In the effort to both be able to play video games while churning out columns, I’ve combined my Sunday Twitch streams and some of my old columns into something entirely new. I can’t call this a pilot because I have at least 15 audio-only Geekly Speaking About… episodes which I hope I’ll have the time to convert to a new embedding format, but I hope you enjoy this new column which was supposed to go up last Thursday but I ran out of time. (Thank goodness for the ability to change publishing and posting dates.)
And now for the show notes!
0:01 – Vidcast Begins
2:43 – My Introduction to the Works of Gilbert & Sullivan
17:31 – An Aside on Draenor/Outland Geography
20:02 – Talkin’ ’bout Princess Ida
We’re pleased and proud to announce the debut of our new podcast/vidcast/streaming show/video magazine. Depending on how many spoons I have during the weekend, you should expect either this show or a vidcast version of “Geekly Speaking About” to show up here on the blog every Thursday morning, following a live stream on our Twitch channel called geekingoutabout. You can watch it here and then click the link to read the show notes.
0:01 – VidCast Begins
2:38 – Introducing the New Format
12:18 – This Week on MoonGuard
20:50 – Restarting the Boss Fight
23:43 – A Musical Interlude
27:56 – WoW Women
35:24 – A Great Blizzard of 2018
I hope you enjoyed watching this as much as I enjoyed making it and I hope to see you live this coming Sunday morning on April 22.
Too Early for Streaming is a video-cast (aka vidcast) where no topics are too sacred to be discussed in depth. Trisha Lynn is a presenter and a woman who is strong and good-looking and an average gamer.
An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss and Paul & Storm
November 14, 2013
Amsterdam Bar and Hall
Saint Paul, MN
Performed by Patrick Rothfuss, Paul and Storm
When we moved to Minnesota this year, my husband and I made a deal with each other: If there was a live event that sounded interesting and the ticket price was reasonable, we’d try to go. After all, what better way is there to learn how to navigate your new metro area than attending great shows in great venues?
Both individually and together, we’ve seen musical comedy duo Paul and Storm perform many times, and they always put on a good show. Money’s been a little problematic for us recently, though, so I made a decree that if we were going to see them perform again, there would have to be a real good and compelling reason. So when we learned that the next leg of their shows would not only swing through the Midwest but also bring fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss along for the ride, we snapped up the tickets quicker than you could say, “When’s Book Three coming out?”
This is not because we’re particularly strong Rothfuss fans. In fact, until that night, we’d never bought any of his books before. However, judging from the set that he did at w00tstock 5.0 this year, I knew that I’d love to hear what Rothfuss could do with a smaller audience and whether or not he’d be reading snippets from the new book. (A person can always dream!)
Suffice to say, neither my husband nor I were disappointed.
The show was at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall in St. Paul and if you’re driving, I have to strongly urge you to take the B stairs or elevator down from the ramp to street level. When you exit the elevator vestibule, the “red doors” of the Bar and Hall will be directly in front of you and you can go right inside. Getting our Will Call tickets at the box office was painless, and once we had our wristbands showing that we were old enough to drink, we sauntered inside.
For this show, seating was ample and came in two varieties: many rows of chairs for those who had already eaten and wanted to sit closer to the stage, tables and chairs for those people who hadn’t and were okay sitting further back. Because we liked the look of the bar menu, we chose to sit near the back and eat before the show started at 7:00 pm. The food was Dutch-themed “pub grub” and went down easily with our drinks, all of which were reasonably priced. In fact, my husband liked the look of the cocktail menu so much that he had a second drink after his first stout, something he normally doesn’t do. The service was quick, our waitress was friendly, and the food was pretty delicious. We were able to finish everything, including dessert, before the show started.
Paul and Storm performed first, starting with “Opening Band,” a song which they will probably be performing first at every show they do for the rest of their lives. The rest of the set list consisted of a mix of old songs and new songs, the latter of which will be appearing on their next album Ball Pit, for which their Kickstarter campaign was recently approved and already funded more than twice over after only about a week. Of these, I believe I liked and laughed at “Right Here With You” the most due to the chorus. Between songs, they did a quick poll of the audience to see who among them had seen their act before, and very many people in the audience had not. This meant that their older songs got a lot of wonderful and healthy reactions; this further intensified my enjoyment of hearing them played live again because I could enjoy hearing other people react to things I’ve already heard several times before. And since Paul and Storm had already identified that the crowd was mostly here to see Rothfuss and were more book nerds than musical comedy nerds, “Write Like the Wind” (link is to the official music video) was a great big hit and was perhaps funnier than the last time I’d heard it live.
Since another show was going to be taking place right after theirs and the concert staff needed to re-purpose the space, there was no intermission between Paul and Storm’s set and Patrick Rothfuss’; the performers acknowledged it by stating that if anyone needed to get up to use the bathroom, they wouldn’t point and laugh. I chose to make my break during “Nun Fight,” and I’m totally okay with my choice because Paul and Storm’s introduction to the song wasn’t as luxurious as it has been in other shows I’ve seen of theirs. This was probably the biggest drawback to the show, but probably something they couldn’t have avoided unless they could have started the show earlier. The closing number was “Irish Drinking Song,” not to be confused with “Another Irish Drinking Song,” the Da Vinci’s Notebook track which was featured on in the movie Despicable Me 2. With this number, I suspect that they may be trying to create another “Captain’s Wife’s Lament”-style experience with which they can end their shows. Where I was sitting in the audience, I couldn’t tell if many people were singing along with the chorus; perhaps this song would have played better with a different crowd or maybe I was just sitting too far back.
Paul and Storm then introduced Patrick Rothfuss, who kicked off his set by explaining first the story behind a very non-children’s book-style book he wrote called “The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed” and then reading it aloud while the illustrations were projected onto a screen. Since I’d seen him perform this during his w00tstock 5.0 set, I relished in the fact that I knew what was coming and my husband and some of the audience members didn’t; this made the progress through all three endings and the coda all that much more delicious. Rothfuss followed this reading by reading out loud some old advice columns he had written for his college paper, both of which went over well and had me doubled over in laughter.
He also took some questions from the audience towards the end of his set. It was perhaps this last bit that went over the least successfully with the crowd as the questions from the audience couldn’t be heard by anyone in the back and Rothfuss didn’t repeat the question for the rest of the audience before answering it. This could have been avoided by having a volunteer merch minion take one of the stage microphones and stand in the audience near the front of the stage so that people could line up and ask questions convention-panel time; then again perhaps there weren’t enough monitors on the stage available for Rothfuss to be able to hear questions being asked through a microphone.
Perhaps the most personal Rothfuss became during the Q & A was also my favorite moment. An audience member asked a question, to which his answer was something like, “Yes, thank you, my therapy sessions are going very well.” Rothfuss went on to explain that after achieving success with his first novel The Name of the Wind, the amount of stress and pressure in his life to continue to succeed and support the charity he founded and the people who work for him almost ruined his relationship with his long-time partner and other friends. He explained that being a Midwesterner, the idea of even going to therapy was antithetical to him as he came from generations of farmers who are used to fixing all of their own problems by themselves; the idea of getting professional help for your feelings was something he resisted for a very long time. However, once he understood the need for it, Rothfuss was able to see why learning about how his brain processed his feelings was important and that the year or so he’s had of therapy has really helped him. This was something I could relate to a lot, having gone through several years of therapy myself; I hope more people (ahem, Mike Krahulik) can take his words to heart.
Listening to Rothfus speak, I could tell that he was a great storyteller, but he’s got a long way and many more public appearances to go before his “patter” becomes as polished as someone like John Scalzi’s or John Green’s. There were times where he meandered and dithered while deciding which of the old advice columns he was going to read or how he was going to transition from one section of his set to the other. At the same time, his introduction of the Princess story was flawless and he answered all of the audience questions with ease and humor. The more public appearances like this he does, the more comfortable he’ll become with being a performer as well as an author and thus will be able to win over audiences members like me who may have heard of him but have not yet read his work.
Finally at 9:00 pm, it was time for the show closer, “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament,” which Paul and Storm have elevated from being just a simple innuendo-filled sea shanty to being the kind of long-form improv bit that Frank Sinatra only wishes he’d been able to command during the “Rat Pack in Las Vegas” days. Earlier in the show, Rothfuss joked about how proud he was to have been able to play the “X is my Y cover band” game twice during his own set; during “Lament” and with the aid of a beer he drank rapidly, Rothfuss was able to hold his own against Paul and Storm’s constant barrage of puns and jokes. Again, due to the time limit on the set, the short song only lasted 15 minutes, after which there was a healthy bit of applause and everyone ran to the merch booth to buy stuff.
