Peak as a Colour

My favourite Guillermo del Toro movie is 2015's Crimson Peak but somehow I'd only seen it once before last night. I remember clearly that day in 2015. I wore my black frock coat with a purple tie and a lavender shirt and saw the movie at Plaza Bonita Mall. It seemed the right attire for this stylishly Victorian film.

I saw Guillermo del Toro promoting the film at Comic Con and he talked about the influences on the plot, the kind of psychological gothic romances that are very visible in the story set in a big, strange house. He also talked about the details he carefully constructed for character backstories and the marvellous house itself. He talked about how the rooms reflected the characters who occupied them. Certainly Jessica Chastain's character, Lucille, has a room that shows her severe, pathological madness, including a drawer where she stashes locks of hair from her victims.

I was reminded of Hitchcock's Notorious and one can certainly also see Rebecca or Suspicion. In terms of visual and sound design, no movie had been so lushly phantasmagoric since Bram Stoker's Dracula. I suspect it was a heavy influence--you can see it in all the iris wipes and the unrestrainedly fantastic horror of the skeletal ghosts.

For people who like this kind of story, the movie's a great slice of cake, though I suppose I can understand why many don't see the appeal. But I like this movie so much better than The Shape of Water, which I don't hate. But Shape of Water seems too dominated by political influence, under which the story of a weird romance gets a little muffled. Crimson Peak is 100% indulgence.

Crimson Peak is available on Netflix in the UK.

Cowbop Beboy

Netflix has released the opening for their upcoming live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop.

The attempt to wed live action with a two dimensional style is strongly reminiscent of Sin City. Sometimes it's really awkward, like the first shot of John Cho smoking, in which it seems like his arm was digitally moved about to fit the timing. Though I'm surprised they're actually portraying him smoking.

The original opening for comparison:

The obvious difference is the lack of the fourth lead in the Netflix trailer, Edward. Edward had previously been announced as appearing in the Netflix series but for some reason Netlix has been coy about her. Her actress hasn't been named and no pictures published.

A lot of negative reaction on the internet has been generated around Faye, played by Daniella Pineda. Despite the costumes on Spike and Jet hewing very close to the anime, Faye's costume is notably more conservative and generic. It covers more of her body and also aesthetically looks more like Guardians of the Galaxy than the tweaked 1950s style of most of the characters in the original series. Pineda added a lot of fuel to the backlash by posting a video in which she mocks the fans for their dislike of her costume as well as mocking the idea that she physically doesn't match the animated Faye in the bust department, something I don't remember seeing anyone complain about.

The fact that the makers of this show and many others feel women need to be more covered now makes me feel more sad than outraged. The change in her aesthetic, though, seems like a sign they really didn't understand what the original series was trying to do.

Recently, more images of the supporting cast were released:

Julia and Vicious, on the top left and right, look pretty much the same as they do in the anime. Ana and Gren, on the bottom left and right, make me think that if I ever need to go into witness protection and look inconspicuous I should hope Netlix wouldn't be in charge of giving me my new look. Ana was an apparently ordinary woman working at a corner drugstore and now she's another badass in a leather coat. Gren was a man whose body started to take on female attributes against his will. He was a saxophone player in a small dive bar and dressed in plain slacks and a button down shirt, unsurprisingly inconspicuous given he lived on a world populated almost entirely by men, and dangerous men. Now it looks like he's a flamboyant cabaret performer, which makes me wonder if they're drastically changing his whole story. This seems like a sign of either the clumsiness of wokeness or a clumsy pretense at wokeness (depending on whether you consider "woke" a good thing). Someone trying to show a more positive portrayal of a transgender character clumsily put one in a more stereotypical role in the process.

I'll certainly be watching this show. But so far the boldest things about it are things it directly copies from the original series, which is not a good sign.

