Thor: The Dark World (2013, PG-13)

 

This Avengersverse review is in honor of the leaked trailer for Age of Ultron (Marvel released the official version after a “Dammit, Hydra” tweet; love it) and the nerdish flailing that ensued.

 

Objectively, it’s probably fair to say that Thor:  The Dark World is the weakest post-Avengers film.  It’s hampered by a generic villain with nonspecific evil motives, and some of the humor veers a bit too close to wacky – given the high drama of the Asgardian royal family, it makes sense to have some comic relief, but the tonal shift here can get jarring. 

 

Not that it’s a bad film.  Not at all; imperfect though it is, I enjoy it a lot.  As I’ve said before, the growing maturity of Thor is terrific, and this installment does a nice job on that front.  His cockiness has softened into a less showy self-assuredness, and he’s more willing to admit out-and-out confusion or fear, or even ask for help.  His impulsive streak, though, is intact – this time, he presents his argument to Odin before openly defying him but still ultimately defies him.

 

And what has him going against dear old dad?  After reuniting with his human love, Jane, Thor discovers that she’s been infected by an ancient power known as the Aether.  Not only is it strong enough to kill her if not excised, but it’s attracted the attention of baddie Malekith and his army of Dark Elves.  Thor is understandably pulling for a solution in which Jane lives and the Elves don’t get the Aether, but Odin feels his methods are too reckless and uncertain.  So, Thor takes matters in his own hands, enlisting his brother Loki as an extremely slippery ally.

 

I find the Thor movies are the most visually arresting in the series.  Asgard looks fantastic, and we get the chance to see a lot more of it here.  I continue to love everything about the Bifröst, and I dig the flying boats.  Also, there is some cool, topnotch action in this film.  The Dark Elves have these amazing mini-black-hole grenade things, and the big final battle is augmented by a lot of physical and gravitational anomalies that differentiate it from many of its fellow films.

 

I’m still lukewarm on Jane.  I like that she’s smart and scientific (and I love that Thorloves that she’s smart and scientific,) her curiosity and wonder is great, and I enjoy seeing her take a more active part in the plot here.  However, she borders on damsel-y, and her tendency to go giggly-schoolgirl around Thor seems disingenuous for a brilliant physicist.  I get that she’s a little socially awkward, but come on – she’s still an adult.  As for Thor’s other major relationship, I love that, while he knows he can’t trust Loki and keeps that thought at the fore of his interactions with his brother, he badly wishes that he could.  It’s a desire that’s come back to bite him before, and no doubt it will again, but their dynamic continues to be the Thor movies’ strongest quality.

 

All the usual suspects are back for this film.  I really enjoy Jaimie Alexander as Thor’s comrade-in-arms Sif, and Rene Russo gets a chance to shine (and kick some butt) as Thor’s mother Frigga.  Christopher Eccleston does a fine job as Malekith, but his talents are pretty wasted in a commonplace bad-guy role.

 

Warnings

 

Comic book violence, some swearing, and a little implied nudity.

Relationship Spotlight: Trent & Ian (Huge)

 

This relationship is unlike many that I write about here.  It’s not about how close these characters are or how unexpected their connection is, and it’s not destructive-fascinating like Tony and Sid from Skins, either.  Rather, I’m writing about these two because their dynamic is so unlike most of what you see on television.

 

The initial interactions between Trent and Ian are much what you’d expect on any teen show.  Though both are overweight and neither probably has a lot of game back home, Trent is considered “fit” at weight-loss camp and is a clear candidate for the popular clique.  Ian, by contrast, is far less confident and prefers playing the guitar to playing sports; he falls in with the ragtag misfits like rebellious Will, geeky Becca, and sweet Alistair (who’s widely assumed to be gay and held at arm’s length for it by most campers.)  So, Ian feels inadequate when he sees Trent hanging out with pretty, popular Amber, and when Trent makes unkind remarks about Alistair, Ian writes him off as a stereotypical jock jerk.

 

Rather refreshingly, Ian isn’t the least bit interested in winning Trent’s approval or joining his crowd.  Yes, he’s into Amber, but it’s not about status for him.  In his perfect world, I imagine Ian would want Amber to ditch her group to run with him, Will, Becca, and Alistair – Trent and his sort would have no part in it.  In most day-to-day, non-crushing-on-Amber situations, Ian is perfectly content to hang with his unpopular friends doing their unpopular things.