After taking the last bit of cash out of the ATM—thus depriving other show attendees from being able to purchase any of Rothfuss’ merchandise, the proceeds of which were going to Heifer International via his charity Worldbuilders—my husband and I lined up with our two Princess books to be signed. The line formed very quickly and was very orderly, and judging from how long it took each item to be signed, Rothfuss took his time with each fan and even took a picture or two with some fans. As we waited in line, I noticed Paul and Storm at a nearby table chatting with each other or looking around the room or on their phones with no fans around; that’s when it really hit home how much of a Patrick Rothfuss show this was rather than a Paul and Storm show.
After talking to Rothfuss and asking my question, my husband and I went over to talk to Storm to thank him for coming to Minnesota at this cold time of year and to gush about JoCo Cruise Crazy 4, which will be our honeymoon trip next year. Storm’s face lit up when he learned this and we had a great little conversation about what goes into planning a cruise, how they decide what the entertainment will be this year compared to the previous years, how understanding the cruise line has been about the group’s request for a ball pit. This is probably what I like the most about going to see a geek-adjacent live performance: the performers are generally never standoffish and almost always remember that they used to be “regular” geeks as well and treat their fans accordingly.
According to a recent interview, they stated that their next scheduled appearance will at JCCC4 in 2014; the rest of their energies will be put towards finishing up Ball Pit, managing the Kickstarter rewards and JCCC4, and gearing up to tour the nation and promote the album with an ice cream and guacamole food truck in accordance with their biggest stretch goal. I don’t know with whom they’ll be performing or when they’ll be coming back to Minnesota, but you can betcha that I’ll be there.
Anime Fusion 2013
October 18-20, 2013
Bloomington, Minnesota
Ever since I moved to Minneapolis in Minnesota, I have slowly been exploring the geek spaces around me by going to geekish concerts and movie showings. I even have a local gaming store which is three or four blocks away from me where I play in a weekly role playing game campaign and where I’ve begun playing more Magic: the Gathering.
However, when it came to conventions, I just didn’t have the time or the money to attend any this summer, including gaming convention Con of the North in the late winter, Anime Detour in the spring, science fiction convention CONvergence in the summer, or any number of larger group gatherings that take place in and around the Twin Cities.
All of that changed when I noticed from a Facebook post that voice actor (and friend) Taliesen Jaffe was going to be attending Anime Fusion in the nearby suburb of Bloomington, home to the Mall of America. The convention was taking place the weekend after my wedding celebration, so I thought it was a perfect time to get myself back out there and to attend my first anime convention since 2008.
The first thing I’ll say about Anime Fusion is that it was very easy to find walk-in registration information on its website and that for a Saturday pass, the price was very reasonable. Their harassment policy was also easy to find on their FAQs and Policies page, as was the hotel location information and full convention schedule. When you’re deciding to attend a local convention at the last minute, it’s important that all of this information is easy to find because you could just as easily stay home if you can’t find the information you need.
Because I know the area around the Mall of America well, I decided to arrive around 1:00 pm because I wanted to pick up some fast-food to have for lunch on the way down. The problem is that there aren’t any fast food places around that aren’t inside the mall and I also know that hotel concessions are often pretty costly. Later, I would inwardly congratulate myself on my decision when I encountered two attendees who were pouring through a phone book, looking for a nearby restaurant which delivered to the hotel because they’d traveled to the convention by bus and didn’t want to pay for the hotel concessions.
When I entered the hotel lobby, there was an ample amount of signage directing me to the walk-up registration desk. The actual registration didn’t take very long because there were few walk-ins, but waiting for a receipt for my cash transaction took a bit longer as the person assisting me didn’t know how to generate a receipt and the person who did was helping someone else find their pre-registration information in their database. However, once that person became free, generating the receipt was as easy as a few taps on the iPhone with credit card reader dedicated to the task and within minutes, the receipt was in my Inbox.
While I was waiting, I asked some basic questions and learned that Anime Fusion was in its second year and were anticipating that this year, they’d have about 1,000 attendees over the 850 they had last year. I also noticed that for a smaller convention, there were more people in cosplay than I expected, mostly from shows or fandoms that I’m not a part of like Homestuck and “My Little Pony.”
Due to the hotel, the layout of the convention was also something I’ve never encountered before. All of the meeting rooms were located on the second floor, which can be typical. What isn’t typical is that there are also guest rooms on the second floor along long hallways that connected the board gaming, con hospitality suite, and convention operations room to the CCG area and circling back around to the Main Programming and panel rooms and the Dealers Room and Artist Alley in a sort of triangular formation.
Merchandise on display from local guests Studio O.N.Y.
And speaking of the Dealers Room and Artist Alley, the two were combined into one room with one half dedicated to the Dealers and the other half to the Artists. I thought this was a great way of creating a bigger commercial space without slighting either the Dealers or the Artists with placement concerns. There was also a great selection of vendors on both sides and I didn’t feel as if there was too much of one kind of merchandise or too little of another.
While buying some random Magic cards, I had a great conversation with two vendors from Source Comics and Games who let me know about other good conventions in my new convention metro area, which apparently extends west to east from South Dakota to Wisconsin, south as far as Iowa and part of Illinois, and even north to conventions in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They reported that business was pretty good for them with this convention and they were likely to return for the next one.
A badass Rumpelstiltskin from “Once Upon a Time.”
In the Artist Alley, I found that there were more male than female artists, a fact that gratifies my little feminist heart. Many of them had buttons and other crafts for display along with their portfolios; several were even working on commissions at their tables. One of the best moments was when one of the artists squealed over seeing someone in cosplay. The outfit looked familiar to me, and I ended up squealing as well when I learned that she was cosplaying as Rumpelstiltskin from “Once Upon a Time.” As this is a show that I’ve recently gotten into, we had a great time talking about the series and its characters.
As I walked along the Alley, I picked up several business cards from local artists with whom I’d like to work, craft artisans whose work I’d like commission, and other stores whose merchandise was gorgeous but out of my price range for the day. I was very impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of everyone I met and they all treated me well, even if it didn’t look like I was interested in their wares.
Once I’d finished touring the room, I wandered along the hallway with the panel rooms, noting the location of the two panels featuring Jaffe later that day and their relative locations. Unfortunately, none of the panels going on at the time appealed to me, so I walked along the hallway until I found the con hospitality suite. The idea of a con hospitality suite is somewhat new to me because even if they had them, I don’t recall seeing one at the California or East Coast conventions I attended or for which I volunteered.
At the con suite, they were dishing out white rice and offering instant oatmeal and in the room next door, they’d set up tables and seasonings for the rice. The room had several occupants and conversations were lively. Opposite the hospitality suite was the convention operations room, and just as I glanced through the open doors, I noticed Jaffe standing there with Josh Grelle, another voice actor guest.
I went over to briefly say hello and to let Jaffe know that I’d be seeing him during his panels later that day. At the same time, I overheard that Jaffe and Grelle were going to be off-site for a bit as the hotel’s kitchen had closed for the time being and neither had eaten lunch due to being at an autograph session which had started at noon. Speaking as a former guest relations coordinator, I don’t know if that was an error on the hotel’s part for not anticipating the demand for concessions or the convention’s for not knowing that the hotel regularly closes their kitchen for service at that time on weekends and having a contingency plan in place other than taking them off-site for a meal.
Jaffe also would later tell me that the programming department had made much use of his time while he was at the convention and that every day he was rather busy. Both of us also remarked that it was an excellent idea for there to be a 30 minute space before and after each panel taking place in the same room, to allow for speakers who want to go “over” an hour’s worth of time and/or for a panelist to use the facilities between two panels in different rooms.
Since there was over an hour left before the Voice Actor Q & A panel started, I wound my way along the hallways to the board gaming room where I found a group deep into a session of Arkham Horror. I was pleased to be asked to join them, but as I really only had an hour or so of time before the panel started, I knew that I couldn’t play with the group and expect to finish the game. As I looked over the selection, another attendee named William expressed interest in playing a game; we eventually settled on Munchkin using a very large amount of cards from various standard sets, two official level die, and the official Run Away die.
It took a while for us to get going, but since I decided to become a Halfling early in the game, I was able to sell Treasures for levels and get to 9 rather quickly. William took a little longer to get to level 9, and for a while it was touch and go as to who would win. I even forgot that I couldn’t sell Treasures or use auto-level cards and claimed an early victory, but William quickly disabused me of that notion. Instead, I attempted to fight a monster that was Level 18, but using his Transference Potion, he stole the monster from me, easily defeated it, and won the game. I love it when Munchkin games come down to the wire like that.
Who wouldn’t want to attend a panel featuring this handsome guy?