Through Cables and Screens

I finished screening Labyrinth for the kids at school to-day. They seem to like it. One girl actually revealed she'd not only heard of David Bowie but she was more or less pressed into being a fan by her mother and had actually seen Labyrinth before. I don't know how much of her love for Bowie is genuine or if she's just an obedient daughter.

The hard part was upgrading the speakers on the school TV. Apparently a lot of big HD TVs come with really bad sound. Fortunately, there's a Hard Off across from the school--a place that sells a variety of used goods. I got some decent computer speakers for 550 yen (about five dollars). I ordered an adapter off Amazon for another five hundred yen and was able to get them working. All for less than ten dollars.

Next I think I'm going to show the kids Little Shop of Horrors. I'm not sure if I want to show the director's cut or the theatrical cut. Normally I'd automatically go for the director's cut but I was watching it last night and I find the nihilism of that ending less satisfying than the buildup from "Suddenly Seymour" makes me anticipate. Maybe I'll let the students choose.

Audrey's Horns

Episode six of Twin Peaks ends with Cooper coming back to his room to find Audrey naked in his bed. Who wouldn't want that? Even Cooper says, "What I want and what I need are two different things." But I hate how this scene kills their ongoing flirtation for the rest of the series.

Mark Frost sets the scene as a cliffhanger and then Harley Peyton has to run with it in episode seven. I'm not sure who to blame. Frost for making the situation? Peyton could've taken it in another direction. Or maybe not? Obviously Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) couldn't sleep with Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) at this point but it would feel like a cop out if something distracted them and prevented a resolution. Hmm. Yeah, I'll blame Mark Frost.

It also bugs me that the scene ends with Cooper and Audrey about to have a long heart to heart and we never find out what they talked about. Before this, she'd been trying to tell him about how she got a job at Horne's Department Store and after this scene she's still trying to give him the information but still just missing him. If she didn't tell him about that in the heart to heart, what did she talk about?

Otherwise, Audrey's pretty cool in this episode. This is the one where she hides in the closet and watches Battis recruit her coworker, Jenny, for One Eyed Jacks. I love Audrey coolly observing from the closet.

I also kind of like Jenny, this character we meet only once. The first few times you watch this episode, naturally the impressive thing is Audrey getting Blackie's number from Jenny by pretending the very unicorn Battis gave Jenny was another one that Audrey received. But at this point, I also think about the fact that Jenny clearly did not give a shit about the little trinket, yet she poured on that radiant smile when Battis gave it to her. She didn't even roll her eyes when Battis explained what a unicorn is ("Ancient symbol of purity!"). In Twin Peaks, even a random shopgirl isn't what she seems.

This episode also has the famous cherry stem scene when Audrey auditions at the brothel. It is interesting the episode starts with her as a kid, obviously not ready to make decisions about sex, and ends with her presenting the impression of someone worldly and vastly experienced. We get a clear idea of the big trouble she's in. It's no wonder her mind is scrambled in season three. At this crucial point in her youth, when her natural sensuality was expressing itself to be incorporated in a persona, it was practically pinned on a dissection table.

It occurs to me that the scene of Audrey waiting for Cooper in bed is mirrored by the scene of her father approaching her in bed in the season finale. You could interpret this as a contrast between Ben and Cooper and an example of Audrey's need for a stronger father figure. Or you could say that Audrey's method for initiating a sexual encounter actually isn't so different from Ben's. A woman who acted like Audrey did with Cooper and a man who acted like Ben did with Audrey would probably have satisfied each other perfectly, provided they weren't father and daughter. They had two sides of the same idea.

Twitter Sonnet #1477

A secret barrel took the falling leaves.
The autumn scent was bourbon curling up.
On pallid screens the woman boldly grieves.
And so we drink another heavy cup.
A chicken vigil failed before the time.
A second em'rald graced a sleepy day.
Discussions cook the batter deep in lime.
The onion brain contrives a garlic way.
A dunking dream debuted a distant wake.
Awaiting greens the hand was burning red.
We gather here to eat a pumpkin's cake.
There's more in seeds than planters ever said.
The ancient book expands its pages wet.
A running fleet was past the atlas set.

