Once the action starts up, everything moves along smartly.

Worth it?  Yes.

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Charlaine Harris’ ‘Dead’ series

Back in 2001, I had the opportunity to read Dead until Dark the first book in the series.   However, it wasn’t a paranormal romance, and I wasn’t interested at the time.  But with the buzz from the True Blood series, I thought I’d give it another try.  I’m glad I did since the mystery/horror elements are much more appealing than the paranormal romance this time around.

Dead Until Dark

The story: a socially isolated waitress (Sookie) at a bar in rural Louisiana encounters a vampire and goes to his rescue when he is attacked in the parking lot of the bar.  This action embroils her in a supernatural murder mystery.

I love Sookie’s wry observations on her own and everyone else’s behavior.  She doesn’t easily accept all the bizarre revelations about the supernatural people but she doesn’t waste time protesting her new reality either.  Her tenuous place in the social structure makes it believable that she’d fall into the ‘outgroup’ of vampires and such.  I hope that Harris enriches all the minor characters – the community members are all quite interesting.

Living Dead in Dallas

The story:  A co-worker at the bar where Sookie works is murdered.  She is hired by vampires to solve the mystery and she learns far too much about supernatural world.

I was slightly disappointed with this one.  It may be that the author is moving from a single novel to a series and so has to lighten the tone a bit.  I also missed Sookie’s hometown politics and interactions.  Dallas was less interesting to me here.  I do like how Sookie is changing due to her adventures: she’s more confident, more daring and a bit more sophisticated.

Club Dead

The story:  Sookie’s having boyfriend trouble and then he goes missing.  She’s got to find him and upbraid him.

I don’t like the urban setting. Moreover, this one got way too painful for me.  I really hated what some of the characters in this book did.  So much so that I contemplated dropping the series.

Dead to World

The story:  Sookie is bitter and alone after her breakup.  It never rains but it pours since her brother disappears and she has an amnesiac vampire dropped into her lap (more or less).

But I did pick up the fourth book and I’m happy for doing it.  Sookie’s back at home which pleases me no end.  Sookie’s becoming more resilient emotionally and mentally, and I think she’s becoming a force to be reckoned with.  Normally I’d find fault that every guy she meets is instantly attracted to her.  But I can buy that her psychic powers are the real lure and they are all supernatural beings.  No humans for Sookie.

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Issues with Vampire Diaries

I am dense.

After my post on the news that L. J. Smith’s Vampire Diaries is coming to television, I got a lot of comments on the casting.  One of the issues brought up is why the main character Elena was not cast as a blonde for the TV show.  I was puzzled because I thought blondes were the it girls in Hollywood too.

But then I realized this:

Elena, Vampire Diaries

Bella, Twilight

Mystery solved.

Another thing that irritates me is much of the material on Vampire Diaries outright saying that it is another version of Twilight. (TVsquad, beyond hollywood).   The producers are on riding Twilight‘s cape but I am still irritated.

L. J. Smith published the books in 1991.  It seems that Meyer only had the dream in 2003 and the first book was published in 2005.  Moreover, most pretty-pretty vampire stories are just watered-down versions of Anne Rice’s vampire tales.  Twilight is more of a blanched vegetable version.

I remember a young person writing on a forum that she’d read Meyer’s series and asking, in sum, if there were any other stories with a  vampire mythos.

Part of me thinks this is (very) funny but it’s a little sad too.  She’s missing out a lot. Fans could go a long time and not run out of vamp books to read.

I may break down and find a time line of pretty-pretty vampires in books.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Cover of Odd Thomas

My sister urged me to read Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas. I have read Watchers and other books by Koontz and had seen Odd on bookshelves but I had not read it. I couldn’t place. Friends and reviews used terms like “quirky” “charming” “sweet” but told me it’s about a thriller about a possible shooting. The blurb on the back didn’t help, “Odd sees dead people but then he does something about it.” Humph.

But I started reading it and now I understand why I couldn’t place it. Odd Thomas himself is innocent in that he has a good heart and an uncompromising sense of right and wrong, though he attributes his conscience to his girl friend Stormy. Odd does his best to think well of people and he risks himself repeatedly to find justice for the murdered dead. So, the quirky, charming, feel-good part is true.

The thriller part is true too. Odd can see ghosts and help them leave, usually by exposing their murderer. He can’t talk to them though. This time, he must hope his psychic abilities come through because he finds himself hunting down a very live mass murderer.

I liked Odd’s girlfriend and his boss – the manager of a diner. He spends as much time discussing his job as a fry cook at the diner as he does on the supernatural events that surrounds him.

It’s worth reading, though a bit rough in places.