By this time, it was about time for me to make my way back to Main Programming for the panel. One thing I noticed when I got there was that some chairs had placards on them noting that they were reserved for specific attendees. I can only imagine that this was a VIP-level perk for sponsors-attendees and I have to say that it’s a very clever idea that could work for other conventions of this size up to the 5,000-attendee conventions. I found a seat in the second row and settled in to wait. At one point, two of the other guests came in with two beautiful Akita dogs for their panel about the breed and their history in Japan; unfortunately, they’d gotten the room wrong and had to leave, taking the beautiful dogs with them.
Finally, all of the panelists arrived and the panel began with Grelle, Jaffe, and Petrea Burchard introducing themselves. It took me a while to recognize Burchard as the voice of Ryoko from the Tenchi Muyo franchise; when I realized who she was, I could then totally hear Ryoko in her voice.
Since I’ve been attending anime cons and voice actor panels in particular since 2000, I idly sent out this message on Twitter:
Sitting in the audience of my 1st anime con panel since 2008. Shame I didn’t write up the drinking game.
— Trisha Lynn (@trishalynn) October 19, 2013
If I had made up that drinking game, I believe I would have been pretty well-toasted by the middle of the panel because many people asked the same questions that I’ve been hearing at voice actor panels for over a decade. In a way, though, it’s nice to know that there’s still a love and an interest in voice over acting in anime even if subtitled anime is available through legitimate means less than a month after the show is aired in Japan.
Highlights of the panel for me was hearing Josh Grelle’s impression of Vic Mignogna which he had to perform for his role as Kenichi in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple and that Petrea Burchard once worked with Harlan Ellison and Robin Williams while recording a story called “Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” for an NPR serial. Her description of Ellison as an “interesting” man may have been the best example of Minnesota Nice I’ve ever heard by a non-Minnesotan.
After the usual flurry of post-panel autographs, photos, and schedule-checking, Jaffe and I chatted as we walked to his panel room, stopping once to use the bathroom. And since there weren’t many people in the room at the time, we continued to chat about life and business, right up until it was time for his panel to start. It was called “How the $&(@ Did I Get Here?”, and the format was inspired by our mutual friend and frequent anime con guest Jan Scott Frazier.
Just before the panel started, Jaffe showed me a sheaf of 20 typewritten pages and four or five handwritten pages of notes for the panel. What followed was a long but interesting ramble through Jaffe’s youth as a child actor, his years in Japan as a cultural liaison for the CEO of an import/export firm, and how he got into voice acting. Along the way, I learned many new things about my friend that didn’t come up with I interviewed him back in 2002 for Sequential Tart. He even was sidetracked into talking about the Western Expansion into Japan in the 1800s as well as telling the story of Admiral Perry’s “Black Fleet” and cautioned the audience to do some actual book research into the tale rather than relying on Wikipedia for more information.
When the panel was over, Jaffe and the other guests had to part for dinner, and we agreed to meet at the hotel bar when they were done. I left the convention to pick up my husband for dinner, and when we were done, we waited at the hotel bar for Jaffe to arrive.
What followed was a great conversation with an old friend as the three of us talked for a long time about the sad state of feminism in the comic book industry, his involvement in the “Heroes of Cosplay” reality series on the Syfy network, and potential projects that both of us had in the works. Alas, we had to get going so we parted at the bar, and that ended my Anime Fusion attendance for the weekend.
Looking back, if I were someone attending an anime or other genre convention for the first time, I couldn’t recommend a better experience than going to a convention of this size in this kind of area. It was large enough to attract a good variety of vendors and guests, yet small enough to make you feel as if you could reasonably see and do everything you wanted to do on any given day.
For a long-time con goer, though, I don’t know if there’s enough within Anime Fusion yet to make it an addition to a regular yearly convention schedule. The discussion panels that were scheduled for Saturday didn’t seem to pop out at me, and Saturday is traditionally the best programming day of a three-day convention.
You may say that it’s not fair to judge a entire convention by a single day, but I think that if a convention really wants to put its best foot forward, the second day is when they really need to shine. Anime Fusion has the potential to be a really great small or medium-sized con—but they’re not there just yet.
One of my favorite blogs to dip into from time to time is Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Originated by writers Candy Tan and Sarah Wendell, the blog seeks to showcase what’s good, fun, informative, sexy, and surprisingly intelligent about the romance novel industry through their irreverent and occasionally deep book reviews.
Growing up, I loved romance novels. In my parents’ bedroom, half of a shelf was dedicated to Danielle Steel books. These were “forbidden” books so naturally as a teen, I devoured all of them. Once I graduated from college, reading romance novels became something my mom, my sister, and I could talk about—just as long as we didn’t talk too long about the sex scenes, that is.
About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to get back into reading some romance and especially finding a new author to follow as I’d phased out of my Danielle Steele, Fern Michaels, Catherine Coulter, LaVyrle Spencer, Maeve Binchy, Jennifer Crusie phase of reading. And before you ask, even Nora Roberts’ romance novels had been wearing a bit thin. Thankfully, Candy and Sarah have a section on their website devoted to their “best” blog entries, which is how I learned about Loretta Chase. Armed with a new name, some Amazon.com credit, and a visit to the bookstore, I was ready to read.
Two books enter… who will win?
Since it was the top recommendation, I dived into Lord of Scoundrels first. What struck me at first was how important the prologue was to understanding the entire novel and most importantly, creating a wave of sympathy for male lead Sebastian Ballister, the Marquess of Dain, the Earl of Blackmoor—and also an emotionally-abused young boy who grew up to be a rake.
With the prologue establishing a strong motive for Lord Dain’s behavior, Chase fast-forwards a bit in time to switch to the other half of this romantic duo, Miss Jessica Trent. The daughter of a gentleman, her character is firmly established as being a bit eccentric for the Regency era in that she would prefer to become a shopkeeper (an antiques dealer, really) rather than accept any of the numerous marriage proposals she’s been tendered due to the women in her family having a reputation for being fertile. In fact, if there are any problems I have with this book is that Jessica seems too good to be true.
Take this early passage for example, which is a description of Jessica by her brother’s butler:
[Jessica Trent] had inherited her widowed grandmother’s alluring looks: the silken hair nearly blue-black in color, almond-shaped silver-grey eyes, alabaster complexion, and graceful figure—all of which…had proved immune to the ravages of time.
More important…Miss Jessica had inherited her late father’s brains, physical agility, and courage. She could ride, fence, and shoot with the best of them. Actually, when it came to pistols, she was the best of the whole family, and that was saying something. During two brief marriages, her grandmother had borne four sons by her first husband…and two by her second…and daughters and sons alike had bred males in abundance. Yet not a one of those fine fellows could outshoot Miss Jessica.
If a character is too perfect (that is, heading into Mary Sue-ville), I find it hard to like them. When I read a romance novel, I want to believe wholeheartedly that the romance will work out, that the heroine will be able to triumph over her adversaries. In short, I like underdogs in romance; with this setup I found myself gravitating more towards Dain than to Jessica. And in fact, I wonder if that’s what Chase wanted her readers to do: to see the male lead as the “damsel in distress” and the female lead as the perfect lover who will come along and “fix” all of his problems. With that interpretation, Scoundrels becomes a somewhat post-modern romance novel, endearing me to it even more.
When Dain has his big moment of epiphany, it comes naturally because of everything you’ve seen him endure before—especially the slow change of his character from anti-hero to hero due to The Power of Lurrrve™. That he undergoes this change without losing everything that still makes him appealing is also a testament to how well Chase has created him.
Contrariwise, I couldn’t find anything redeeming about either lead character in Your Scandalous Ways. The reason why I purchased it was because I’ve always had a soft spot for hookers with a heart of gold. Upon learning that the lead female was a cortigiana onesta in almost post-Napoleonic Venice in the same vein as Veronica Franco, I had the book in my hand and my credit card in the cashier’s faster than you could say, “Boo.” Unfortunately, I was disappointed to meet Mrs. Francesca Bonnard who was less “classy courtesan” and more “flighty ethical slut.” Not that I have anything against ethical sluts, but dammit, I was expecting a story about an intelligent courtesan!
Francesca’s adversarial lover is Mr. James Cordier, a world-weary spy for the British who has been charged with retrieving important documents from Mrs. Bonnard’s possession. He wants nothing more but to get the mission done and end his spying career in favor of an average life in England; of course, he falls head-over-heels for Francesca for reasons that are never really clearly defined. Despite a rather inventive way of beginning Francesca’s introductory chapter (“Penises. Everywhere.”) I couldn’t find anything interesting enough about her personality or background story to intrigue me. It was worse with James, because just like Jessica Trent, he seemed too perfect.
It’s not just the characters that bother me about Ways either. The central conflict is the cat-and-mouse game between James and Francesca, but the latter isn’t smart enough to realize that James has an ulterior motive in getting to know her until about halfway through the book. When it came time for the final confrontation between Francesca and James on one side and a murderous traitor and his/her lackey, the climax and resolution was brief and predictable that I almost felt as if I’d wished I hadn’t gone to the bother of trying to finish the book.