Though He Be Little He Be Boring

I don't usually like to brag, but last night I watched 2005's Chicken Little. I didn't expect it to be so difficult. I knew it wasn't considered one of Disney's best films but I didn't anticipate just how soulless and unimaginative it is. I suppose I could enjoy the lesser Disney films of the '70s a little more because they have the added interest of being from the period. Chicken Little is all too modern and familiar.

Much as Home on the Range imitated the humour of Animaniacs, Chicken Little seems to be chasing The Simpsons and Family Guy with mild absurdism and constant, random pop culture references. The Family Guy influence is probably the reason Adam West is in the film, though, and he's one of the few bright spots.

Playing a beefy, movie star version of the main character, he's paired with some entertaining animation. I like how the animators use his pauses to have the character show his bottom teeth.

This was the first fully cgi movie in Disney's main line of theatrical releases--Dinosaur had used live action backgrounds. But the rendering doesn't look much better than Dinosaur. At least the moral of the story isn't quite so obnoxious as Dinosaur though it did leave me unsatisfied.

Zach Braff gives an adequate performance as the title character, though someone younger would've fit the character design better. The film subverts the original fable by making it so the sky really is falling. The drama revolves around Chicken Little's father, voiced by Garry Marshall in an effectively understated performance, struggling to have faith in his son. This drama almost works but there's too much noise around it to really be coherent.

I think something hewing closer to the original tale might have been bolder and more intelligent. Paranoia and conspiracy theories have become a more and more serious problem. A movie about a kid learning not to blow things out of proportion may've set a good example. I'm not sure it could've saved Chicken Little from being a big turkey, though.

Chicken Little is available on Disney+.

...

This is part of a series of posts I'm writing on the Disney animated canon.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Fantasia
Dumbo
Bambi
Saludos Amigos
The Three Caballeros
Make Mine Music
Fun and Fancy Free
Melody Time
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Cinderella
Alice in Wonderland
Peter Pan
Lady and the Tramp
Sleeping Beauty
101 Dalmatians
The Sword in the Stone
The Jungle Book
The Aristocats
Robin Hood
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The Rescuers
The Fox and the Hound
The Black Cauldron
The Great Mouse Detective
Oliver & Company
The Little Mermaid
The Rescuers Down Under
Beauty and the Beast
Aladdin
The Lion King
Pocahontas
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hercules
Mulan
Tarzan
Fantasia 2000
Dinosaur
The Emperor's New Groove
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Lilo and Stitch
Treasure Planet
Brother Bear
Home on the Range

The Return of Davies

To-day brought some unexpected but very welcome good news--Russell T. Davies is returning as showrunner of Doctor Who after an absence of twelve years. Davies had his flaws and I think Moffat's scripts were more consistent in quality but, compared to Chibnall, Davies is a massive step up. I find myself with a very real hope, for the first time in years, that Doctor Who could be something exciting again. Even if it turns out time has made Davies woke or the BBC will routinely tamper with his scripts he at least has a basic understanding of how to create characters and make them fun and intriguing.

There's no word yet on who Davies will cast as the Fourteenth Doctor. I hope he casts another woman, it would be a real shame if the only female Doctor ended up being one of the worst Doctors in the show's history. Okay, I'll say it, Whittaker has actually been the worst. At this point, it's not an especially controversial opinion. And I agree with most people who say it's not likely Whittaker's fault but the writing. I look forward to her being redeemed in the audio plays much like the Sixth Doctor. It would be cool if they starred in one together titled The Worst Doctors.

So Davies will be in charge for the 60th anniversary special. This in itself is enough to justify the BBC's decision but I think we all know it's about the plummeting ratings. Naturally they'd want to go back to the winning horse. The fact that they're thinking in terms of repairing the franchise likely means they're minimising risk so they might not allow Davies to cast another female Doctor. On the other hand, and this is what I'm hoping, maybe they were forced to give him carte blanche to woo him back.

