Avengers Assemble…. on May 4th!!!
A few days ago, a new trailer for Marvel’s The Avengers came out and got me excited for the summer of 2012. While this summer does not look to be as huge as last summer for Marvel, this movie represents the culmination of several past movie events and the work of several past summers. Needless to say (and I’m saying it again here), I’m excited to finally see what Joss Whedon, Zak Penn, and the actors have created with the movie. However, I have some apprehensions that I hope will be a null and void point when I finally watch the movie.
1) The star power of the cast as a whole is quite scary for a movie of this magnitude. I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing. Honestly, to this point, all the characters have functioned and embodied the characters in much the way that I would have hoped that they would. I will even admit that Chris Evans as Capt. wasn’t that bad… and I didn’t have high hopes for him in that film. However, when you put too many big stars together, it sometimes seems that the product they give isn’t necessarily the best thing that has ever been… There are many examples of this in moviedom memory (Be Cool (2005), Shark Tale (2004), and there are many more… you know these) that fail from their inception… I’m hoping that this is not the case with this movie simply because Joss Whedon is at the helm. From his television shows, he has proven that he can work well with ensemble casts. Here’s hoping that he can deal with the egos of the big league.
2) Speaking of people in the film, I’m also concerned about Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner… I don’t know that he can bring the understated nature of the intelligent Banner to life… When I heard that Edward Norton wasn’t coming aboard for this movie, I began to think that it might be better just to eliminate the Hulk altogether (and I know that he is a part of the Avengers… I just don’t know about Ruffalo). Honestly, I just don’t find Ruffalo to be the right actor for the part because he doesn’t look like the Banner type… You can put glasses on some one but this does not indicate intelligence… we’ve seen many examples of this. While I think that Ruffalo will do an alright job as evidenced by his acting cred, I just don’t feel like he will be a good Bruce Banner for me…
3) Storyline to bring them together… While I am excited that it looks like Loki will be the main villain, I am concerned as to how they are going to finally bring them together. They have been doing this all along, but I worry that things will not work together as well as what it should…
Still, even with these apprehensions in mind, I look forward to seeing movie at a midnight showing on May 4th. I will be there (not in costume… I’m a fan boy… but yeah…) and waiting to be bewitched by the characters one more time. Seeing Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Sam Jackson as Nick Fury, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Capt. America, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow and all the other characters come to life once again and as a group will be awesome. All these individuals have made great movies on their own, so they should be able to bring some of that charisma as a group.
As Loki says in the trailer, “How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?”
For me, I’m desperate to see how these “creatures” come alive once again.
Reflectivity
A standard mirror hangs on a
Barren wall. It reflects an empty room
Where we used to dwell.
Many memories have once been
Contained within a lacquered golden
Frame.
Now they are contained in a different
Space of time and place
Within a covetous mind.
Eternally frozen yet moving
Forever.
To break a mirror may bring
Seven years of torment and shame,
But this destruction steals
Away my thoughts to shards and
Immutable fragments of
Before.
Dracula: My Hypothetical Movie Casting
Today in the Gothic Literature class I’m in, we started our discussion of Dracula by Bram Stoker. While we did the usual discussion of Jonathan Harker’s uselessness, Mina Murray’s man brain, Dracula’s foreignness, and the many ways in which one can read the text, we additionally talked about the four prominent movie adaptations of the book: Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), Horror of Dracula (1958),and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). However, after listing these movies, we discovered that an adaptation of the novel hasn’t come out in the past 20 years that even tries to be faithful to the original story (there was the ill-fated Dracula 2000 with Gerard Butler… but yeah…). So we were tasked with casting a movie if we got the opportunity to pick anyone to be in our version of said hypothetical movie. Therefore, my list that I am posting below was born. I think that each of the actors that I’ve placed in certain roles would be able to bring a certain truthfulness to the movie that would resound well with the novel itself. Moreover, I know that some of my choices are a little odd, but I feel that each of the people that I picked would something to the characters that would make them memorable in some way. I hope you enjoy thinking about this as much as I did. 
Dracula Cast List
Dracula— Michael Fassbender
Jonathan Harker— James McAvoy
Dr. Seward— David Tennant
Lord Arthur Holmwood— Matthew MacFadyen
Quincy Morris— Robert Downey Jr.
Abraham Van Helsing— Ian McKellen
Lucy Westenra— Rachel McAdams
Mina Harker— Gemma Arterton
Renfield— Andy Serkis
Bride #1— Kiera Knightly
Bride #2— Natalie Portman
Bride #3— Claire Danes
I have my reasons for placing certain people in certain roles. Moreover, I know that some of them could occupy many different roles in the grand scheme of things.