 

Things start to change between these two when Ian writes and performs a song for talent night.  When he’s working on it, Trent is at once curious but skeptical.  He immediately urges Ian to play it for him, and when Ian admits that he hasn’t written it yet, Trent suggests that Ian join the skit he’s doing with a handful of other guys, on the grounds that they “know what [they’re] doing, and it’s gonna be really great.”  It’s an invitation to be included (one that he pointedly doesn’t extend to Alistair,) but at the same time, it feels sort of like a dig:  maybe you don’t have your crap together, but we do, and we’re gonna be awesome.  However, when talent night rolls around and Trent hears Ian’s song, all bets are off.

 

From that point on, Trent is completely taken with Ian and seems to want nothing more than to hang out and jam with him (there’s an unused drum set in the rec room, and Trent is eager to brush up on it.)  In the next episode, he talks about Ian’s song while he’s alone with his girlfriend and later bails on plans with her in the hopes of jamming with Ian.  This angle, with the popular athletic desperate to get in good with the insecure musician, is unlike virtually everything you see on teen shows.  It’s made even more pronounced by the fact that Ian is sort of horrified at Trent’s attentions; he takes to hiding from Trent, who he calls his “stalker.”

 

I like it for that twist, and I also like that, for Trent, it’s about himself as much as his admiration for Ian.  Early in the series, we see Trent in an introspective moment wondering how exactly he came to be a “sports guy,” how it emerged as his chief interest and defining factor.  So, he’s at a bit of a loss in terms of figuring out who he is, and when he sees Ian performing for everyone, it hits home.  It sets off something within him, and while it makes him realize how cool Ian is in his own way and want to befriend him, it also makes him want to be like Ian.  From that perspective, he’s widening his friendship horizon and finding himself at the same time.

Favorite Characters: Lt. Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow)

 

Abbie could’ve easily been a nothing character.  A small-town police officer, she’s mundane compared to Ichabod Crane the time-displaced Revolutionary War soldier.  Since she’s more reluctant than Crane to believe all this headless horseman business, there’s a tendency to automatically label her the Scully of the pair, an important but often thankless role.  And yet, she’s awesome.  Seriously – I’m a grown woman, and when I watch Sleepy Hollow, my brain keeps saying, “I want to be Abbie when I grow up.”

 

First of all, as you get to know her, you see there’s nothing mundane about Abbie.  At the outset of the series, she’s preparing to leave Sleepy Hollow for Quantico; clearly, she’s no flatfoot.  Her early actions show her to be driven, curious, perceptive, warm, and tough (and no, those last two aren’t mutually exclusive.)  And while Crane obviously has more extensive experience with the supernatural, Abbie’s life hasn’t been untouched by the freaky and inexplicable:  back in junior high, she and her sister blacked out after seeing a demon in the woods.  It’s an event that had a profound effect on her life, and she spent a long time getting in trouble as she tried to bury it. 

 

So, though she’s skeptical about horsemen of the apocalypse, warring covens, and Crane being from the 18^th century, her newfound partner doesn’t have to drag her kicking and screaming into the brave new world.  Her rationalizations, excuses, and comments about Crane being certifiable dry up fairly quickly.  Granted, she still makes plenty of “you’ve gotta be kidding me” remarks, but it’s more about acknowledging how bizarre her life has become than remaining willfully ignorant in the face of blatant evidence.

 

As she starts to believe, it’s in a hesitant but inevitable way; her head wants to tell her these things can’t be true, but she also can’t deny the things she’s seen.  This is a major adjustment, of course, especially since she tried so hard to put her encounter in the woods behind her, but Abbie steps up like a pro.  Before long, it’s second nature to scour scriptural passages or centuries-old legends for vital information.  She stands her ground against spirits, witches, and demons, and she accepts that “impossible” is a word that no longer has a place in her life.