I suppose the closest Doctor Who has come to something like this was when Robert Holmes came back in the troubles mid-1980s. He delivered The Caves of Androzani, now considered one of the best, if not the best, story in the show's history. Let's hope Russell T. Davies has the same luck.

Privilege or Pain

Three women are confined to a hospital room together, each one dealing with pregnancy, in Ingmar Bergman's 1958 film Brink of Life (Nära livet). Performances are centre stage in this movie which takes place entirely inside a few bland hospital rooms. Eva Dahlbeck, in particular, brings something absolutely devastating to the screen. The whole film is unrelentingly fascinating, though.

The film begins with Cecilia (Ingrid Thulin) who's been brought to the hospital because she's been bleeding. Of the three women, she comes off as the wisest, possibly because of a delirious monologue she has on being brought to the room. She strings together pieces of dialogue from the two or three previous scenes and weaves a perfectly sensible, entirely disoriented, impression of how things stand. The tiniest suggestions of indecision and insecurity have now become the certain omens that predicted her miscarriage, the hints of incompatibility in her marriage now become the undeniable sin for which she must surely now be punished.

There's something religious about it, like a Puritan's or Calvinist's compulsive thoughts on predestination.

Meanwhile, the youngest of the three women, Hjordis (Bibi Andersson), was unhappy with her pregnancy. She's not married to her boyfriend and sees her new child only as a sign of trouble. Her story feels oddly conventional compared to the other two women and she works best just as someone for them to react to.

Stina (Dahlbeck) meanwhile exhibits and extreme, very charming eagerness to have her child. Dahlbeck giggles and speaks rapidly, doing things that might have seemed more at home in a lighthearted comedy. But her performance does a horrific 180 degree turn that is all the more effective for these earlier scenes. I wasn't surprised to find out one of her scenes was censored in Italy.

Brink of Life is available on The Criterion Channel.

Jidai Jedi

The combination of Star Wars with Japanese animation is an idea with so much potential so I was excited when Star Wars: Visions was announced. It premiered yesterday, an anthology of short anime films from some prominent Japanese studios produced for Disney+. The final result is interesting, sometimes quite good, but more often disappointing. For the English voice casts, some relatively big names were recruited, including David Harbour, Lucy Liu, and George Takei. But I only watched a few minutes of the English version before switching to Japanese. As is often the case, the English dub is awkward and unnatural sounding and drastically changes the meaning of the original dialogue.

The best three stories are "The Duel", "The Elder", and "Lop and Ocho". "The Duel" is obviously inspired by Yojimbo but doesn't follow the concept of a ronin playing both sides of warring factions. Instead, a lone warrior fights against an Imperial takeover of a village. It's almost entirely in black and white except the glow of electronics--like lightsabres and droid eyes--are in colour. The hero (Masaki Terasoma) comes off as really cool, using few words and precise attacks. He's intriguingly mysterious and the other characters marvel over the fact that he uses a red lightsabre.

Another story, "The Ninth Jedi" from Production IG, also makes sabre colour a plot point. In this case, a sabre smith creates lightsabres that change colour automatically based on the spiritual alignment of the wielder. This was an idea I really didn't like. The idea of the human soul being reduced to colour codes is even worse than the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system. "The Ninth Jedi" is set some time after Rise of Skywalker and involves the ruler of a planet trying to resurrect the Jedi. The protagonist is the teenage daughter of the sabresmith who, like Rey, is inexplicably expert in lightsabre use the moment she picks one up and is able to deflect blaster fire. Production IG has made some impressive things in the past but I'm used to weak output from them by now. So I wasn't surprised this was a letdown.

I was more surprised by the weakness of "The Twins", which was directed by Kill la Kill and Panty and Stocking director Hiroyuki Imaishi. The story involves two powerful Dark Side Force users, twins, a man and a woman, in command of two Star Destroyers. They're using kyber crystals to combine the two ships into an ultimate weapon but then the brother (Junya Enoki) turns to the Light Side and tries to run away with the crystal. There's an over-the-top and ultimately meaningless fight sequence and I was reminded of the weak last twelve episodes of Kill la Kill instead of the magnificent first twelve episodes.