So, the winner of this battle is Lord of Scoundrels, and if there’s anything that this experience taught me, it’s to make sure I read chapter excerpts before I go trying to read another Loretta Chase book again.
Jill Pantozzi (center) aka The Nerdy Bird and her FemmeDoctor group from NYCC 2011. From l to r: 1st Doctor, 3rd Doctor, 9th Doctor, 4th Doctor, 7th Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 6th Doctor, and Idris aka The Doctors Wife (c) GeekingOutAbout
With the dog days of summer disappearing and the sound of little footsteps running away from school buses, fall is upon us—which means it’s time for another New York City Comic Con.
This year, the event will be held at the Javitz Center from October 11 to October 14 and there are less than 48 hours remaining for you to pre-register and be able to get your pass in the mail. But what if you’re unsure about whether or not you want to go? Luckily, I was able to rescue this podcast from the unknown to bring you a roundtable discussion about what myself, co-editor Jill Pullara, and writers Jonathan Cherlin and Lowell Greenblatt liked and disliked about last year’s event. Show notes, as usual, are after the jump.
As a tiny little note, you’re going to hear some loud knocking every now and then when people are speaking. That’s just us banging on the table for emphasis… right next to where I just happened to place my recorder.
Definitely not a new thing, resources for people who’d like to add more games and video games to their public and/or school libraries can check out the archives of the Games in Libraries podcast or read up on International Games Day @ Your Library, sponsored by the American Library Association, which will be on Saturday, November 3.
For your amusement (and with the formatting broken), here’s the last con report I ever did of San Diego Comic Con, from 10 years ago, back when I was writing for Sequential Tart.com. Also, belated apologies for attending the con with strep throat. I know better than to do that now. My favorite memory from the con was immortalized by Lea Hernandez in a “Near Life Experience” strip, of which I bought the original when she rediscovered it after her terrible house fire in 2006.
When I asked her to clarify her remarks about cosplayers, Jill wrote, “My annoyance at NYCC was that cosplayers take up so much space and, honestly, a lot were half assed and done by attention seekers (well the ones I saw. The ones who looked a bit sad until someone wanted to take a picture with them). They would take pictures in the middle of a crowded walkway, walk side by side slowly like tourists down 14th Street! I didn’t experience that at PAX East. I’m sure there was more cosplay than I’m remembering, and I often speak in hyperbole, but I didn’t experience anywhere near the amount of annoyance and frustration from simply trying to walk down an aisle as I did at NYCC.”
No, you’re not going crazy. At one point, we did have a podcast where Jonathan talked about the changes in the voice cast for the Silent Hill 2 high-definition remake which was released in March 2012; however, that podcast is still lounging around on my hard drive. One more thing to add to the list…
Eventually, Lowell was successful, and you can read his interview with both of the guys from Kirby Krackle here. No rock stars were harmed in the obtaining of this interview.
Karl Custer, aka Uncle Yo, has been doing the rounds of the anime con circut as a “comedian for geeks” since 2008. I personally love his stuff, but geeks who are casual about their anime love might not get some of his material. You know what I would love to see? Uncle Yo opening for the Nerdist himself, Chris Hardwick someday.
While the first part of my “Voices from New York Comic Con” series was posted not long after the show, I’ll be posting the first half hopefully not too long after this podcast goes up to whet your appetite for the 2012 show in October.
Originally debuting at the 2011 PAX Prime convention, here’s a look at the development and design of Siege of Gardmore Abbey with its author, Steve Townshend.
If you don’t know what Jill means by the adjective phrase “Chris Perkins-awesome,” you have to watch this collection of videos I’ve saved onto my YouTube account; thus, will you know the fullest extent of its meaning and become an adherent for life.
I was glad not to miss the Womanthology panel, as I was able to record nearly all of it for you. As for the anthology itself, it’s currently available from Amazon (somereviewshere) or you might want to brave your local comics shop and see if they’ll order it for you. (If they don’t, then they’re a terrible shop, and you should find one that will!)
And as for the Womanthology brand itself, IDW Publishing announced at WonderCon in March that it will be releasing a five-issue miniseries called “Womanthology: Space,” featuring creators such as Fiona Staples, Blair Butler, Jessica Hickman, Bonnie Burton, Ming Doyle, and Stacie Ponder.
Manufactured by Samsung
Operating System by Google
While you’re reading this, you are probably sitting at your computer desk, a half-finished drink at your side. Or maybe you’re in a car or on a bus or another wheeled vehicle, your smartphone or your tablet in one hand. And you’d think that was pretty amazing, right? Imagine how I feel as I type this, approximately 37,000 feet in the air somewhere over Wayne, South Dakota.
I’m able to perform what Stephen King called one of the best magic tricks in the world thanks to Virgin America and their partnership with Google and Gogo, wherein if you check out a Chromebook at a select airport and are going to another participating airport, you can use their in-flight wireless Internet for free while you test-drive their product. It’s an ingenious bit of marketing, mostly because everyone likes free Internet, right?
Hit the website above to look at the technical specs or even this Engadget review if you want to get down to the nitty gritty. What I’d like to talk about is how this mini-laptop or maxi-netbook feels to use on a plane and whether or not it’s worth it.
First off, I’m lucky to be sitting near the window with someone I know next to me because the only way I’m able to type as fast as I normally do without jamming my seatmate in the elbow is by putting the ‘book on one side of the fold-down tray. However this did also mean that my seatmate had to type on his full-sized laptop with his elbow in the air. I’m also having a problem with the size of the text on the screen in the Chrome browser. Even after I just changed the settings, only one of the tabs I had open had the font at a readable size; the rest were at their default. Changing the Search button into a Capslock button takes some fooling around with the settings, but its doable; meanwhile, there is no Delete or Home key.
We were asked not to look at streaming video on the flight, so I didn’t get a chance to test out how it felt watching a movie or some YouTube clips. However, I’m pleased to note that even with some pausing to eat a bit, I still have about 71% of a battery left and there’s perhaps an hour or two left in my flight to New York City.
The Bottom Line: If I had $500 to spend and I wanted something that was easy to carry around for casual browsing and long plane trips or subway trips, would I get a Chromebook? Probably not; having also played with a first-generation iPad while waiting for this very flight, I think I liked how easy it was to use and change its readability settings than this ‘book. But I’m sure that there’s someone else out there who’ll appreciate this machine.
[Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Lauren at Kid Champ for letting me borrow her “Thundertome” idea for this review series. – TL]
When I first got my Android-enabled phone, I searched for something to read on it during a long 45 minute subway commute. A Google search for “free ebooks” took me to Google Books and their app, and I downloaded two books by Jane Austen, one I’d never read before (Sense and Sensibility), and one I’ve read so very many times over the years: Pride and Prejudice.
The first time I read Pride and Prejudice was outside of a school context, and while the text was somewhat unwieldy to me, I really loved the story of these two mismatched lovers who have to get over themselves before they can really appreciate each other and fall in love. Over the years, I’ve read the book hundreds of times, and I was looking forward to reading it all over again. As I turned the pages on the touch screen with my thumbs, the finer details of the story sunk deeper into my brain and I began to gain a new appreciation for the story. Which, of course, lead to my next thought: How can I read more?
The great thing for fan-fiction authors about Jane Austen’s novels is that they’re currently in the public domain, which means that anyone can take her setting, characters, stories, add on to the story, and actually stand a reasonable chance of having it published by a reputable publishing house. There have been versions where the characters are dealing with a zombie apocalypse, a continuation that features a lot of Regency-era sex, and even one where Mrs. Bennett is a stereotypical Jewish mother.
However, I wasn’t interested in any of those, not yet at least. I wanted to read something as historically accurate as possible,and as true to the original characters as one could get without hijacking Austen using a time machine. After reading lots of reviews, I finally settled on two Kindle books, which I quickly purchased and started reading the next day:
Two books enter, who will win…?
I read Assembly first because the premise intrigued me more. As a female writer, I have problems with writing from a male perspective and I really applaud those writers who are great at writing characters who are an opposite gender. I really wanted to see how Aidan portrayed Mr. Darcy’s internal conflict over his growing feelings for Elizabeth, as Austen herself only writes near the beginning of Chapter 12, “She attracted him more than he liked.”
