Everyday is Like Wednesday

I finished watching the fourth episode of Wednesday, which means I've finished watching all the episodes directed by Tim Burton. Mostly I enjoyed it, although obligatory wokeness did creep in and it was sad hearing Wednesday deliver such popular sexist terms as "mansplaining" and "male gaze". But at some point, someone decided all Goths should be woke.

I guess many people cherish the summer camp sequence in the second Barry Sonnenfeld Addams Family movie, when Wednesday, in Native American cosplay, launches a raid on the kids dressed as pilgrims. There's a divide between those of us who enjoy it as a slightly absurd pretext for Wednesday's bloodlust, and those of us who think the politics are the point.

The pilgrims are certainly taken through the wringer in the new series. I wonder how the original pilgrims would have felt after suffering religious persecution, harsh months at sea, and winters of starvation, they'd have their reputations consistently demolished for decades starting in the late 20th century. There were conflicts between the English and Dutch settlers and the Native Americans, generally more complicated than is usually talked about. Certainly not as bad as what the Spanish did. It's certainly not fair to say they committed genocide. Lumping them in with the Salem witch trials that occurred decades later is also a bit lazy, though really not so different from the politics Tim Burton inserted into Sleepy Hollow. Where are the revisionist fantasies of English Protestants being imprisoned and massacred by Anglicans?

The Addams Family, with its difficult logical balance between deadpan morbid humour and its characters' genuine desire to do good, provides fertile ground for propaganda, I guess.

Anyway, Jenna Ortega continues to be a delight. The dance sequence in the fourth episode is being talked about so much I couldn't avoid hearing about it. And it was worth the hype as Ortega is pretty sweet and sexy dancing to "Goo Goo Muck".

I feel like the cinematography improves after episode two. And I like the teen drama story centred on the girls. The Addams Family humour translates well to Wednesday being the odd girl whose humour manages to be just out of step with everyone else. In this incarnation, the contrasting "normal" people are more complex, which makes Wednesday's attitude more satisfying. I thought it was a great idea to have Wednesday lose the fencing contest in the first episode, which ups the dramatic value of her being excellent at most things most of the time. By the fourth episode, I felt like we needed to see her caught off guard a few more times.

Anyway, I guess I give the show a B- so far. It's available on Netflix.

Twitter Sonnet #1649

The longer day extends beyond itself.
Revolting bays deny the carrack's keel.
Redeemed, his ancient power moved the elf.
A rugged ground can smooth the roughest heel.
A crooked arm concealed a ball of rice.
The sweetened beans embrace the roasted cake.
A ticking clock was cold, bereft of spice.
A precious wine predicts the lot'll bake.
The sodden cotton clogged the sunken eyes.
A boarded corpse retained a spoiled saint.
Erasure robbed the lead of vicious lies.
The savage sky deployed a rain of paint.
Reluctant stomps decide the groovy odds.
A clock creates the sloppy rhythm gods.

The Day is a Girl

Happy Wednesday, everyone, or to everyone east of Belarus. I guess this is a good time to talk about Wednesday, the new Netflix Addams Family spin-off. I finally got around to watching just the first episode and mostly enjoyed it.

It's funny that it's directed by Tim Burton, whom many people mistakenly believed directed the two films from the early '90s. It seems to be his first successful project in years, too. Danny Elfman's new music is great, referencing the style of the classic Addams Family theme while being something new and his own.

Most of the casting is great. Jenna Ortega, in particular, is great, finding shades of expression in a character famous for only occasionally smiling.

I seem to recall a lot of people getting called racist or something for saying Luis Guzman is miscast. Well, whatever it is, you'll have to call me that, too, because he's no Gomez Addams in my book. I'm not wild about Catherine Zeta-Jones, either. Neither of them have a sense of depth to their wit, neither seems morbid. And they have no chemistry.

But so far they're not around a lot. I like the look of the Nevermore Academy which Wednesday is forced to attend and her colourful werewolf roommate is thankfully a little more than just a one note foil.

The show was clearly designed for girls and Wednesday, the point of view character, is given some suitable suitor selection, so far mainly between a mild mannered coffee shop employee and a tortured poet. I like that the show doesn't make everything easy for Wednesday, too, and the thing that ultimately keeps her from trying to escape Nevermore seems to be the challenges it presents to her.

There are a few hints of ironclad woke requirements that Netflix seems to impose on shows occasionally but so far nothing as silly as Rose beating up thugs in an alley on Sandman or any of the bullshit on the live action Cowboy Bebop. At least Wednesday is established as someone who trained in deadly arts.

Wednesday is available on Netflix.

A New Old Hollow

The beautiful shots composed for the opening credits alone would be reason enough to watch 1999's Sleepy Hollow but there are more reasons than that. It's not my favourite adaptation of Washington Irving's famous story but it's so fundamentally different that it doesn't seem right to call it an adaptation at all, more like a wildly divergent pastiche. Taken on its own merits, it's a prime example of Tim Burton in the best era of his career; its art direction, set design, costumes, and cinematography are gorgeous and perfectly suit the story; and it has one of Danny Elfman's best scores. It's also a good action film and sits beside Aliens as a great blend of action and horror.

One of the biggest differences between the film and the story is in Ichabod Crane himself. Unlike the odd, physically unattractive man Crane is described as being in Irving's story, this fellow is Johnny Depp when that name belonged to a beautiful man whose mannerisms onscreen evoked vulnerability and sensitivity. This Crane is a proto-forensics pathologist, there to solve murders with brilliantly progressive scientific method and philosophy, his abundance of gifts and accomplishments tempered just enough by a natural cowardice that of course only makes him more charming. Crane in Irving's story is unusual but not extraordinary--he's a school teacher from a different part of the country, from a community with different roots than the provincial Dutch inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow, these differences proving crucial to the events of the story. And instead of being motived by duty and altruism, the Crane of the short story is driven by greed.

I've always felt Irving based Crane on Falstaff, particularly on Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where he had similar thirsts for women and wealth. But, of course, the itinerant schoolmaster can hardly be blamed for wanting a stable home instead of being forced to impose on the hospitality of his pupils' parents. Is this a motive people are no longer able to identify with or is it too close to home?

Burton shifts all the greed over to a conspiracy among the inhabitants of the town, an impressive collection of actors that includes Michael Gambon as Baltus, Jeffrey Jones, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gough, and Ian McDiarmid.

And Christina Ricci plays Katrina, now a witch to help make her the thematic counterbalance to Crane's devotion to reason. Depp and Ricci look terrific together, especially in those costumes. Ricci's style of performance is appropriately more ethereal than Depp's, her thoughts not easy to read on her face while his seems to communicate everything.

The film could have done without some of the plot obstacles placed between them. I like the boy (Marc Pickering) who becomes Crane's assistant but I would've really liked to have seen Ichabod and Katrina spend more time working together. But maybe her absence makes the viewer's heart grow fonder. In any case, the pacing works really well and the Headless Horseman is a really menacing figure, the movie remains a more than worthy Halloween watch.