More than half of the stories involve kyber crystals for some reason, the essential component of all lightsabres. Considering how often crystals factor into anime and Japanese video games, I suppose it makes sense.

"T0-B1" from the studio Science Saru is about a robot boy seeking a kyber crystal so he can become a Jedi. This story is cute but too obviously Astroboy.

I was disappointed by the first Studio Trigger short, "The Twins", but "The Elder", directed by Masahiko Otsuka, is mostly pretty good. A Jedi master, Tajin (Takaya Hashi/David Harbour), and his Padawan, Dan (Yuichi Nakamura/Jordan Fisher), go to investigate reports of a Sith on a remote planet. The relationship between the two men and their personalities are nicely established over the course of the investigation. The story's main idea about the inevitable deterioration that comes with time and age was surprising and very effective in the context. It felt like a genuine moment of mono no aware. The only disappointing part of this one is when one character gets slashed in the gut with a lightsabre and makes a complete recovery shortly thereafter. Nearly every story had one stupid moment where something really amazing and horrifying that happened was immediately softballed in an implausible manner. Disney claims to have been hands-off but this felt like studio interference. At least the women don't look like Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Despite the fact that I don't like the furry aesthetic, I really liked "Lop and Ocho" from Geno Studio. Set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, it involves a very Japanese-looking community on a planet occupied by the Empire. A bunny girl named Lop (Seiran Kobayashi) is a slave of the Empire until she's rescued by the local leader, Yasaburo (Tadahisa Fujimura), and his daughter, Ocho (Risa Shimizu). Seven years pass and Ocho has decided her people must cooperate with the Empire while Yasaburo is still against it. A nice sense of genuine, personally motivated political tension is created, with each side having clear, understandable motives. Stylistically, too, this is one of the nicest looking episodes.

All the stories have good visuals, except maybe "Tatooine Rhapsody".

Twitter Sonnet #1476

The shadow shirt attracts a sudden breeze.
The even heat absorbs a dream of mist.
Reminders float on ships on purple seas.
On lines of green we kept a changing list.
Another hand assists the falling wish.
A probing question bounced an offered truce.
Another hand of cards produced the fish.
We gather late to praise the giant moose.
A speaker jack awaits the mouldy floor.
For heaven's sake, the smaller shoe was laced.
We scratched a music sheet across the door.
The staff are sunk beneath a treble case.
The kyber crystals weigh the painted mind.
A glowing sword destroyed a melon rind.

Sometimes You Just Get lucky

Guess what! Showtime is streaming on Amazon Prime for 99 cents a month in September and October. Even I can afford that. They have Vertigo, Twin Peaks (the original and The Return), Mulholland Drive, Rear Window, The Birds, and many other things. And, since it's through Amazon Prime, it's more reliable than HBOMax.

I found out about it looking for Vertigo. I wanted to get a better quality clip of the sequoia forest scene than was on YouTube. This was for a powerpoint I made about the redwoods for school. The sequoias are currently being threatened by wildfire so it seemed like a topical and interesting subject to use to teach a grammar point. Trees have been on my mind lately.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Twin Peaks included in the package. This was on Sunday so it all felt very cosmic when I watched David Lynch's weather report for that day and he chose as his word for the day . . . "Tree".

A day earlier, I'd received a package of my clothes from my mother and she'd unexpectedly included a cool Twin Peaks key chain and a David Lynch Christmas ornament. I can see which way the stars are aligning.