In Aidan’s book, Darcy is properly the cold and frosty gentleman that Austen shows him to be, and she even adds a hint of crushing superiority, as seen in this description of the attendees of the assembly:
There was no beauty, conversation, or fashion to be found in the entire room save among those with whom he had arrived. Rather, he was surrounded by the common, the dull, and the trite, that class of the barely gentrified whose idea of conversation was no more than gossip — and that of the vulgar sort of which he was the current object. Darcy could not help but compare his present circumstance with the last time he had been to Tattersall’s in search of a suitable new Thoroughbred stallion for his brood mares. Then and there, he privately vowed to purchase no more horseflesh at auction.
She also explains his friendship with Mr. Bingley by introducing the idea that they met after Darcy overheard some men at his gentleman’s club planning a cruel joke on Bingley; their friendship sprang out of Bingley’s true good nature. There’s also the idea that Darcy sees himself as Bingley’s mentor; this is borne out by some great scenes later in the novel where the two are in the gentleman’s parlor at Netherfield and the former is passing along all the stewardship lessons that his father taught him.
I also can find nothing out of tune with Austen’s novel in how Aidan characterizes Darcy’s relationship with his sister or his opinions of Miss Bingley’s marriage designs on him (though she doesn’t comment on the fact that Austen makes it clear that Darcy wanted Bingley to marry Georgiana). Some of my favorite parts of the beginning of this novel involve Darcy’s internal monologue, as in this passage where he’s trying to figure out more of Elizabeth’s personality:
No, Miss Elizabeth Bennet was not impressed with the London sophistication of Miss Bingley or Mrs. Hurst, nor did she appear to feel the necessity of inveigling her way into Caroline’s good graces, as most of her neighbors were doing this very moment [while paying their social calls]. Instead, thought Darcy with dawning comprehension, she found Miss Bingley’s manner objectionable! Far from cultivating her, she had, by the drollery in her eyes, assigned her a place among the ridiculous, as one might do with an amusing but slightly mad relation. Having satisfied himself on what Miss Elizabeth Bennet was about, Darcy found the discovery to have engendered two equal and opposite emotions, which struggled manfully in his breast. The first was to stiffen in indignation at the impertinence of the lady in judging her betters. The second was an impulse to laugh in agreement with her assessment. A twinkle had almost reached Darcy’s eye when he was struck with the remembrance that Miss Bingley was not the only resident of Netherfield who amused Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The twinkle was ruthlessly suppressed as he considered again her manner toward himself.
His further thoughts lead him to conclude that Elizabeth overheard his infamous “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” remark, and his response to it is to think of it as a challenge:
If she had chosen to sulk, he would be bound [to apologize], but as it was, she had elected to draw swords. Darcy looked up again and found Elizabeth Bennet at the side of her elder sister, both of them looking at a portfolio of Miss Bingley’s latest sketches. A bold move! He smiled to himself. I understand you now, but I fear you are not up to weight if you think to play that game with me! The smile was now accompanied by a satirical eye as he bent to the task of discovering more fully his adversary’s qualities.
I think that this interpretation of how Darcy found himself thinking more about Elizabeth concurs nicely with the original Elizabeth-spoken interpretation:
The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.
With this basis in place, the rest of the novel proceeds extraordinarily well, right up until Darcy and Bingley’s departure from Netherfield in Chapter 11—and where almost everything in Assembly falls apart. The inclusion of the character of Fletcher as Darcy’s valet was cute in Netherfield, but becomes a bit too much to deal with in these chapters as he takes a more prominent position in the narrative. And while I rather like the introduction of additional characters in the form of Darcy’s secretary Mr. Hinchcliffe and Darcy’s friend from university Lord Brougham, I felt betrayed by Aidan when she decided to mix in historical figures like Beau Brummell (and turn him into a more frightening Tim Gunn) and allude to the political climate of the day with the mentions of people like Viscount Castlereagh and George Canning, thus tempering my love for this book into a conditional acceptance. To me, even though we know that the book takes place during the Regency period, there’s something wrong with knowing more details about what year, and even though to be involved with or at least knowledgeable about such political affairs would be within the purview of a gentleman such as Mr. Darcy, it goes against so much of what I love about Austen’s work in that it’s timeless and apolitical.
There are two more novels in Aidan’s Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy, the second of which takes place entirely before his visit to his aunt in Rosings Park. In contrast, Simonsen’s A Wife for Mr. Darcy takes place in one book, and due to its premise, the events are different. My reading of the novel started well enough, beginning with a private apology from Darcy to Elizabeth Bennet for his uncouth remarks at the Meryton assembly. Simonsen skillfully interweaves lines from some of Darcy’s later speeches into the their little tête-à-tête, and the result is near-seamless and amusing:
“Your apology is accepted, Mr. Darcy. I appreciate that you took the trouble to come to tell me in person that I am more than tolerable,” Lizzy said, half laughing at his clumsy effort to repair any damage resulting from his comment.
Darcy winced at her response. “I can assure you that I find you to be much more than tolerable, Miss Elizabeth. You are a very handsome woman, and I might have had an opportunity to express such a sentiment if I had sought an introduction. However, I do not have the talent of conversing easily with those whom I have never seen before. I cannot appear to be interested in their concerns as others do, and I find I have little patience for the type of discourse one hears at these dances.”
“What type of discourse is that, Mr. Darcy?”
“The usual banter about weather and roads and other such things that are of little interest to me,” and leaning forward in his chair, he continued, “Whether it be Meryton or London, I hear the same conversations. A lady will comment on the number of couples in attendance at a dance, and the gentleman will respond by mentioning the size of the ballroom. And what, pray tell, do we learn from that exchange? One party is good with measurements, and the other can count.”
Simonsen also acknowledges Austen’s reasons why Darcy would be impressed by Elizabeth, and the scenes between him and Elizabeth when they meet again at the Lucas residence seem almost perfunctory. It isn’t until the Chapter 3 when everything goes completely off the rails with the introduction of Simonsen’s Georgiana Darcy. I couldn’t put my finger on what it is I didn’t like about her, and then it hit me during this exchange in Chapter 7, when she decides to attend the ball at Netherfield:
Georgiana, whose clothes were made by the finest dressmakers in London, laughed. “I am going to Netherfield for the purpose of attending a ball, not to shop in Meryton.”
“Forgive me. I am tired. As an aside, you may be interested to know that after the ball, Louisa and Caroline will return to town, and Mrs. Crenshaw will come to keep house for Bingley.”
“Mrs. Crenshaw and her little band of ruffians! The same ones who put mud in my riding boots? I am convinced that it was Athena who actually did the deed, but she was put up to it by those monster brothers of hers.”
“I can easily believe it. When Bingley leased the house in Surrey, I saw Athena throwing rocks at the ducks. For such a little girl, she was remarkably accurate.”
“Why does Charles put up with their obnoxious behavior?”
“He finds them spirited.”
“Spirited! If they were in my care, I would spirit them away to the nearest woodshed for a proper whipping.”
It was not long after this that I stopped reading the book and I haven’t been convinced I should return to it any time soon, as this goes completely against Austen’s description of Georgiana Darcy (through Elizabeth’s eyes): “Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much relieved by discerning such different feelings.” (Translation: Georgiana is not nearly as outspoken as Darcy is.)
In writing this article, I’ve skipped ahead in A Wife for Mr. Darcy as well, just to be sure that I’m giving Simonsen and her novel a fair shake, and encountered more of what turned me off: allusions to the then-current political climate, breaches in etiquette and conduct during Elizabeth and the Gardiner’s visits to Pemberley. The final straw came in the form of this line of internal monologue when Darcy confronts Lydia about George Wickham: “Grabbing a wooden chair from the hallway, Darcy brought it into the room and sat opposite to Lydia, and he thought what a little shit she was [emphasis mine].” If I could get a refund on a Kindle book, I would.
So congratulations go to Pamela Aidan for this victory over Mary Lydon Simonsen in the world of Pride & Prejudice published fan fiction. And now I’m off to research how to remove and scrub a Kindle book from your library.
There are a lot of things that can make me cry while watching a movie. When I saw Return of the Jedi for the first time in the theaters, the climactic battle between the Ewoks and the Imperial soldiers traumatized me because the little innocent fuzzy creatures who didn’t really undertand about war were dying. (Of course as an adult, I have to wonder exactly what that very large net was supposed to catch, and what the Ewoks were gonna do with whatever they usually catch.)
Now that I understand what real pain, heartbreak and loss are, whenever I sense the real thing in a movie, it will instantly reduce me to tears even faster than before. One such moment came early during the preview screening of Life As We Know It, and it affected how I viewed the whole movie.
Directed by TV producer Greg Berlanti (“Everwood,” “Brothers & Sisters,” and “No Ordinary Family,” amongst others), the the plot behind Life is that singletons Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) who were originally set up by their engaged best friends have a hate-hate relationship which begain on that disastrous blind date. Even as we watch them get thrown together at various social gatherings which revolve around Peter and Alison Novak (played by Hayes MacArthur and Christina Hendricks), it’s clear that they will never like each other, and will only tolerate the other’s presence because of the people in their lives that they share.