Spectres
Westward I go!
Across an ocean filled with the
Bloated corpses of my past.
I cannot escape their glazed over
Eyes that stare up at me and make me remember.
I push them down with each oar stroke,
Moving further from them toward the
Deep. Still, I can hear them scrape against the
Bottom, not allowing me to forget.
After the Mid-Season Finale: A Darker Degree of The Walking Dead *Spoilers*
“This is how we both survive. Do you understand?”
After Rick uttering these words to Sophia’s cries of “Don’t leave me!” and her immediate disappearance, we knew something was going to happen. While I thought that the zombification of Sophia might occur, part of me was hoping that it wouldn’t. Not that it really shocks me that the show would go there because apparently the graphic novels are more explicit than this (I have not read the graphic novels…. I want to… but yeah, I haven’t gotten the opportunity); however, the death of the first child character changes the dynamic of the show a bit.
1) We lose another character that is more directly going to affect and influence the emotions of the remainder of the characters in the show. When Andrea’s sister Amy was bitten and died in the first season, we didn’t bat an eye because she was taken in as part of the zombie collateral damage… When Jacqui and Dr. Jenner decided to die in the CDC cleansing, we contemplated how bad that would be in a world filled with zombies. Yet, something about the defenseless twelve-year-old girl changes everything… even as Rick had to shoot her, we all knew that it was the only logical course of action… but you couldn’t help but feel for the stumbling little Sophia and everyone in the crowd as any hope they had in the zombie world came crashing down…
2) Lori’s pregnancy becomes even more problematic and scary… With the death of Sophia one of the precious children that the group wanted to protect, Lori’s concerns and thoughts for wanting to abort the pregnancy (albeit with morning after pills that would probably only mess up the child rather than abort it because she’s so far along) become even more realistic… They couldn’t protect Sophia, what makes them think they can protect a newborn.
3) The group is going to be even more disparate. Let’s face it… the death of Sophia is going to set many members of the group on edge and rightly so. Additionally, I think that it will make the whiny characters more whiny and the resolved / strong characters stronger… if it goes against this, I think that it would be refreshing… However, I think that I will probably be correct… Still, I am intrigued by what might happen with Hershal and his family as a result of Walker Slaying 2011… yeah…
Whatever happens with the rest of this second season, I hope that it will continue to move along at a decent pace. Before the break, I felt as if at times the show began to drag… However, now that the main plot point keeping them in one place has been resolved, it seems that the season should move toward an epic conclusion… one can only hope.
Where Do Broken Hearts Go: R. I. P. Whitney
Regardless of how she died (and I’m sure people are already speculating), Whitney Houston, a great talent and a larger than life individual, has been lost to the world of music at the age of 48 long before we thought that we would see her go. Bursting onto the music scene in the 80′s, continuing strongly into the 90′s, and planning a comeback tour in recent memory, Houston belted out songs and sang somber melodies that touched our hearts and our souls. From “Saving All My Love For You” and “How Will I Know” to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and her biggest hit “I Will Always Love You,” Whitney showed us how dynamic of a performer and celebrity that she was… We all know that she battled with addiction in recent memory, but I feel as though we should celebrate the beauty of her life and not her failings. For her memory, I think Whitney says it best with her hit “Where to Broken Hearts Go”
Where do broken hearts go
Can they find their way home
Back to the open arms
Of a love that’s waiting there
And if somebody loves you
Won’t they always love you
I look in your eyes
And I know that you still care, for me.
While it is a love song, I hope that Whitney can find her “way home” to rest even as we reel from the shock of her loss.
Tale of the Body Thief the Movie, or “Oh God, Please Don’t Let It Be Another Queen of the Damned”
Today on Anne Rice’s facebook page, she announced that Imagine Studios have gotten the rights and are developing a Tale of the Body Thief (TOBT) movie based on her book first published in 1992. On her page, Rice said, “Nothing makes Lestat happier than making news! Here’s the Hollywood Reporter story on Imagine optioning Tale of the Body Thief for a motion picture, with more names and details.” While I am excited by the prospect of a new vampire movie based upon one of Anne Rice’s books because I love the intricacies of the vampire world, I am additionally apprehensive as a result of Queen of the Damned (2002) starring Aaliyah and Stuart Townsend, which was awful… just awful… especially when compared to the success of Interview with the Vampire with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. However, this movie could see a return to that of the first film with Cruise and Pitt which might be a good thing, but there are somethings that might need to be thought about / changed.