Come On, Feet

This is for a poster I put up around the school last week. I decided to host movie screenings after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays to increase student exposure to spoken English. Well, that's a respectable reason, but of course I mainly just want to share movies I love. This afternoon was the first session and, as I'd predicted, almost all the students who showed up were girls from the art club. Partly it's because they know me but it's also because art club is on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while most of the other clubs are also on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So for junior high school girls in an art club, what movie did I choose to show? Labyrinth. I feel in my bones, no other choice could likely be as perfect for the audience, especially considering most of the time they're compulsively drawing weird fantasy. I also felt no small pleasure knowing I was going to be introducing them to David Bowie. Maybe he can't hold a candle to BTS for many of them but I have to believe he had some effect.

They all watched silently except one girl who fidgeted the whole time. But even she didn't make too much noise. I love Japanese movie watching habits.

I only have an hour so I had to split the film in two parts. I think I pretty wisely cut it just before the scene with the headless creatures, clearly the weakest scene in the movie. When we resume next week (this Thursday is a holiday), I figure they'll stick with the film past the scene if they waited a whole week to see part two.

They said they liked it far and seemed like they meant it. I hope they're not just being kind to me but, hell, it means a lot that they showed up.

Safe and Gentle Nightmare Beasts

I remember the idea of Disney's Gargoyles always appealed to me when I was a kid. But I always only saw scattered episodes which I found to be unsatisfying. I always thought, "I must be seeing the off-weeks, I must be missing the really good episodes." The theme was cool, as were the designs and concept, and who could fault Keith David's performance as Goliath? I finally checked out the first couple episodes yesterday, 27 years later, and I realised they were probably all off-episodes. The show just simply isn't that good.

Maybe it's inevitable. A Disney animated afternoon series about mediaeval creatures of the night is almost bound to have some tonal disconnect. The first episode, set in tenth century Scotland, seems like it wants to be in the world of Macbeth but with everyone swinging their swords around and not hitting anyone the only tragedy is how nerfed it all is.

The writers, Michael Reaves and Eric Luke, make a decent stab at giving the show some complex drama in the first story arc. Goliath and the other Gargoyles must protect a castle and its humans even though many of the humans despise them. Motivations are a little too vague, though. Why do the Gargoyles have to protect the castle and the humans? I think the humans protect the Gargoyle rookery while the Gargoyles are turned to stone during the day but this isn't actually stated. The Gargoyles are disappointingly weak. They seem to have super strength but they're as vulnerable to edged weapons as humans and their wings only let them glide, not truly fly. It's a wonder they managed to live as long as they did. When the time jumps to modern day, they're fortunate to encounter only enemies whose aim is worse than stormtroopers.

Goliath is always worried about civilian casualties and playing nice. It's all pretty weak. Still, the theme song is cool and the animation isn't bad.

Gargoyles is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1475

The clever moon collects a score of maps.
Required lessons bloom to plastic cans.
The sugar tree produces gooey saps.
The music's made of iron pots and pans.
Comedic eggs were walking well ahead.
The comet dart accounts for seven hues.
Avoid the near and far inviting bed.
The elder scene reserves the younger blues.
In recent files ribbon clutched the cord.
Refurbished hats adorn the sacred wall.
For twenty points you took the magic sword.
An extra eye would buy a crystal ball.
The tiny ribbons last beyond the mind.
The precious things forgot we yet may find.

A True Stranger

Sometimes a killer slips in from the darkness. There's no apparent reason but somehow it feels all too credible as in 1979's When a Stranger Calls. The film's lauded opening twenty minutes show great instincts for editing that continue throughout the rest of the film. Performances by Carol Kane and Tony Beckley make the film genuinely intriguing.

Kane plays Jill, the famous babysitter upset by sinister phone calls. She tries to study in that big dark house with gigantic windows while the phone periodically pierces the silence.

Colleeen Dewhurst also appears in the film as another woman menaced by the same killer and Dewhurst may in fact be a better actress than Kane. But Kane's peculiarity and beauty--above all her big, dark, Victorian doll eyes and her excellent horror show screams draw the viewer into her emotional state.