Of course, all of this changes when the Novaks die in a horrible car accident while they’re on a date and their one-year old daughter Sophie is at home. Now, as the baby’s godparents and her legal guardian, Holly and Messer both have to learn about what it’s like to be parents and perhaps get along a little in the meantime.
For their first time on the big screen, writing partners Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson had their work cut out for them. How do you make a romantic comedy out of a movie which kills two of its more likable cast members to end the first act? How do you portray the loss of two people who were very important to your protagonist characters without wallowing too much into melodrama?
It is in answering this second question that I recognize the veracity of the emotions portrayed in their scripting. The scene I’m speaking of in particular revolves around Holly, who in a panic when Sophie is sick, takes her to the pediatrician, who also happens to be a cute bakery customer of hers. I forget the question he asked, but her response was pretty dead-on (to me, at least) to the amount of pure pain that envelops you when someone you loved is dead.
Her feelings come out in a torrent, overwhelming her and causing her to say things that she probably wouldn’t say in front of someone on whom she wants to impress (which she does). She feels guilt over their deaths, and I sensed some anger that they were dead, and more than a little bit of angst over the fact that she was alive to raise their child and they were not.
Guilt mixed with grief is something with which I’m intimately familiar, and Heigl hit all the notes so well that I found myself welling up with sympathetic pain. And thinking of my deceased friend, I started to attempt to place myself in Holly’s shoes throughout the rest of the movie, and the character never again found those sympathetic notes.
As for Josh Duhamel’s Messer, I found myself siding with him in this battle of the genders, especially towards the end of the movie when he has to make a decision between advancing his career and maintaining his relationships with Sophie and Holly. (If you can’t guess that he eventually repairs those relationships, you probably don’t watch many standard romantic comedies.) That, too, is perhaps the only time I felt a bit of real sympathy for the character because the one time he was allowed to show the same kind of grief as Heigl’s scene in the pediatrician’s office, it was expressed in such a ham-handed way, complete with the “sad piano” in the background to underscore the moment.
I can’t talk about MacArthur and Hendricks as the Novaks because they’re not in the film long enough for me to get a sense of who they were and exactly why they thought that Holly and Messer should get together. (No, I don’t agree with the in-movie reasoning, either.) I can’t talk about Holly and Messer’s other friends because it doesn’t appear as if they have any friends other than their neighbors-with-kidswho are there to act as a funny Greek chorus.
Whatever props I am giving to writers Deitchman and Robinson for including a gay couple raising a child in that Greek chorus due to the fact that Atlanta has the third largest LGBT population in the U.S. is immediately taken away by the fact that for a city whose population is over 55% black, there are no African-Americans amongst Holly and Messer’s friends. Sure, there’s the guy who works for Holly as her sous-chef, but he’s given such little personality that he doesn’t count, and neither does Messer’s African-American cab driver and reluctant nanny.
It’s because of these flaws and the fact that for some reason, I just couldn’t commit to liking either Holly or Messer that I have to say that this was only a mediocre movie, not even worth the amount of time it would take you to download it.
According to Life as We Know It the only times adults should watch “The Wiggles” are when they have kids or are stoned. Maybe even both.
[Editor’s Note: We’re trying something a little new here where more than one person writes a review of a given thing. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. – TL]
The Social Network
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Armie Hammer, and more
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language
Before I write this review, I am obliged to tell you that one of the reasons why I was excited when I first heard about this movie was that Aaron Sorkin (The American President, “The West Wing”) would be writing the screenplay, and that he’d started a Facebook page to do research.
For those who aren’t familiar with Facebook‘s history, the first 20 minutes or so of the movie reveal part of its source via a common story trope, although tweaked a bit for the 21st century. Girl (Rooney Mara) breaks up with Guy (Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg) because he’s a tremendous ass, Guy gets drunk and starts writing computer code, and almost overnight, he has alienated almost everyone on his campus… and planted the seeds for an even greater invention.
Though I am a geek, it is not of the computer science flavor and so a lot of the jargon Zuckerberg threw out as he was drunk-coding went completely over my head. What did ring true for me was that he had been hurt by what he perceived to be an unfairness, and he took it out on innocent bystanders while performing an Allen Ginsberg-like howl into the electronic void on his LiveJournal. And perhaps that blend of new technology with age-old human behavior and conflicts is what makes The Social Network a compelling story.
(In a curious burst of synergy, though there is a Zuckonit user on LiveJournal, the account was created approximately two weeks ago and the journal is devoid of content. That’s a real shame because couldn’t you imagine what fun it would have been to be the PR copywriter assigned to simulate what Zuckerberg’s “real” LiveJournal entries would have been?)
The other curious effect of the story presented in Social Network is that it humanizes Zuckerberg by presenting him as a “sexually insecure computer nerd,” according to The Guardian‘s James Robinson. And perhaps this observation is the direct opposition of what Robinson writes about in the rest of his article which described a growing disillusionment with Zuckerberg’s disregard for privacy, but it’s a testament to Sorkin’s words, Fincher’s direction, and Eisenberg’s acting ability that even when he’s ignoring the safe and sane approach to business espoused by his best friend Eduardo Savarin (played very well by Andrew Garfield) and behaving like the most reprehensible businessman ever, the audience in my preview screening never wanted to see Zuckerberg fail miserably.
The antagonists in this story include twin pretty-boy athletes Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) and computing bad boy entrepreneur Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, in an Oscar-bait worthy performance); it’s Parker who is given the shortest shrift by being portrayed as a paranoid druggie has-been.
As I write this review, I’m struck by the fact that I could talk for ages about how great the dialogue is, how disappointed I was that there weren’t any extensive pedeconferences, how cool the music was (except for the last nightclub scene in California, where it was turned up so loud that you almost couldn’t hear the dialogue–just as it would happen in a real nightclub), and still I really only think this movie was just good, but not great.
I have a suspicion that my ultimate dissatisfaction with this movie is that in attempting to humanize Zuckerberg and create a protagonist whose journey you really wanted to follow, Sorkin pulled a lot of hackneyed ideas out of his overnight bag and sprinkled the film liberally with them. The worst offender is the last scene of the movie which ends with Zuckerberg at his computer all alone… just as he had been when he first began his journey towards being the youngest billionnaire in the world.
And life just isn’t as “neat” as all that.
The Social Network is gathering friends for its U.S. release on October 1. Could you help by going to your nearest theater and purchasing a ticket?
Mao’s Last Dancer
Directed by Bruce Berensford
Starring Chi Cao, Bruce Greenwood, Amanda Schull, Joan Chen and more
Rated PG for a brief violent image, some sensuality, language and incidental smoking
There’s an art involved in adapting a book into a movie. Stray too much from the source material and you run the risk of alienating the audience who already knows the story. At the same time, if you stick too closely to the book’s conventions you may not attract enough of an audience who wouldn’t normally be interested in the original work.
And if the book is based on true events, and is an autobiography to boot? All bets are off.
The plot of Mao’s Last Dancer is based on the autobiography by Chinese-born ballet dancer Li Cunxin, who following in the footsteps of such artists as Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, defected to the U.S. in 1981. However, the story of the movie begins in medias res, with a 20-year old Li stepping foot onto American soil at the beginning of a student exchange program which places him deep in the heart of Texas, with the Houston Ballet.
I was a little confused by the first few opening scenes because it felt to me that perhaps there was a bit too much medias-ing going on as out of the entire entourage who met Li (played by Chi Cao as an adult) at the airport, the only person whose role I was certain of was Bruce Greenwood as Houston Ballet director Ben Stevenson; the other characters felt like random white people to me because I wasn’t certain of their names or connection to Li. Thankfully, names and relationships began solidifying as the story then flashed back to Li’s youth and his introduction to the Beijing Dance Academy (where Li is played first as a child by Wen Bin Huang and then Birmingham Royal Ballet dancer Chengwu Guo as a teen) to help to fill in the pieces we’re missing. These flashbacks are intercut with the action in the present as Li becomes more acclimated to American culture and as his romance with fellow dancer Elizabeth Mackey (played by Amanda Schull, whom you may remember as Jody from Center Stage) deepens, so does his renown with the company and resolve to stay in the U.S.
These true events of which contemporary Houstonians recall with pride took place when I was 4, and it’s something I don’t remember my parents ever speaking about with their adult friends. As a result, I was fascinated with the story of the political drama but found myself most drawn to Li’s transformation from village peasant to into dedicated dancer. It doesn’t hurt that he is inspired by two of his teachers, one of whom inspires by exposing him to contraband film of Baryshnikov’s work and the other who inspires by sparking his sense of pride and duty. You can’t have a biographical dance movie without some sort of training montage, and I hope that I’m not exposing a bias when I say that I’m glad that it looked as serious as the kind of training montage you’d see in a kung fu movie.