 

Also, she’s hardcore amazing.  The woman has nerves of steel and a real hero’s heart, she’s a shrewd tactician and a dogged researcher, and she can more than hold her own in a fight.  She’ll put herself in danger for the greater good, she goes to extreme lengths to help those she cares about, and she displays tremendous strength and grace when confronting her fears.  She’s an honest cop who prefers to keep everything above board, but she’s not such a stickler that she won’t step outside the lines when she has to.  Plus, she has a fun sense of humor and enjoys teasing Crane during her frequent crash courses for him on 21^st-century living.

 

On a side note, I find it interesting that several characters have expressed romantic interest in Abbie but, apart from awkward conversations with an ex-boyfriend coworker, she’s basically untouched by it all.  Her focus is on the mission and her friendship/partnership with Crane, and I never get the sense that she’s a) angsting about being “unable” to pursue a romantic relationship because she’s trying to combat the apocalypse, or b) secretly pining for the unavailable Crane.  I like that romance isn’t a big part of her storyline and that lack of romance isn’t, either – no one’s running around making constant comments about her being unattached.  It’s so refreshing.

Battling Butler (1926)

 

This is regarded as a middle-of-the-pack Buster Keaton film, and he has enough magnificent offerings that this one is understandably middling, but I like it a lot.  From where I stand, you never go wrong when Buster plays a sheltered dandy, and while the plot is a bit routine, it’s fun and peppered with great gags.

 

As far as Buster’s dandies go, Rollo from The Navigator remains my favorite, but Alfred Butler is no slouch, comedy-wise.  This pampered rich boy’s catchphrase is “Arrange it,” delivered lazily to his tireless valet (played with spark by Snitz Edwards, who’s in several of Buster’s movies.)  He’s never had to do anything for himself and his parents, worried that he’ll grow up soft, send him on a hunting trip to make a man out of him.  Of course, staying in a spacious tent with a bed, a dresser, and a valet to prepare your bathwater isn’t exactly roughing it.  (He brings a top hat, on a hunting trip – I love it.)

 

Still, a fire is lit under Alfred’s rear after all when he meets and falls for a charming mountain girl.  Unfortunately, his valet’s efforts to sell her salt-of-the-earth family on the prospective marriage don’t go as planned.  Alfred is dismissed as a wimp, and the valet, in a fit of desperation, rebuts that Alfred is in fact Battling Butler, the up-and-coming boxer preparing to fight the featherweight champ.  This earns the admiration of the girl and her family, but it puts Alfred in the precarious position of keeping up the ruse.

 

Needless to say, a series of misunderstandings and misadventures leads to Alfred having to actually train as a boxer.  Despite his obvious ineptitude and powerful desire to avoid it like the plague (he turns out to have a remarkable talent for shirking road work,) he’s dragged into the ring – once he’s detangled from the ropes, that is.  There’s one point where, having already been caught up several times, he’s determined to leap the ropes this time, and the ensuing momentum, combined with being inevitably snagged again, spins him around and propels him out and under.  It’s fantastic, and I could watch it all day.

 

After all of Alfred’s luxuriating, it’s great fun to see him forced to genuinely work at something.  Yes, he tries to get out of it at every time (I would too, Alfred,) but in the end, he goes through all the effort and pain and fear (and quasi-farcical interference-running, when his new wife shows up at the training camp) because he loves his wife so much and doesn’t want her to find out he lied.

 

Also, the final shot is perfect.  Buster has a real flair for closing scenes, and while Our Hospitality is my gold standard, this is up there as one of my favorites.  I love that – so many comedies end on a contented sigh, a gentle fade-out of resolution after the denouement, where we see that the characters are going to be all right.  Buster gives us the resolution, but not the gentle fade-out.  Most of his movies end with an exclamation point, a last parting gag to ensure that you greet the “The End” with one more peal of laughter.

 

Warnings

 

The usual slapstick violence, plus lots of boxing violence, of course.

Doctor Who: Series 8, Episode 9 – “Flatline” (2014)

 

My eagerness for a second Jamie Mathieson episode was well-founded.  This is another great outing with the same strengths as “Mummy on the Orient Express” – a fantastically Doctor-ish Doctor, a nice assortment of distinctive supporting characters, intriguing, creepy aliens of the week, and better interactions between the Doctor and Clara.  At two for two, Jamie Mathieson’s definitely a keeper!