We don't actually see the killer until well after those twenty minutes, seven years later, when he's escaped from an asylum. Curt Duncan was played by Tony Beckley when he was terminally ill--he died six months after the film's release. I suspect his physical condition contributed a lot to his performance. You might remember Beckley from The Italian Job or from the 1976 Doctor Who serial The Seeds of Doom. He always gave a good performance but there's an extra rawness about him in When a Stranger Calls.

A scene where he contemplates his naked reflection in a shelter bathroom is pretty brilliant. You can see in his face how he struggles to process the things he's done. We learn so little about him and that works brilliantly here. The viewer compulsively fills in blanks for the undeniable reality of his emotional state.

It's also nice to see images from an era when even homeless people had sport coats.

When a Stranger Calls is available on Amazon Prime. The picture is really good but the sound is kind of muffled for some reason.

Only Episodes with the Frozen Cat

I watched three more episodes of Only Murders in the Building, a series I'm finding to be a real mixed bag. Sometimes it's sweet and genuinely funny, other times too soft and formulaic.

When I say formulaic, I don't mean the plots are formulaic, though in some cases they are. The subplot about Steve Martin's character flirting with a bassoonist neighbour seems designed to steer people away from shipping him and Selena Gomez's character. Though I suspect the bassoonist will end up being the murderer.

The formula I'm talking about is the damned disease of politics that's gotten all over everything. So much of the banter between the three leads feels like a carefully balanced concoction. If Gomez makes a crack about old age, Martin or Short has to laugh to confirm it's okay. If Martin or Short makes a crack about millennials, it has to be attached the old men doing something foolish.

The third episode, though, got several genuine laughs out of me. It was written by Ben Smith whose credits on imdb are all things I've never head of. But he's responsible for the scene where Steve Martin and Selena Gomez interview a suspect who has a frozen cat in his freezer. Martin musters his considerable talent for physical comedy trying to dig an ice pack out of that freezer when the suspect accidentally cracks his head.

Later, Martin remembers he has the poor cat's leg in his pocket while talking to Martin Short. A few more episodes like this and I'd be happy to keep watching this show.

The Spike Show

There's so much going on in season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but, no matter what's happening, I'm mostly waiting for Spike to return to the screen. I do kind of like how the Big Bad in this season is Glory, basically Buffy's Buffy. And I hate Dawn less than I used to and Willow and Tara are nice when they're not being too precious. Last night I watched "Listening to Fear", in which Buffy's mother needs brain surgery and there's effective drama in how her tumour causes her to say strange and cruel things to her daughters, especially in how it's mixed up with Dawn's supernatural status. But the climax of the episode depends on Spike randomly showing up so he can first repulse us by stealing photos of Buffy before endearingly tossing her a knife in the fight scene.

It all really starts a few episodes earlier with "Fool for Love", an episode that builds a bedrock of sympathy for Spike. Revealing him to have been a pathetic, lovesick poet in his human life, the episode has a pretty brilliant recurrence of a line of rejection as two women tell Spike, "You're beneath me." In one case it seems outright, petty cruelty, but in the second case it seems completely justified. Which is a nice way of giving the viewer some complicated feelings.

After this episode, the writers seem to be trying to figure out what it means for a man without a soul to be in love. In that light, it makes sense he sneaks into Buffy's house to sniff her sweater. It feels a little dopey nonetheless after how cool Spike has been built up to be. But it does add fuel to the fire. Even though I know where it's all going, I still feel some of the excitement of wondering where this can all end up.

Twitter Sonnet #1474

The missing tea was found beneath the foot.
The open case was shut before a can.
The kettle popped the beaker hot with soot.
And so the public house of bitter man.
A vision froze before the blinking cast.
A creepy heart was waiting years from then.
He nailed another coin abaft the mast.
And so the private ship of restless men.
Again the poisoned peach invites the doll.
The drifting dream's as slow as living souls.
For ev'ry heart's a crowded picture hall.
And ev'ry space is black with hidden holes.
Selection shrank in banquet town to cake.
A talking moth described an ancient wake.