Australian director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) and screenwriter Jan Sardi (The Notebook) are to be commended for their adaptation of Cunxin’s book, treating all the major and minor players in this drama with an even hand. Even the Communist Party members who are only toeing the line are depicted fairly and it’s a testament to the strength of the story and the movie that even without clear villains it’s still a story that’s as riveting now as it was back then. Othercritics have complained that there’s not enough political drama, but I really don’t think that was the point of the movie, and especially of a story like this. It’s all about the dancing, and I’m so glad that they spent so much time on that part of Cunxin’s story.
Ultimately, though, the movie does suffer from the same problem that all book adaptations do; even with a 117 minute running time, the movie only skims the surface of what is such an engaging story and narrative that the book was named the “Book of the Year” when it was released in 2003. Still, it’s worth seeing for the great performances and an education in what life was like before you were likely born.
Available in U.S. theaters on August 20, Mao’s Last Dancer is proof-positive that white chicks love a man who can dance. And wear tight tights.
Le Concert
Directed by Radu Mihăileanu
Starring Aleksei Guskov, Mélanie Laurent, Dmitri Nazarov, Miou-Miou and more
On Midsummer Eve, I was walking through a park in Brooklyn with some friends on our way to get some artisanal ice cream. As we neared the park’s exit, the unmistakable sound of a piano wafted towards us in the summer air.
There at the crux of two paths stood an upright piano, and a bushy-haired hipster was coaxing out a very familiar classical tune. No, not Für Elise or the Moonlight Sonata, but Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat (or Op.9 No.2 for the musical geeks). A crowd had formed, and everyone applauded with verve as the final notes died away, the pianist acknowledging the applause briefly before melting back into the crowd. A friend who was visiting from L.A. said later that it had been the fourth time that day he had encountered spontaneous music that day coming from people who weren’t busking.
It’s that idea of making music for the pure joy of making music or the beauty of it that permeates every frame within Le Concert, and I’m afraid that if you don’t understand that, you’re definitely not going to understand or like this movie.
This isn’t to say that only classical music geeks will understand or like this movie. I loved this, and as I’ve mentioned before, the only musical training I’ve ever had is a few 300-level courses as my commuter university over a decade ago. I will say, though, that having maybe just a bit of that knowledge in your background somewhere will definitely help.
Our protagonist is Andreï Filipov (Aleksei Guskov), a former conductor for the Bolshoi Ballet’s orchestra whom after a very humiliating experience at the hands of a Communist Party leader, is forced to endure work as its janitor 30 years later. However, after shamelessly prying into his boss’ fax communications, he gets the wild idea to gather up his old musicians to play one last hurrah at the Théâtre du Châtelet along side a French virtuoso named Anne-Marie Jacquet (Mélanie Laurent, who was last seen as Shoshanna in Inglorious Basterds) with whom he shares a mysterious connection.
There are several things this movie gets right. As a heist film—because they’re stealing the concert away from the real Bolshoi Orchestra—it works because you get to watch the formation of the team and learn what quirky talents they’ll bring to the endeavor. As a music film, it works because there are some scenes here and there where it’s just all about the philosophy behind the art of music. Guskov is so believable in his love of the art that it’s hard not to stand up and shout, “Yes, yes!” as he gives this unforgettable monologue before the climax of the movie. Also, kudos to Guskov and Laurent for all of the non-verbal acting they had to do while the central mystery was revealed in a montage/monologue with a Tchaikovsky concerto playing in the background. Sadly, I’m not musically geeky enough to tell you whether or not any of the music in the climactic scene is any good, but it’s my hope that it is.
As a French farcical comedy, it works because of fantastic performances by the supporting cast, especially Dmitri Nazarov as the the put-upon best friend, Valeriy Barinov as their former manager (who incidentally was the one who doled out the humiliation), and Anna Kamenkova as Andrei’s wife, a crowd-wrangler who gets paid to bring people to political rallies, weddings, and funerals. Special recognition goes to Kamenkova and Guskov for portraying such a wonderful loving married couple as well. Also, as long as I’m handing out kudos, I have to give several to Romanian writer/director Radu Mihaileanu who along with screenwriters Alain-Michel Blanc and Matthew Robbins and original story writers Thierry Degrandi and Hector Cabello Reyes crafted an engaging plot that definitely had its fair share of twists and unexpected turns.
If there are any areas where I did feel uncomfortable about the movie, it was during the scenes where two of the people in the trumpet section skip out on rehearsal to try and make some extra money selling Russian caviar to French bistro chefs. Yes, they’re Jewish and trying to make a buck. Also, there are a few scenes which take place in Gypsy camps where the stereotypes of them being completely uncouth and unethical get played out, mostly for laughs. I’m not sure how to feel about those scenes, though, as two of Mihailenau’s previous films have dealt with an Ethiopian boy who gets sent to Israel as a Jew by his mother in the search for a better life (Live and Become) and the attempt by a group of Jews in a French village to escape a coming Nazi invasion (Train of Life), and it’s not my place to say if it’s prejudicial because I am neither Jewish or a Gypsy. (If it helps, both movies were wellreviewed.)
For all their efforts, Le Concert picked up a Cesar Award in 2010 for Best Sound and Armand Amar picked one up for Best Music Written for a Film, which says to me that the committee in charge of submitting French films for Academy Awards consideration won’t be putting it’s hat into the ring with the more acclaimed A Prophet winning all the awards. Still, if you’re in the mood for a movie about music that’s less sappy than August Rush, you really ought to buy a ticket for Le Concert.
Unrated at the time of this publication, Le Concert is going into limited release in the U.S. on July 23, courtesy of the people at The Weinstein Company always wants to remind you that they’re the guys who unleashed Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith onto the world, dammit, which means we really know our movies—now would someone help us get out of debt, please?
Cyrus
Directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass
Starring John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill Rated R for language and some sexual material
Back when I had a Netflix account, I went on an indie movie-watching spree, and that’s where I encountered the concept behind “actor’s workshop” films for the first time.
For the people who aren’t acting or film geeks, I’ll explain. An actor’s workshop film is one where a bunch of actor who are taking classes together take what they’ve learned and make a movie out of it. The coolest thing, though, is that some of the best actors are always taking classes and workshops to hone their craft even further. Another thing I learned about was the mumblecore movement, wherein production is very low-budget, conversations are improvised, and the focus is on characterization over complicated plots.
Multi-hyphenate brothers Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass, who helped form the latter, seem to have taken the best of what’s cool about an actor’s workshop film, given it a mumblecore feel, and turned it loose into the world.
The plot to Cyrus is pretty simple. John C. Reilly stars as John, a divorcé who never really got out of the depressive funk that drove his now-ex-wife (Catherine Keener) away seven years ago. Strangely enough, they’re still friends—and may possibly also work together—and after she tells him that she’s getting married again, she tries to get him out of his rut by forcing him to go to a party. There he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) who sees something charming in his sad sack and “drunk on Red Bull and vodka” exterior and follows him back to his place.
However, she doesn’t stick around in the morning, but instead leaves him a note. Intrigued but not scared off, John invites her over for a proper first date which is as romantic as it is charming… only to catch her sneaking out of his room at night. Her vague explanation doesn’t satisfy him, so John follows her back to her house where he meets the source of her secrecy: her antagonistic live-at-home 21-year old son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill).
The meat of the story is the interplay between John and Cyrus as the former starts to really suspect there’s something wrong with the latter and his acceptance of the new man in his mother’s life. Any other director or writer would have turned this premise into a horror film (a mirror universe The Stepfather, if you will) or a gigantically broad comedy (Problem Child) but writer/director/producers Jay and Mark Duplass have kept to their ‘core roots by walking that knife’s edge between the extremes.
The audience I was with was completely engaged with this movie and its dark humor, especially during the parts where you’re not really sure if the relationship between Molly and Cyrus is well-meant and completely platonic. In contrast to something lead Geeking Out About movie reviewer Lyssa Spero would say to me after the movie, I think that the choices Reilly and Hill make in their depictions of their characters are spot-on and a great service to the lines as they were conceived and improvised. At the same time, Hill stands up to and stands on his own against the veteran Reilly, and th choices he makes in the confrontational scenes between the two of them are pretty amazing.
I’ll agree with other critics who after this film’s premiere at this year’s Sundance thought that while this was a great film, Marisa Tomei wasn’t given all that much to do. The focus here is between John and Cyrus and to add a little more dimension into Molly’s character would have made this a much longer movie.
I’ll also say that though I do appreciate the lack of steadicam to emphasize the fact that this was a largely improvised film, sometimes it bordered on a parody of the exercise. I will say that I did appreciate the oddly cut romantic monologues, even if Lyssa didn’t.