1) The scope of this film will be relatively more focused than that of the book Queen of the Damned (QOTD). While the movie of Queen of the Damned resembled nothing of the book that Anne Rice wrote other than character names… and some chosen events, the book of TOBT takes place with very few characters actually taking part in the full of the action (mainly Lestat, David Talbot and, Raglan James). Moreover, if the adaptation does not lend itself to compression of other novels… whereas in the QOTD, this book and The Vampire Lestat were condensed into one movie that didn’t even reach the two hour mark… please….
2) Whereas QOTD (the book) is filled with intricate subplots and creates a new vampire mythology that the filmmakers didn’t seem to want to deal with and used multiple characters to narrate the complexity of the story (again filmmakers didn’t deal with), TOBT is pretty straightforward in terms of its plot. SPOILERS: Lestat being bogged down with his life… undeadness…. vampiric nature… decides to off himself in the desert, 
which doesn’t work considering he gobbled up a lot of Akasha’s blood (making him as powerful as most of the old ones…). So, he gets an offer from Raglan James to switch bodies for a day… Lestat, being the brat prince that he is, cannot resist the chance of being human and agrees. Long story short, James won’t give back Lestat’s body, and Lestat and David must fight for it to get it back. Pretty easy to follow and streamlined…. one would hope that it would not be hard to plot… all I’m saying…
3) Most of the book deals with human Lestat rather than a passel of vampires. In QOTD, a crap ton of vampires appear due to many circumstances surrounding Lestat’s music, the Queen’s rising, and story time / planning session with Maharet. Thus, it would be difficult to get the characters right considering that by Rice’s third book we know a lot of the characters that are cavorting very well… Also, the additional problem of the vampires themselves and the powers they have institute themselves. In TOBT, however, Lestat is a human most of the time, and David is too. Thus, this should be a moot point… yet, I somehow still believe that it can be screwed up… possibly with a flashy action scene on a freeway in California, involving a car chase with human Lestat and Raglan James in Lestat’s body…. Ugh…
4) A new Lestat would be nice. While Tom Cruise does a serviceable job as the evil, non-complex Lestat from the first movie (i.e. Louis’s perspective of him), I don’t know that he could do the truly complex nature of Lestat as a stand alone character very well. Additionally, I hated Stuart Townsend’s portrayal of Lestat…. I feel that he did not carry the brat prince charm and the overall charisma of the character (this could be
because it was a horribly written movie… “You’re a vampire?” line from the goth / punk / glam band member complete with southern twang comes to mind). Maybe we could see someone bring a little class to the role… also remember too that there have to be two Lestats in this film which complicates it… the one real body Lestat and the displaced body Lestat. This adds another level to the difficulty of casting this film… (God help me if I see Johnny Depp put into one of these roles either… I couldn’t stand to see a quirky Lestat with Goth make-up and weird hair… I just couldn’t…). I think that they should cast someone who is naturally blonde too… that’s just a pet peeve of mine…
5) Well, I haven’t really got a five… I’m not going to lie… if this purported film turns out to be anything like the QOTD movie, I might have to hurt someone… yeah… possibly Ron Howard since Imagine is his production company…
So there you have it, I look at this with much apprehension, but I am also hopeful that Lestat will once again get to live big on the theater screen… Hopefully, this reincarnation of Lestat (whenever the film may be released) will be better than the best that we have at this point. I look forward to the film and to Anne’s new book that will come out later this month.
Fear 91 of 101: Creepy Dolls / Marionettes / Etc.
So, recently, I watched The Woman in Black starring Harry Potter alum Daniel Radcliffe. It actually wasn’t a terrible movie. Matter-of-factly, it was my kind of scary movie where much of the action is suggested rather than seen with buckets of blood and gore to boot. However, while watching, I was reminded of something else that unnerves me to look at it… Dolls, marionettes, and other creepy toys with their soulless eyes and off-putting faces with the weird smiles (of fanged teeth… as shown in the movie). The creepy factor of such things make them my 91 0f 101 Fears Countdown (and yes, I know that this is the first one in a while…).
Why are dolls and things like this that scary / creepy / “Oh God! Don’t let it eat my face!”-y?
1) Growing up in the era of the “Child’s Play” movies, the idea that the doll might come to life and kill me was something that I dealt with as a child that sends a shiver up my spine whenever I see one in a haunted house movie or anything else. This is also amped up in most movies that contain a haunting because the toys themselves move on their own… this adds to that little bit of claustrophobia because there is nowhere to go if the toys themselves are attacking you.