Frogs and Flowers

I was walking with a favourite student yesterday when she ran across one of the little canals in the neighbourhood and picked this higanbana for me. "But isn't it dangerous?" I asked in Japanese. "Poisonous," she said in English and I was just so happy she knew the word "poisonous".

Higanbana blooms in autumn and it's one of the many signs of the incoming season. The rice is getting tall, too.

This year, the rice fields seem to be overflowing with frogs.

I'm also seeing a lot of butterflies or moths lately, different from the ones I see in spring.

And this is a turtle and two ducks who aren't speaking to each other.

The Boot Business is Personal

1954's Hobson's Choice plays like an allegory of battling economic ideologies that goes well off the rails to make sense as such. The story is of a Falstaffian patriarch played by Charles Laughton who reigns over a bootshop peopled by his three daughters and two meek bootmakers who toil in the basement. He plans to marry off two of his daughters but finds the business sense of his eldest too useful to lose. He's therefore scandalised when she decides to marry one of those meek, but extraordinarily skilled, bootmakers in this very funny David Lean comedy.

Brenda De Banzie plays that daughter, Maggie, whom Laughton's Hobson delights in calling "past the marrying age". He's set up as such a ridiculous tyrant, spending most of his time sleeping or at the pub, that his troubles in the film are all the funnier because he can't see how richly he deserves them.

The bootmaker is played by John Mills as a thoroughly ignorant peon, toiling under the floorboards without a thought of bettering himself until Maggie decides to marry him as an apparently entirely business arrangement. She knows how skilled he is and how she can use him to make a new happy household. She does call it love.

The movie is consistently funny and sweet as the machinations of Hobson's daughters and his own intemperance force him to make further and further concessions. His alcoholism gives him some added trouble in a couple hilarious and fascinating scenes where he starts hallucinating.

I particularly liked this giant rat, tiny squeaks from which we hear before we can see the creature.

Hobson's Choice is available on The Criterion Channel.

From Ice Cream to Revolution

Edited together with the story about Thomas Edison's electric car for the home video release of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is an episode where Indy goes to Mexico and falls in with Pancho Villa. Indy goes from being a soda jerk in a cosy relationship with a pretty redhead to learning some of the hardships of warfare with a new Belgian companion. Along with the constant appearances by famous historical figures, the complete reshuffling of the deck every episode really undercuts the tension. Otherwise, though, this is a really good episode.

It turns out Pancho Villa is unknowingly working with an Egyptian whom Indy remembers from an earlier episode, both for having murdered an acquaintance and for lifting a valuable artefact. This episode feels more like a proper Indiana Jones story than any other.

And it works as a story about him as a younger man. We see him learn lessons about killing and fighting to survive. I wish he'd known better than to wear a black coat with a brown hat, though.

The climax of the episode even sees him getting another impromptu lesson in using a whip in a fight. I didn't mind Sean Patrick Flannery so much in this episode but I still wish it could have been River Phoenix instead. You could look at River Phoenix and imagine him growing up to be Harrison Ford. I can't see that at all in Sean Patrick Flannery. He has a completely different kind of face and voice.

George Lucas came up with the story for this episode and executive produced without directing or writing. Which may really be the best role for him, most of the time. Whatever his own faults, I think he was good at steering other people away from theirs.

Twitter Sonnet #1473

The spinning disk accepts a novel flame.
The scarpered cattle caved the wakeful eye.
A winning whist exempts a naval game.
A harper battle saved the baker's pie.
Renewal lifts the light from street to house.
Restraining cups compete with pushy tea.
Amoral shifts are tight for NEET and louse.
Disdaining pups repeat a hush and plea.
Where rotten nuts collude with spoiled dates,
Where ugly wigs conceal the screaming skulls.
Forgotten ruts preclude the royal fates.
So soggy figs congeal in steaming bowls.
To cut a pizza slice the wolves would run.
To gut a piece of ice they'd hold the sun.