For being the Duplass brothers’ first mainstream film, this is quite possibly the best way one could have gone about doing it, and much kudos are due their way.
After having opened the BAM CinemaFest on June 9, Cyrus goes into wide release on June 18 in the U.S., September 17 in the U.K., and September 23 in Germany; it must not have been farcical enough for the French.
Open on Sunday
Performed by Paula Carino (vocals, rhythm guitar), Ross Bonadonna (lead guitar, backing vocals), Andy Mattina (bass), Tom Pope (drums)
I’ve spoken at length about how I don’t have the most expansive of musical educations. Sure, I can natter on at length about early female classical composers, but that’s mostly a product of a 300-level Music course I took over decade ago because it satisfied a prerequisite and a university honors slot at the same time.
However, ever since I learned that I inherited my ability to carry a note from my mom and my ability to feel a rhythm from my dad, I’ve loved listening to music and finding those songs which I could sing and dance along with.
And I have the Internet to thank for my most recent find.
It all started when I was browsing Kickstarter.com, a website which gives creative people a little nudge towards helping them fulfill their dreams by making it easy for them to find backers (or angels, as they call them in the theater business).
It was how my former editor Gordon McAlpin was able to raise the funds necessary to leave a full-time job for a few months to finish the art and pages necessary for the completion of the first Multiplex print book.
After I pledged to McAlpin’s project back in October 2009, I started clicking around the site to see what other endeavors there were to be funded and found a project for a former co-worker and singer-songwriter named Paula Carino who wanted to create a physical CD to go along with the digital release of her newest album Open on Sunday.
When I worked with her for over three years at a now-defunct media database company, I knew she was a musician and I knew that she gave concerts every now and then, but I never went to see any of her performances. We’re connected on Facebook now, but it’s just not the same as seeing a person every day to remind someone of their hobbies and talents.
However, I liked her and I thought, “What the hell? It’s $10 bucks, I’m helping someone I like, and I get new music. Why not support her?”
When I finally received my CD, it lay unopened in a desk drawer at work for a very long time and then migrated to my apartment where it lay unopened in my backpack for another long period of time. Finally one weekend, I decided to open it up, pop it into my computer so that I could import it into my iTunes library, and give it a good long listen.
Upon the first notes of “(Mother I Must Go to) Maxwell’s,” I was immediately struck by how bouncy and catchy it was and how strong the narrative was within the song. Carino’s tale of a young impressionable person (I’m assuming it’s a girl because of the repeated pleas to “mother,” but I could be wrong) who wants to break free of his/her suburban life to be free is something that everyone can relate to, even if they never do such a thing in their real life.
As I continued playing the album in order—and then after tranferring it to my iPod, several times on “shuffle”—I decided that I really liked Carino’s work. I’m not going to go through the entire album song by song, but suffice to say that this is one of the few albums where I can say I like every song on it; here are my favorites in addition to “Maxwell’s”:
“Sensitive Skin”: The rhythm behind the opening notes remind me so much of a Latin salsa, even if the narrative in front of it is not. It’s rare to have “indie girl rock” music that you can salsa to, and I really appreciate it.
“With the Bathwater”: I didn’t like this song at first because the speaker sounded so wishy-washy in dealing with her breakup:
Cuz I can’t take the bad with the good
And I can’t love you like I oughta
So I’m throwing my baby out
With the bathwater
(It also makes me wonder if Carino wrote the song as a musical foil to No Doubt’s “Bathwater,” but I’m sure that’s something she can answer if she chooses to read this review.)
But I immediately twigged onto how clever that chorus was in switching up the expectation of rhyming “good” with a word like “should” and the longer I listened to it, the more I realized that even if I didn’t like the narrative, the lyrics were extremely clever and unexpected. It’s one of those good “sing-along” songs where you find yourself humming it when you wake up in the morning.
“Foxhound”: Whenever I hear this song, I think of underground car races for some reason. I have no idea why. I’m also curious as to exactly who this “foxhound” is supposed to be, and if it (or he) is related to Elvis’ and Willie Mae Thornton’s “hounddog.”
“Sir You Have No Bucket”: The reason I liked this song at first is a little juvenile because the title reminded me of the “I haz a bukkit” meme.Yes, I can be such a child sometimes.And yet, when I really took a look at the lyrics, what really stood out to me is that (I think) the song is about the New Testament parable of the Samaritan woman by the well:
Sir, you have no bucket and this well is deep
And still you ask me for water.
Questioning the company that I keep
And leading the witness to slaughter.
and
But I know a spring that never runs out
And flows through everything.
You are a spring that never runs out
And flows through everything.
All of a sudden, my mind is blown because something I’ve been chair-dancing and/or head-bopping along to on the subway is a condensation of a story of forgiveness.
Isn’t reading and listening comprehension great? It also doesn’t hurt my theory that the song right after “Bucket” is called “Road to Hell.”
If I have complaints about Carino’s album it’s that sometimes it’s hard to understand her lyrics because she elides and slurs some words, but I wonder if that’s just a personal problem because I have difficulty understanding most sung (or rapped) lyrics if I’ve never heard or read the song before.
Other than that, I completely and enthusiastically recommend Paula Carino’s work to anyone who likes Dar Williams, Beth Sorrentino, or Deborah Conway.
Paula Carino’s Open on Sunday can be found at the iTunes store or at CDBaby and yes, she has a bucket.
Micmacs à tire-larigot (aka Non-stop madness)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring Dany Boon, André Dussollier, Nicolas Marié, Julie Ferrier, and more
Rated R for some sexuality and brief violence
When I was in the eighth grade, I was given the chance to either take a first year of Spanish at my school or to take a first year in French at the high school across the street from where I lived and where I’d eventually attend.
Impractical youngster that I was in Southern California, I chose French and for five years I was one of the more fluent speakers in my class, going as far as to win the silver medal my senior year of high school at French camp. Those classes were where I first saw or heard of classic French films like Jean de Florette, Le retour de Martin Guerre, and Au revoir les enfants (which apparently was an inspiration for Reservoir Dogs), and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Yes, even Les compères.
Alas, my ear for the language has diminished, but that still doesn’t mean that I’m not about to turn down the chance to see a movie by perhaps one of France’s great directors of the modern era.
Just as in director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s first major hit Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, whimsy abounds in Micmacs in the form of a motley crew of homeless misfits who are tasked by the main character Bazil (played by Dany Boon) to help him seek his justice upon the arms dealers who were responsible for the death of his father and who supplied the bullet which lodged in his brain during a drive-by gone wrong where he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
That there’s a lot of grim scenes depicting the actual shooting or the fact that the first five minutes of the movie start with watching Bazil’s father accidentally trigger a landmine he was tasked to clear could be perhaps a continuation of the themes in A Very Long Engagement.
And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about “Leverage” while watching this movie because what unfolds after we meet the happy band of misfits (including such heavy-weight French and French-speaking actors as Jean-Pierre Marielle, Yolande Moreau, and long-time Jeunet-collaborator Dominique Pinon) is a series of heists featuring cobbled-together tools and a female contortionist.
Of course, each misfit has a quirky note about them that gives them their “speciality” and makes them integral to the smooth workings of the plans. Of course something goes wrong, and the crew has to work together to get Boon back once he’s been captured by the bad guys (who are played with such scene-eating relish by André Dussollier and Nicolas Marié that I feared there wouldn’t be a set left by the end of the movie).
If you’re looking for deep insights into why war exists, you’re not going to find them here. In fact, the movie could almost be a rejection of war, war-mongering, and the industries that help perpetuate the cycles of violence–but that’s just me trying to reach for a deeper meaning in a movie that really doesn’t need one.
I enjoyed every performance greatly, especially lead actor Boon’s. He portrayed well Bazil’s pride upon learning that he’s lost his job and apartment after being in the hospital for so long after the shooting, and I loved watching the bits where he had to do any bit of pantomime. I’ll admit that just like Bazil, I was flummoxed when Julie Ferrier’s tirade came out of the blue, but I don’t think that’s a function of her being a poor actor but perhaps a function of there not being enough room in the script to show her character’s changing feelings towards him.
In short, if you’re looking for a good, satisfying, and fun heist/revenge movie, you should definitely find Micmacs at your local theater.
Micmacs is going into limited release in the U.S. on May 28, but if you’re really that anxious, you could import the R2 DVD and contribute to the French GDP at the same time!
Anime Fusion 2013
[Editor’s Note: We’re trying something a little new here where more than one person writes a review of a given thing. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. – TL]
Mao’s Last Dancer
Le Concert
Cyrus
Open on Sunday
Micmacs à tire-larigot (aka Non-stop madness)