2) The sound of a toy in the night. I’m sure that you’ve all been there in your dark house lying in bed, and you hear a chuckle from down the hall… it’s a creepy effect… it’s a little unsettling. This ethereal kind of sound, the disembodied voice is awful… enough said… Well, maybe not quite enough… the fact 
that dolls are becoming increasingly more mechanized makes what they can do and the creep factor explode a little more (whereas the ghost houses make toys move… now, the toys that children play with are doing what ghosts and ghouls could never dream of…).
3) Now, going to the specific of the marionettes… there’s always something creepy about the boldness of the facial design of most marionettes… they are either incredibly happy or drastically depressed… there is no in-between… Also, the fact that they are being controlled by some one is a little creepy as well… yeah…
So there you have it… why dolls are creepy / scary and why they make the list of my top 101 fears…
Nine’s Unusual Way
So, I’m just going to say from the beginning that I’m not familiar with the musical Nine. I know that it has been on Broadway recently with Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, and others leading the charge. I know that a movie version has been released with Daniel Day Lewis as the main male lead and Nicole Kidman, Fergie, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and others as the women who surround him. Honestly, that’s about all I know… I haven’t done my research on this one yet… I will be doing research in the next little while to rectify this hole in my knowledge, but I thought it important to share a beautiful song from the show with you all. 
The song is called “Unusual Way” and has been performed by various of the Broadway elite due to its significant lyrical and musical themes of love, longing, and loss… Moreover, its haunting melody sticks with you as the simple but clear lyrics illustrate what it “means to be me looking at you,” as the song itself says. The version I am leaving you with is performed by Laura Benanti (an actress that I knew more for her comedic role in Women on the Verge) and Antonio Banderas. Early on, Benanti’s character professes what it’s like to be the person in a relationship where they appear to be codependency of sorts on another who does not necessarily need them. Her voice is both beautiful and haunting (I know I’ve already used this word earlier… don’t shoot me over it), and when Banderas joins her, his harmony solidifies the emotion of the piece as their voices blend perfectly… So I leave you with “Unusual Way.” I hope you enjoy.
Another Cancelled Television Show that I’m Interested In: ABC’s “The Gates”
With my introduction to the world of Netflix streaming, I have begun to get invested in shows that I think have interesting premises or that have people in them that I am drawn to. However, the problem I end up having results from attaching myself to shows that were cancelled after the first couple of seasons of their run because the networks they were on didn’t see the viewership that they expected. Given that television is a viewer-based industry, I do understand that they want to cut their loses as soon as possible. Still, many shows have been scraped just when they were starting to get good, which leaves me with what I would call the “hanging universe syndrome.” I am left to wonder what could have happened and to what degree the overall characters would have developed within the framework of the world.
Recently, I stumbled upon the television show The Gates (2010) which took what a modern dramatic theme and turned it on its head. In the 
show, the characters live in a gated community called The Gates (go figure), which gives the audience the idea that the main moving force will be the suburban hell that has come to appear in shows such as Desperate Housewives, Suburgatory, etc. Yet as I mentioned earlier, this is turned on its head as we the audience come to find out that the main character Nick Monohan, the new chief of police of the Gates, has brought his family into a community populated by vampires, werewolves, and other creatures of myth and legend. When I read the description on Netflix, I was instantly enamored with the idea of a suburban drama filled with housewives that could literally rip each others throats out. After watching the first few episodes, I was hooked, but it was also then that I noticed the show only had one season of 13 episodes. Immediately, I went to imdb.com (remember I am an imdb addict) and discovered that the show was cancelled. Tonight, I finished the last episode, and now, I want more… however, there isn’t more to have.
What went wrong? The writing wasn’t bad (it wasn’t great… but it’s kind of what you expect from a primetime drama that has vampires, witches, and werewolves), the actors were fairly well suited to the show with Rhona Mitra (Underworld: Rise of the Lycans http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0593961/) and Frank Grillo (Prison Break http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342029/) leading the pack (ironic usage of language here considering that neither is a werewolf in the show), the special effects were used appropriately and were blended well into the world itself, etc. (I could go on spouting what I like about it… but that isn’t really what I’m trying to do here). Honestly, I think that it was a show with a niche audience that may have come along at the wrong time. Who really knows (besides the execs)?
All I know is that I found another interesting show that I would recommend to my friends that are looking for something to fill the gap between True Blood seasons or any supernatural show (including the CW’s Supernatural… which is now available on instant streaming for anyone out there who wants to know). The one thing that I would recommend is not getting too attached to the characters or the atmosphere that they try to create because after a brief 13 episodes The Gates will close for you as they did for me.