 

The TARDIS lands in Bristol with a major, ridiculous problem:  something is leeching its energy, and its external dimensions are shrinking.  The Doctor’s attempts to solve conundrum lead to his being stuck inside the tiny TARDIS (it’s as big as ever on the inside, but the outside is so small that he can barely get his hand through the door.)  So, armed with the sonic screwdriver, the psychic paper, the Doctor’s voice in an earpiece, and the TARDIS in her purse, it’s up to Clara to investigate the strange goings-on.  In addition to the shrinking TARDIS trouble, people have been disappearing around the estate, and there’s a shadowy, deadly presence lurking in the walls.

 

Even trapped in the TARDIS, the Doctor is very involved in the episode’s proceedings.  He hijacks Clara’s optic nerve, cooks up assorted theories, builds a helpful device which he passes through the miniature doors, and alternately bickers with Clara and gives her vital help and assurance.  (Plus, before he gets stuck, I love his delight at the mystery of the wee TARDIS.  It’s so weird and unexpected, and he’s absolutely giddy about it.)  Clara’s turn playing “the Doctor” isn’t too shabby, either.  She bravely organizes the civilians who get swept up in the alien threat, and while the Doctor feeds her a number of insights, she also has some great ideas on her own.  Jenna Coleman’s performance and Clara’s dialogue here is quite Doctory, especially reminiscent of Eleven.  She captures that mixture of bossiness, encouragement, and flippancy just right.

 

I don’t like it quite as well as “Mummy on the Orient Express” – the way Clara completely ignores the itty-bitty TARDIS issue at the start of the episode and just complains about landing in Bristol instead of back home is annoying, and I’m not a fan of the repeated indications this season that the Doctor isn’t a good person.  It’s been a near-constant theme, and it’s clear that the Doctor himself still doesn’t think he’s a good man.  I hope they’re going somewhere with it, but so far, they have done enough with the idea to warrant being drawn out the whole season; it’s just “there.”  Also, this is at least the third week in a row that Clara has been put to some extent in the Doctor’s role, and her reaction at the end has been different every time.  In “Kill the Moon,” she resents being forced to make the impossible decisions, in “Mummy on the Orient Express,” she needs to promise something she’s not sure she can deliver and realizes how difficult it is being the Doctor, and here, she has a handful of strangers’ lives in her hands and, in the end, is rather cavalier about the whole experience.  I don’t know why they keep repeating this device or why it seems to be skipping around rather than moving forward.

 

Still, there’s a fascinating alien concept, the visuals are terrific (besides the fun-sized TARDIS, there’s a lot of street art that’s by turns cool, lovely, and unnerving,) and it all feels like proper Doctor Who.  The Doctor is the Doctor and gets to be the Big Damn Hero that I love, even when he can’t get out of a little blue box.  More please!

Top Five Songs: Sunday in the Park with George

This Stephen Sondheim score will own me forever – I just adore it.  There are Sondheim shows that I probably enjoy more, but that score… Throw in Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters on the original cast recording, and I’m a goner.  Here are five songs I can’t do without.

 

“Color and Light” – This sprawling duet beautifully, painfully encapsulates the divide between George and Dot, the reasons they’ll never fit together even though they love each other.  I especially love the repetitive, rapid-fire lines that punctuate George’s pointillism.

 

Best Line:  “And you look inside the eyes, / And you catch him here and there, / But he’s never really there. / So you want him even more, / And you drown inside the eyes - / I could look at him forever.”

 

 

“Finishing the Hat” – I think, more than any other, this song communicates Sondheim’s philosophy as a composer.  It’s transposed to suit George’s painting, but the sentiment is the same – the idea that any artist is consumed by their desire to create, and that the whole world can fall away but they won’t notice because they’re trying to get the last detail just right.

 

Best Line:  “Mapping out the sky. / What you feel like, planning a sky. / What you feel when voices that come / Through the window / Go / Until they distance and die, / Until there’s nothing but sky.”

 

 

“We Do Not Belong Together” – George and Dot part in this heartbreaking duet.  Dot is wrung out, exhausted from loving George without evidence that he cares for her, and for his part, George is hungry for her to stay but doesn’t know how to tell her.  Their world together ends, not with a bang but a whimper, as they quietly slide away from one another.

 

Best Line:  “We do not belong together, / And we should have belonged together. / What made it so right together / Is what made it all wrong.”

 

 

“Sunday” – After the years and happiness and sweat that George has given up for his painting, it’s only fitting that we see what it was all for, and Sondheim couldn’t have written a better song to accompany the painting coming together.  The soft choral melody, the haunting voices of the ensemble, and George’s gentle wistfulness… It gives me chills every time.

 

Best Line:  “Forever / On the blue purple yellow red water / On the green orange violet mass of the grass / In our perfect park / Made of flecks of light / And dark.”

 

 

“Moving On” – This song is the sole representative of Act II (because Act I is just too gorgeous,) an exquisite moment between George’s descendent and the shadow of Dot.  I love the message of moving forward on your own terms and not making decisions based on what others expect or demand.  Dot’s connection with young George is sublime.

 

Best Line:  “I chose, and my world was shaken - /So what? / The choice may have been mistaken, / The choosing was not. / You have to move on.”

Relationship Spotlight: Emma Swan & Prince Charming (Once Upon a Time)

 

(Be advised, I can’t talk about this without spoiling a major plot development from season 1.) 

 

This isn’t one of the most prominent relationships on Once Upon a Time, but I adore it.  Since the initial premise of the show placed most of the characters under a curse that, among other things, made time stand still, Emma grew up while her parents stayed the same age in Storybrooke.  So, when the curse breaks and the Enchanted Forest folk regain their true memories, the mother and father Emma has looked for her entire life stand in front of her, and they’re her age.  Thus begins two of the most unconventional parent-child relationships on TV.

 

Emma’s relationship with Snow is interesting, too, but today’s post is about Emma and her dad.  Magic weirdness aside, it’s a tough situation – Charming and Emma have spent 28 years apart.  He hasn’t felt those years, being frozen in time (and in a coma) for most of it, and he doesn’t know who either of them are when they meet.  Emma, on the other hand, has been wondering about the unknown parents who seemingly dropped her into the world and then erased every hint of their existence as she was shunted around the foster system, made some bad choices, and put her life back together.  She doesn’t know that his sword protected her the moment she was born, that he fought tooth and nail and nearly died getting her out of the curse’s reach.

 

So when Charming gets his memory back, he’s every inch the proud papa who knew his little girl could save the day, and Emma is very not ready to deal with him or Snow.  The father who, in her mind, abandoned her, is both Prince friggin’ Charming and a 20-something (in fact, Josh Dallas is a couple years youngerthan Jennifer Morrison.)  She doesn’t know how to wrap her head around a relationship like that, and an awkward stretch of episodes is spent with him wanting to make up for lost time and her wanting to avoid the issue.  She’s had a difficult life, and she can’t simply forgive and forget because her dad was a fairytale character under a curse, and her cold shoulder serves to remind him of all the years he couldn’t be there for her.

 

As time goes on and Emma starts to open up, though, she and Charming develop a really great dynamic.  He works alongside her at the sheriff’s department where they make a good team.  Both are trackers who are handy in a fight, and she gradually gets used to him having her back.  While he’s protective, he still lets her stand on her own, and when it comes to sharing, Charming is good about waiting for Emma to come to him.  He always lets her know he’s there for whatever she needs, to help or to listen, but he doesn’t push.  As a result, he’s been a sounding board when she’s confused, a comfort when she’s upset, and a support when she’s overwhelmed.

 

I really have to hand it to Jennifer Morrison and Josh Dallas.  Any time you have two good-looking actors of the same age portraying a familial relationship, you can run the risk of inappropriate chemistry; too many onscreen siblings have trouble giving off consistent “sibling” vibes, and it gets weird.  These two have an even harder task, making the audience buy him as her dad, but they’re more than up to the challenge.  In all their interactions, you never lose sight of the fact that she’s his daughter.  There’s even a scene where he’s teaching her to dance, a dream sequence in which he’s regretting all the years he missed with her.  Both are dressed to the nines and dancing to lovely music, and it’s father-daughter all the way.  He’s warm and paternal, and she’s slowly, beautifully becoming an incurable daddy’s girl.  I love it.